People do all sorts of strange and sometimes dangerous things on their Hen’s or Buck’s nights. What was strange about this particular Hen’s Night I attended in Nuuk, is that it didn’t even occur to me that we were doing anything dangerous or strange. It was just one of those bizarrely normal experiences that happen in Greenland.
I was invited to a Hen’s Night with around ten others. The first event of the afternoon was, in retrospect, the one that was a bit questionable. We gathered at the shooting range, a patch of bare ground on the edge of town, looking out to sea. It’s a scrappy bit of land backing onto an old rubbish dump and the outlet from the seafood processing plant. On the walk up to the single wooden shack that is the rifle club, one passes scattered bits of old furniture, shipping containers, rusted machinery. The rifle club itself is quite a pleasant little wooden building with gun racks and lockers you can hire to store your weapon, and a seating area by the bar, which was our first stop. As the champagne bottle popped, we were introduced to the planned event – clay pigeon shooting – and listened with interest to our training, as we sipped on one pleasant glass of bubbly, and then another. One of the key rules to remember was that, as we would be shooting seaward, we should lower our weapons if we saw any passing boats. That seemed a sensible rule. As it happens, the shooting range is precisely between the marina and the entrance to Nuuk fjord, so there are regularly boats motoring past. It’s arguably not the best location for a shooting range.
This was my first time shooting clay pigeons and, I have to say, it was fantastic! I felt exhilarated with enthusiasm (or was it something else) as I launched myself into the fray. I wasn’t the only one. Getting somewhat too enthusiastic, one of the guests, watching the clay pigeon fly up and up, suddenly turned with her weapon, tracking it overhead. The rest of us, clustered in a now terrified group behind her, squealed with horror and delight as we all ducked and ran to avoid meeting the same fate as the clay pigeon. Ah, but no harm done, and we all giggled and carried on with the next round.
Later, heading home in the long evening light, soaking up the sheer pleasure of an alcohol-assisted sense of delight with the world, I wondered whether maybe drinking champagne before shooting was perhaps not the wisest plan. It was just a fleeting thought.
