Greenland blog 18: Happy in Hamborgerland

Cruising through Hamborgerland, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I soon realised that the next leg of my trip could easily qualify as one of the world’s greatest cruises. The route passes through a sheltered area between offshore islands and the Greenland mainland, Hamborgerland. The retention of a European rather than Greenlandic placename is unusual: most Greenlandic towns have replaced the old Danish names, so that Godthåb is now Nuuk, Søndre Strømfjord is known as Kangerlussuaq, and Holsteinborg has been renamed Sisimiut.

Hamborgerland, however unmodern in name, is timeless in rugged yet peaceful beauty. It was my first encounter with glaciers, tumbling like frosting through the bundt peaks rising up on either side of us. Breakfast over, tourists tumbled onto the decks to enjoy the spectacle - which inevitably means the frantic urge to preserve the moment in photographs. (I of course was doing more of this than anyone, although it was my raison d’etre.) An Italian couple asked me to take their portrait against the backdrop of peaks. I was, as always, happy to oblige, and then the man offered to take a photo of me. (This is not the photo I’m using on my contest entry page http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166, which is a self-portrait, but another image slipped in amongst my 35mm contact sheets.) I wondered what other tourists might make of the scenery. As the sun rose higher it became increasingly warm, and people took over every available sun lounger. I really couldn’t get over the idea of Italians travelling to the Arctic Circle, to sit and catch the rays as if at a beach on the Venetian Lagoon.

30 August 2008 10:04 recalled 18 January 2011

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Greenland blog 15: Dawn on deck

Arctic Umiaq Line ferry heading north, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

After four days in Nuuk I bid my landlady a fond farewell and bundled into a taxi to catch the night ferry north. Actually it was the only ferry going north that week, so if you’re planning to get round Greenland’s west coast by sea, careful planning is in order. 

I had amassed a pretty hefty amount of luggage by this time. Sizing up the angle of the gangplank, I began to regret that in addition to my seriously unoutdoorsy large wheelie luggage and daypack (holding seven cameras, fifty rolls of film, battery charger, useless Danish primer, and all the extra thermal clothes I hadn’t needed) I was now cutting my wrist (enough to draw blood, as I discovered later) with several bags of shopping. I had spent the previous evening cruising one of Nuuk’s two large supermarkets, stocking up on food that required no cooking and didn’t necessitate taking out a bank loan. I was now toting tinned fish, heavy thin sliced rye bread, a little pricey fruit, two one-litre cartons of yogurt, a packet of the yummy mushroom spread I’d developed a taste for at my landlady’s, salami, and boxes of vacuum packed chocolate milk and orange juice. Oh, and the bottle of duty free white wine, and some caribou lasagne I’d gotten from the deli. No point in missing the local delicacies. 

Some kind soul from the ship’s crew negotiated my wheelie luggage down a flight of stairs to the couchettes. At last, I was settled, with another four days of not needing to move my luggage, and not needing to spend precious docking time shopping. Yes, I was planning on staying on board for the journey to the furthest northern point of the route, and after a four hour stop, returning to the ship as it steamed (or rather dieseled) to its furthest point south. And why the food? I was determined to save my kroner, and not knowing how exorbitant the prices might be at the on-board cafeteria (quite reasonable by Greenlandic standards, as it turns out), I was taking no chances. 

And so to couchette. The cheapest option with AUL (Arctic Umiaq Line, the ferry company) is an eight-berth single sex room, though a curtain separates the space into two sections with two sets of bunks each. I was grateful to be very close to the centre of the ship, to minimise movement, and not to be assigned a bed to the extreme fore, which was right by a fruit machine. I spread my sleeping bag, and in the womblike warmth and darkness was soon asleep.

And so it was that I awoke at 5 am, way too hot. Quite frankly this was not what I had been prepared for in Greenland. I pulled on a fleece over t-shirt and quick dry trousers, and went exploring on deck. After a couple of minutes this outift was not really sufficient to keep out the stiff breeze generated by our steady progress. 

By then, I had made a discovery that made me wonder if I was still dreaming. In the surreal light of dawn, earlier than ever as we headed towards the Arctic circle, the bright orange deck sported a series of navy blue sun loungers. 

30 August 2008 05:31 recalled 19 January 2011

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Greenland blog 11: a fascination with cemeteries

Moravian cemetery, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

During my time in Greenland, I became fascinated, rather unexpectedly, with cemeteries. For an island with almost no trees, there was a surprising preference for wooden crosses rather than stone (which Greenland is full of) to mark the graves. Many of the crosses were very old, and in any case the wood was certainly imported. And there is always the fascination of the stories contained in cemeteries: even without being able to read, it was interesting to see the mix of Danish and Greenlandic inscriptions, or no inscriptions at all (not as much of a priority in a place where everyone knows everyone). Also the preponderance of Danish rather than Greenlandic names: it is very common for ethnic Greenlanders to have Danish rather than Greenlandic first names, and often surnames. I do not know whether this custom began with the missionaries in earlier centuries, or whether it is more to do with trying to fit in to a society where many of the top jobs were being held by expat Danes - I am just speculating here.

Whatever the names of the people buried within the wooden fences that enclosed the cemeteries, I enjoyed the quiet atmosphere there, both in the one squeezed between industrial warehouses and across from the internet cafe in the centre of Nuuk, or the one by the Moravian church overlooking yet another of Nuuk’s jagged sunset-facing bays.

27 August 2008 20:27 recalled 15 January 2011

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Greenland blog 02: How my art took me to Greenland, and a Danish tongue twister

Parting clouds, west coast of Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I mentioned yesterday about the grant that allowed me to travel to Greenland, generously provided by the University of Wales, on condition that I was engaged in some sort of creative project (drama, cinema, creative writing, or in this case, fine art) with a further outcome to enhance my educational experience. I was at the time pursuing a BA at the Aberystwyth University School of Art, having hurried straight into the second year and begun experimenting with alternative photographic processes. This means that although I started out making some digital work, my main focus was in the darkroom, first doing traditional prints, and gradually moving into different techniques and chemical processes until it became photography, Jim, but not as we know it. By the end of the year I was cheerfully pouring bleach over multiple-exposure prints then wailing when I discovered that Sigmar Polke had already done exactly the same thing in 1971. To cap it all I’d been awarded a massive travel scholarship, which made for an interesting summer. After I finished marking a million media studies A level papers I had flown straight into preparations: daily study of Danish, in hopes of being able to speak Greenland’s colonial language, if not Greenlandic itself, which is difficult to find recordings for the essential comic attempts at mimicry. Now Danish can be difficult for the English speaker because of its range of guttural sounds produced at the back of the palette. Though Danish is reasonably similar to English in terms of word order, linguistic roots, etc., and I’d spent hours making vocabulary flashcards in my favourite cafe, I found that when confronted with actual Greenlanders speaking their colonial tongue I had my usual reaction - I froze (metaphorically, as it was still summer) and forgot everything I’d ever learned. There was one exception - I was able to amuse people by reciting the never-to-be-forgotten tongue twister taught to me years ago in Toronto by a Danish-Canadian friend. It employed a string of the guttural sounds, and provided guaranteed hilarity, by dint of my pronunciation: rød grød med flød på - which is red pudding with cream, as I remember.

Somehow I have diverged onto Danish tongue twisters and puddings, which throws up the whole question of Greenland’s relationship to Denmark. But more political thinking would leave us both up in the air, ignoring the spectacular views unfolding out the window of the descending plane. I can assure you unreservedly that at the time I took the photograph shown here, I was as fully present as I have ever been in my life, allowing for the fact that a certain detachment is inevitable when taking photographs at a furious rate. By the time we landed I was convinced that if I never took another picture over the next three weeks, I would still have enough material for an exhibition. The land was chiseled out of the green-blue sea, its elaphantine wrinkles washed with rusty red. And here I must say something about the colours I experienced, and have passed on to you. As with all my digital photos from this trip, I have made no alterations to saturation, contrast, density, etc., avoiding the current fashion in advertising and on Flickr for playing with these mechanics in Photoshop, producing supersaturated landscapes that anyone who has been to the place will recognise as overhyped, and setting up anyone who has not been for disappointment. Suffice it to say that with my photographs, as far as colour goes, what you see is what you get. Unless of course I have rendered the whole scene blue, by printing it as a cyanotype...

26 August 2008 09:32 (Greenlandic time) recalled 6 January 2011

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