Greenland

Greenland has been a revelation for me. It was more of an afterthought when picking this cruise as we were more keen on seeing the "true" Arctic of Svalbard, but it is an incredible place, and the Inuit who are native here are equally fascinating.

To give you a brief introduction to Greenland, it's the largest island in the world, yet it has the least population density of anywhere in the world. If you look at a map of Greenland, you just see a white blob with a bit of detail around the edge. What you probably don't realise on a cursory glance is that it's not just a map-maker leaving out small details, it is that the vast majority (81%) of Greenland is covered in a massive ice cap. After Antarctica, it is the second (or third if you count the two Antarctic ice sheets separately) largest ice sheet in the world. One statistic is that if the whole Greenlandic Ice Cap melted, the sea level would rise 7 metres globally.

Nuuk is the capital of Greenland, and that is where we were today. Nuuk has approximately 15,000 inhabitants (just about a quarter to a fifth of Greenland's total population), and also boasts a grand total of two traffic lights, the only university in Greenland, and is the only town in Greenland with suburbs. No two towns in Greenland are connected by roads, so the only transportation options are aeroplane, helicopter and ship.

Greenland still has very close ties with Denmark, only relatively recently having been granted self-rule, and there are significant subsidies given by the Danish government to the Inuit people. As a hang-over from the Danish rule days, Denmark decided at the time to try and house all of the Inuit people together in order to make it easier to deal with them. As a result, in Qaqortoq where we stopped yesterday there were relatively uninteresting rows of what in effect are council flats. In Nuuk today we saw some absolutely soul-destroying almost Soviet-style housing blocks. There were 10 of them, labeled "Blok 1, Blok 2" etc. next to each other, then the most famous Blok P which was a short way away. In Blok P (which I took a photo of - see Facebook or Flickr when I'm back and able to upload them there), one percent of the entire population of Greenland is housed.

As with so many indigenous peoples, alcohol abuse has proved to be a significant problem, leading to a knock-on effect on the children when their father may spend all the money for food on alcohol. There are rehabilitation programmes, but they seem to be insufficient. That said, the problem is by no means universal, and we had a very interesting guide today around the old city of Nuuk who told us about the culture and the traditions and the modern way of life.

His father became a teacher and went to study in Denmark, but insisted that he learn the traditional way of life - hunting seal without any modern aids, and the responsibility and tradition that went with it. If two birds were caught, one would go to the elders of the family, the other to the hunter. He emphasised that he did not go to hunt seal, he went to take seal. If he was not meant to get a seal that day, he would not. He hunts seal because he loves the meat - he says it's the best meat in the world. He doesn't hunt any more than he needs - he says he takes three, maybe four seal a year, and sometimes he will go along with others and hunt whale too, but it is not for commercial exploitation, and it is all very much sustainable.

It's easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of everyday life that there is still a world out there where modern life hasn't taken over and tradition still continues, and in Greenland it very much felt like being in a place where two worlds had collided. On the one hand there is a culture rich in history and tradition, but on the other hand, they have been pulled into some of the modern life. They now hunt seal with rifles, drive "Inuit Rockets" (small boats with oversized engines) and live in appartment blocks, but every Inuit will own a beautifully hand crafted National Costume which they will wear on very special occasions, and they still speak Greenlandic.

Tomorrow we have another stop in Greenland at Maniitsoq briefly, then the next day we disembark in Kangerlussuaq before I fly to Copenhagen for a night, then on to Prague for a Radiohead gig (then by train via Berlin to Poznan in Poland) for a second gig, then back to London.

Jan Mayen Island, Iceland, and a taste of Greenland

I've once again been a bit lax in updating the blog, but better late than never. We did manage to land at Jan Mayen Island despite some fairly heavy winds making the Zodiac landing a bit hairy...

Jan Mayen is set up as a meteorological station, but it is run by the Norwegian military. We were greeted by the base commander and given a little tour of the facility. It's actually fairly luxurious considering it's in the middle of nowhere, and it seems that it may still be of military significance. Interestingly it was the only part of Norway that was never captured by the Germans during the war.

After Jan Mayen, we had another day at sea and then docked in Akureyri in Iceland. Akureyri is in the North of Iceland, and we had a full day there. One nine hour bus tour later, we had seen Goddafoss - the waterfall of the Gods, Krafla geothermal power station, the sulphurous steam vents, some nice natural hot springs (which we had an hour to bathe in) and some other sights. Iceland is quite an interesting place - contrary to the name there's not much ice, but it's a volcanic island, and still has active parts, allowing them to generate copious amounts of geothermal energy, and resulting in the steam vents around the place. The town itself is fairly small, but has some cute little quirky buildings - corrugated tin nailed on wooden frames and other odd little places.

After Akureyri we sailed along the North coast of Iceland to Vigur Island, a small privately-owned island that houses a farm and a lot of nesting puffins, as well as "Europe's smallest post office". The farmer and his family have a pretty good business sense - somehow they manage to get a large number of tourists every year to visit their little island. They have about 80,000 nesting puffin each year, and they catch 8,000 a year to supply Iceland's restaurants (as puffin is a local delicacy). It was an interesting few hours on the island, but possibly not exactly what we were after from an Arctic cruise.

From Vigur Island we had another day at sea and today arrived in Greenland and spent the day in Skjoldungen Fjord on the East Coast. Today was the first day it really felt like we were in the Arctic. Greenland is covered in a massive ice sheet, and as a result, the glaciers calve off massive icebergs, so on our way in we sailed past some beautiful specimens. Bizarrely, there are a LOT of midges in Greenland, despite the cold weather. We went for a walk on the tundra which was a lot of fun. There are some beautiful little alpine plants there. All of them are fairly low to the ground (due to the thin layer of soil available to grow in and the permafrost layer underneath the topsoil). In the evening we sailed out the southern part of the Fjord and onwards towards our next stop tomorrow at Prins Christian Sound.