August 26 Sisimiut, Greenland

 

Sisimiut in the Davis Strait - on the left is Baffin Island, on the right is the white blanket of Greenland's huge icecap

Our wake-up call this first morning on board was a gentle Inuit poem quietly read by our expedition leader Ashley Perrin. Each morning was to bring something unexpected and different – Ashley is a creative leader. This morning it was a toasty 7C – we were 54 km north of the Arctic Circle so it is relatively warm!  We were entering the port of Sisimiut, Greenland’s second largest town. The Saqqaq Inuit arrived here 4,500 years ago from Canada and lived around here for approximately 2,000 years, after which they mysteriously disappeared from the area. Today, the majority of the population of Sisimiut are descendants of the Thule people who arrived around the 1200s after the Dorsets - it is an interesting part of the world with a long migratory history, little of which we southeners know. 

And so the voyage really begins!  It promises to be an exciting expedition so I invite you to share some of it with me. Before I launch into this particular day, I want to tell you just a little about the Expedition we have joined. We will be traversing the entire Northwest Passage east to west – Greenland to Alaska, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This passage was not successfully navigated until the C20th when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, successfully navigated through the ice, islands  and chokes by boat on a voyage that lasted from 1903 to 1906 (he would later beat Scott to the South Pole – he was a mighty explorer).  The Passage has a grim history which would unfold as we travelled in the wake of some devastating attempts which were all mounted to establish a shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific – colonisation and trade. Economic gain!

The most well-known/documented attempt is Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. His was a failed exploration that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the High Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data. Those two ships had recently undertaken a successful four-year mission to Antarctica, charting much of that continent's coastline under the leadership of Captain James Ross, September 1839 to September 1843.  Franklin was never to be seen again and the many searches mounted to trace him and his lost ships and men gobbled up many millions of British pounds and hundreds of men's lives – an obscene extravagance!

Approaching Sisimiut

Sisimiut port

Meanwhile …. we were just landing at Sisimiut to explore. It was windy and wet so we were glad ofthe buses that ferried us around.  A typical Greenland village, colourful and rocky with a sled dog ‘settlement’  on the outskirts – that seems a mandatory visit on the tourist list.  The dogs are amazing and while the local people use skidoos mostly the dogs and sledges can go places the vehicle can’t

Colourful houses spilling down the hill to the shore

The houses are so colourful. Once upon a time the colours signified what the building was - police, school, hospital, mechanics etc And I can understand the logic of that but these days it seems not to apply. When we were in Newfoundland the houses and boats of the fishermen were painted in the same colour. Delightful colour coding. 

Part of the sled dog camp

On the right a group of hikers had descended out of the mountains - a hardy bunch,

Back on board the afternoon was taken up with mandatory briefings – zodiac safety, AECO environmental issues, and biosecurity which had us vacuuming all our gear to remove any foreign nasties so we could disembark on vulnerable territory.  Fortunately there is always cocktail hour to cheer us and the precaps and recaps to put us in the mood.  Unlike many ‘cruises’ there is no onboard entertainment like shows etc after dinner – we make our own fun, or there are somethings movies or ….. we are usually too tired to do anything!