*Painting by Minannguaq Zeeb
You know how it goes. You get into a casual conversation with someone you’ve not met before. They say something like,
“Oh, you’re from Australia. My cousin lives in Melbourne. Perhaps you know him?”
Of course you don’t know him. Over four million people live in Melbourne. But there are only 56,000 people in all of Greenland, so here the answer, bizarrely, is often “Yes”. In Greenland, everyone knows everyone.
Shortly before we moved to Greenland, I thought I ought to check in with the only Greenlander that I sort of knew, to start establishing some connections. She was an artist from a remote Greenlandic settlement. I had never met her, but had exchanged a few messages after receiving a rather beautiful painting of hers, pictured above, as a gift – a painting of hunters meeting in the wilderness. I reconnected with her on Facebook and, as a consequence, Facebook offered some suggestions of others I might know and want to connect with.
“Do you know Kim Kielsen?” Facebook asked.
Kim Kielsen is the Premier of Greenland. This was my first indication of what a small world Greenland is.
East Greenland is even more interconnected. Recently my husband sailed to remote Ella Island. As he disembarked on the beach, he recognised the man who approached and introduced himself – a man he had never before met – as the author of a book he had read about the Sirius Patrol, the Danish military presence in northeast Greenland. As they chatted, they established that the man was a close friend of my husband’s aunt and uncle, back in Scotland, who had been running tourist trips to east Greenland for many years. Further afield, in the tiny settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit, an old woman at the harbour struck up a conversation with my husband. Discovering he was a geologist she said, “I know a geologist in Nuuk.” “Is it E?” he replied. It was. And as it turned out, the old woman was her adoptive mother.
Greenland is so interconnected that it becomes difficult to keep a professional distance. In some instances it is almost impossible to avoid conflict of interest. But on any level, it is difficult to keep things suitably separated. A work auditor is my son’s swimming teacher. The radio news editor is a close friend. Kim Kielsen berths his fishing boat on the same pontoon as ours. Imagine what it is like for policemen – one evening arresting someone, the next day standing in the supermarket queue together. This is just normal.
Riding the bus to and from work each day, I have learned to have a good look around before I discuss anything of a personal or professional nature. Or preferably, to just keep my mouth shut.
