It was a lot of meat. I had stopped by the gate leading down to the pier to look at the large plastic bags, about ten of them, filled with dark red meat and pale bones. I assumed someone was returning from their last reindeer hunt of the season. But something didn’t quite look right. …
After my first experiences with the pristine, ancient rocks in Greenland, geological field work in tropical northern Australia was a shock. The rocks were either completely overgrown with thorny vines or weathered to a deep red soil, or both. My first foray into the geology of northern Australia was in October – not the time …
Before moving to Greenland, I did not know that the word ‘winter’ could be made into a verb. I had never ‘winterized’ anything before. Well, actually, I still haven’t. But each year I help out a little when my husband winterizes our boat. Winterizing the boat involves emptying the fuel tank, pumping out the seawater …
There is always an element of slapstick when my son dons his bright orange dry suit. He wasn’t particularly keen on it when we first bought it, but after trying it out at home and discovering that he couldn’t get wet, it was difficult to extract him from the bath where he flapped about like …
The job advertisement all but leapt from the page. It was exactly what I’d been looking for all these years since we left Denmark and – with it – Greenland, where I had been working as a mapping geologist in the summers. The job was managing a research station on a remote island in Disko …
The north side of the Nuuk peninsula, out past the airport, used to be a wild place of rocky hills and valleys sloping down to the fjord, a place where people went to hike, camp, picnic, and to test their weapons at the start of the hunting season. Yes, the latter two activity shared the …
The tumbling, rushing water dives over a rocky ledge and into a dark pool. There is a flash of silver as a fish darts from the shadows to the safety of cover beneath submerged rocks. Under the brilliant blue sky, the clear water beckons, enticing. But the fresh, sharp air hints at its frigid cold. …
I had all but forgotten that I was expecting a new credit card from Australia. So when I finally received it, I looked inquisitively at the postage date on the front of the envelope. It had been posted three and a half months earlier. Where have you been? I wondered. Perhaps it had languished somewhere …
Greenland is the least densely populated country in the world. Even when you subtract the inland ice, which accounts for about 80% of the area of Greenland, it is still the least densely populated country in the world. There are literally thousands of kilometres of coastline where you will not encounter another human being. Even …