The Silent "I"

The Accidental Tourists

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We're generally not the rugged outdoorsy types who enjoy rock-climbing, mountain biking, and other dangerous activities.  To be honest, my idea of "roughing it" is a motel with no room service.  Some of our trips have led to some unexpected adventures, and this story about our trip to Greenland in 2007, is one of my favorite examples.

On our second day in Qaqortoq, Greenland, we got up early to catch a boat to the Norse ruins at Hvalsey. I had been reading Jane Smiley's historical novel, The Greenlanders, which is set during the 14th century and the waning years of the Norse colony in Greenland.  The book follows the fortunes and misfortunes of one family of Norse settlers, and the toll that disease, famine, and climate change take on them over the years. Most of the book takes place in the fjords near where we were staying, and I was curious to see how the modern scene compared to what was described in the book.  It's a terrific book, one that I highly recommend if you are interested in what might have happened to the Viking colonies that settled Greenland for 500 years, then just disappeared. 

We were supposed to meet our boat at the small dock at the bottom of the hill, and when we got there, there was a small cabin-cruiser waiting for us.  We waited to see if a guide would join us, but didn't see anyone, so we just boarded the boat on our own.  There was a thirty-ish Greenlandic woman on-board, a Danish man, and the captain, a handsome young Greenlandic man who looked a little like a weather-beaten Keanu Reeves. 

As we were getting ready to leave, two older men wearing painting overalls came aboard with buckets of paint and tools.  I wondered if they were doing some work at the ruins, or if we were dropping them off en route. No one except the captain spoke English.  The three men had an animated conversation in Danish, as cigarettes dangled from their lips.  I hoped none of the bottles of paint thinner they were carrying would burst into flames, but I tend to worry like that.

I asked Frank, "Are you sure this is the right boat?" just as the captain untied the boat from the dock. 

"I guess so.  It's 8 am, and this is the only boat here."  He showed me the e-mail confirmation of the time and the name of the boat landing.   We figured they would probably let us know if they weren't expecting us.

Captain Keanu invited us into the cabin and graciously offered us coffee.  It was cold and misty outside, so we welcomed the chance to be inside the warm cabin.  The Greenlandic woman stoically sat outside in the back for a while, but as we sped through the fjord, she got cold and came in.  She didn't speak to anyone on the boat the entire time, so I figured she was most definitely not the tour guide.

We were on the boat for about an hour and made a turn up another fjord, this one full of ice chunks and icebergs of varying sizes.  We could hear the ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk of the boat hitting the ice.  This sound scared me during the first boat trip we took through the icy waters of Ilulissat.  By now, I was used to the sound and no longer feared that the ice was ripping the hull of the boat to shreds and that we were going to sink at any moment, like a mini-Titanic with no band.

As we got further into the ice-covered fjord, Frank noticed a town up ahead, so he asked the captain, "When do we get to Hvalsey?"

Captain Keanu looked at him blankly.  "Hvalsey?  This boat goes to Narsaq."

"Narsaq?  Do we go to Hvalsey Church after Narsaq?" Frank replied.

"No.  We never go to Hvalsey.  Only Narsaq.  I normally don't drive such a boat.  I work on the passenger ship," the captain offered.

"When do you go back?" Frank asked.

"July 11.  Next Tuesday," was the reply.  Frank turned beet red and I thought he was going to have a stroke or a coronary right on the spot.  Now I knew why we kept seeing ambulances parked at the docks. I started to worry.  We pulled into the dock and the workers, the Greenlandic woman, and the Danish man got off, along with all the painting supplies.

I decided to pipe up,"So, when will this boat go back to Qaqortoq?"

"I don't know.  You can get off if you want. Maybe the other captain will take you." 

"Who is the other captain?" I asked.

"The other man who was here," he gestured to the seat at the table where the portly Danish man had been sitting.  "Maybe he take you.  Are you sure you won't get off?" 

I said, "No, thanks." There was no way I was getting off that boat without finding someone to take us back to Qaqortoq.  I had a vision of Captain Keanu and the Danish captain each grabbing one of my legs and trying to pull me off the boat while I dug my nails into the starboard side.  At this point, hijacking the boat and ka-chunk-ing it back through the icebergs myself would not have been out of the question.  Frank looked worried and mopped his brow.

Alaska Native Heritage Center: A Walk in the Woods

We had the opportunity to attend a banquet at the Alaska Native Heritage Center while we were in Alaska, as part of Frank's EIPBN Conference.  It is a very special place, with living exhibits of Native life in each of the five cultural groupings that are indigenous to Alaska.  There are actually eleven distinct groups, but the Native Heritage Center has them grouped into five, based on linguistic similarities and geographic location.  Within the five groups, there are many distinct languages and cultures.

At the Center, the main building housing exhibits is situated on a lovely, small lake.  You take a path around the lake to see examples of different types of dwellings used by the five distinct groups of indigenous people represented in Alaska.  I didn't get to see the exhibits, but I did take a walk around the lake to see the dwellings.

I think I went the wrong direction, because I arrived late and went left to go clockwise around the lake.  The rest of the tour groups were going counter-clockwise.  I'm not sure it mattered that much.  The first building I came to was a gorgeous Eyak Log House with a totem pole next to it.  The Eyak people live in the southern part of Alaska.

Wordless Wednesday -- Greenland Window

Illulissat, Greenland, 2007

Wordless Wednesday: Sunbow

Greenland Sunbow.  July 2007.

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Memories of Greenland

We've been back from our trip to Greenland for over a week now, and I've been basking in the after-glow of the memories ever since.  Like most vacations, the trip was both exhausting and rejuvenating at the same time.

When Frank first proposed Greenland as a vacation destination, I said, "Why Greenland?"  The more I thought about it, I thought, "Why not Greenland?" 

I've learned in the dozen years that Frank and I have been together that it's best to just go with the flow.  I've rarely been disappointed.  We've had a few mishaps along the way, like our unschedule trip to Narsaq, but those are blips on the radar compared to the memories that I have of traveling with Frank and Alex that are full of bright moments and love.

On one of our flights the day before, Frank struck up a conversation with a young Danish tour guide.  The young man asked Frank, "Do Americans know there is an interesting country here?"

The answer to that is probably "no."  Most Americans probably think of Alaska when they think of Inuit culture and glacier formations. Until the direct flight to and from Baltimore opened in May, there was no direct way to get to Greenland from the US.  You would have to first fly to Copenhagen in order to get there, so probably only a very determined few made it to Greenland.  If the other Americans on our flight home were any indicator, this may change.  I hope that this blog will contribute to that in some small way, and that Americans will start to think of Greenland as place to see amazing natural wonders and experience a different lifestyle and culture.

The memories that I take away from this trip are as varied and nuanced as the colors of the ice itself.  From the white nights where the sunlight streamed in through thin curtains at 2 am, to the clear blue days watching Alex frolic along a rocky shoreline, to the light shining on the tranquil turquoise waters of the fjords carved over hundreds of thousands of years of slow-moving moutains of ice.  I marveled that Greenland is a seeming contradiction of austere ice and snow, lush green grasses, pink granite mountains, and festively painted houses.  The beauty of these memories is as ephemeral as life itself, but leave an indelible impression on my heart. 

On almost every trip we've taken together in twelve years together, Frank and I have taken photos of each other standing on cliffs, by the ocean, or some other end point of a journey.  In the photos, we stand, with arms outstretched, as if to say "Ta Da!  Here I am, at the end of the earth."  I think we included in our wedding vows that we would follow each other to the ends of the earth and back again, and we have.  These photos are proof positive of that.

Aside from saying, "I've arrived!"  that pose says something else entirely as well.  With arms open and receptive, it's a stance of being ready to embrace the world, in all of its glory and misery, as if to say, "Here we are world, we're ready to receive you!" 

On this trip, we watched Alex frolic along the rocky shoreline in Nuuk, and at one point, I looked down at him and he waved at me.  He spontaneously struck the pose, as if by instinct, then threw his head back and laughed.  After I snapped the picture,  I got a lump in my throat and was reminded of all the wonderful trips we three have taken together, and how much these travels have impacted me and my view of the world at large. 

In that moment, I knew that Alex understood how special it is to have the opportunity to see and experience and embrace all that the world has to offer.   When Alex grows up, I'm not sure that he will remember the long Arctic summer nights or the thunderous roar of the glaciers calving or the taste of reindeer meat.  I hope he takes from this experience a memory of being a small boy in a vast place, of finding joy in releasing a chunk of ice into the sea, and the sense that the world is full of beauty and mystery.

Greenland's natural beauty reminded of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, God's World, about an autumn day:

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
  Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
  Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag
To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
          But never knew I this;
          Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

And you, those stalwart few who have read and lived this journey with me (or used it as a sleep-aid),  I hope that you will find that beauty wherever you are, in gritty urban landscapes of impossibly tall buildings, in rolling grasslands and picturesque villages, or in the shade of a tall tree in your own backyard.  Whatever your corner of the globe, take time to enjoy the natural and man-made beauty that surrounds you, notice the details, learn about the history, and do your part to preserve and protect that which is precious to all. 

Nuuk, The Capital of Cool

After absorbing some amazing scenery and a wonderful historical site, we reached the final destination on our trip to Greenland:  the capital city of Nuuk.  We had only two nights left before we had to return to Kangerlussuaq to catch our flight to Baltimore.

Nuuk is the largest city in Greenland, with a whopping population of about 16,000.  Despite the fact that Greenland is the largest island in the world, the entire population of the country is less than our little suburb of San Francisco at 56,000.   Most of the country is the vast, uninhabitable icy wasteland that we viewed from the helicopter.

We had been in some very small towns for the past eight days, from Qaqortoq (population 3,000) to Qassariarsuq (population 50).  As we were landing, I was surprised to see how big Nuuk looked in comparison.  There were a few factories and commercial buildings, some housing developments with the colorful houses similar to the ones in other parts of Greenland, all spread along the coast. 

Driving to our hotel, we passed row after row of large, utilitarian apartment houses.  All had the same rectangular shape, and they were set in row like dominoes set on their sides.  The architecture look like something airlifted out of Eastern Europe, giant shoeboxes with thousands of people living in them.  They were not well-cared for, and had a gritty, urban appearance.  They were eerily quiet, with no people hanging out around them.  I would have thought some of them were abandoned if they didn't have laundry hanging from the balconies, blowing in the slight breeze.

We arrived at the Hotel Hans Egede, named for the Norwegian minister who rediscovered Greenland in 1721.  Hans went in search of the old Norse colonies, but when he arrived, he found no survivors.  He set up a mission to convert the Inuit people, and even changed the Lord's Prayer to "give us this day our daily harbor seal" so they could better relate to it.  Nuuk has a number of Hans Egede commemorative statues and the hotel, reputedly the best in Nuuk, bears his name.

Our room at the Hotel Hans Egede was surprisingly spacious, and had a large sitting area and a huge plasma-screen TV on a swivel arm hanging on the wall.  The decor was a kind of mid-seventies Scandinavian, with one dark red wall with a swirly abstract painting on it.  Something about it reminded me of Graceland, as though Elvis' decorator had wandered in and told them this would be a fine place for a black leather sofa and gold metal coffee table, because that would be "classy".

Our first night at the hotel, we ate at the Hereford Beefstouw restaurant on the top floor of the hotel. It was a pleasant steakhouse where you are given a little card to check off the type of meat you want, how you want it cooked, and any extras you might want with your steak.  They had a small coloring book with a children's menu inside, so Alex kept busy coloring pictures of girls with purple hair and orange faces while we grazed at the salad bar and  waited for our steaks to cook.

The surprising thing about the restaurant was that it seemed to be full of Americans.  Other than one American Air Force woman we met at Ice Camp Eqi, this was the first time we heard American English being spoken duriing our trip.  There was one long table of Americans having a boisterous conversation about the places they had been, and it sounded like their itinerary had been similar to ours -- Ilulissat, Qaqortoq, Kangerlussuaq.  There was another American family of three in the restaurant, a mom, dad, and teenage daughter.  The snippets of conversation I overheard in the restaurant were all positive reflections of Greenland, and some excitement at having discovered that it is a fascinating place. 

Most of our time in Nuuk was spent in our room with me trying to get the Wifi to work long enough to actually post something to this blog, Alex watching Disney cartoons with Danish subtitles, and Frank working on his laptop to try to figure out how much we'd spent on the trip and what we would have to declare to Customs on our return and downloading his 9,000 pictures.  We all had our priorities and our drugs of choice.The rest of the time, we walked around town and took in the sites, bought souvenirs to take back home, and relaxed.

On our second day in Nuuk, we sought out the Greenland National Museum, which featured some nicely arranged displays of Greenlandic artifacts and art work.  At the back of the museum are the famous Greenland mummies, well-preserved bodies of a 6 month old baby, an older child and several women that were found in a cave in 1972.  The baby, with it's leathery skin and hollowed out eye sockets, gave me the willies.  One of the women seemed to be desperately longing to be released from her glass coffin in the center of the room.  Alex got spooked by the mummies and ran out of the room almost immediately, so I followed him.

We've seen a number of Egyptian mummies, but most of them are wrapped or just show parts of a skeleton.  These reminded me more of the ghostly plaster casts in Pompeii, since their expressions and clothing were well-preserved.  It just seemed wrong to me to have these shells of people encased in glass and on display.

In contrast, after our disturbing trip to the museum, we walked across parking lot to see a giant, red mailbox.  Nuuk is the closest city to the North Pole, and many European children believe that letters to Santa Claus should go to Greenland.  All of those letters wind up here, just outside the Nuuk post office.   There were thousands and thousands of letters inside, addressed to some variation of "Santa Claus" (Kris Kringle, Pere Noel, etc).  Alex, jaded traveler that he is, only rolled his eyes and said, "This is SO not the North Pole.  This is Greenland," and skipped down to the water's edge to find some rocks he could throw into the bay.

We walked a bit further along the coast and came to a nice area with benches and fairly easy access to the water.  Since there were no dangerous cliffs or places he might fall in, we let him explore a bit on his own.  At the water's edge, Alex found some small chunks of ice that had washed ashore at high tide.  The chunks were about the size of a toaster, and were pyramid-shaped, like a small replica of one of the larger icebergs we saw floating in the bay at Ilulissat.  Frank and I were sitting on a bench above the rocky beach, and Alex yelled up that he wanted to show us his iceberg.  He came running up the small embankment towards us, stopping when the ice was too cold to hold in his hands.  He reached us and proudly displayed his mini-iceberg.  He put it down on a concrete bench, and I asked him if he wanted to see how long it would take to melt.

"Oh, no, Mom, " he replied.  "I must send it back to the sea where it belongs."  Without missing a beat, he skipped back down to the waters edge, icy treasure in hand, and flung it into the bay.  Sometimes, I think my son is an eighty-year old man in the body of a six-year old boy with the things that come out of his mouth. 

We sat there on the bench for quite a while, enjoying the beautiful day and seeing our son race around, finding rocks that glistened with quartz in the sun, a long white bird feather, and several more miniature icebergs.  Another family came along, and the boy with them started skipping rocks on the water.  Alex tried to mimic him for a time, and try to get his rocks to skip along the smooth surface of the water.  He didn't quite get the hang of it, so he went back to collecting his treasures to show us.  Even though there was nothing particularly exciting going on here, I think this was one of my favorite memories of Greenland.  It was so peaceful and calm, just sitting and looking out at the space where the sky meets the sea.

At Home with Erik the Red

During our 5 hour layover in Narsarsuaq, Frank arranged for Blue Ice Tours to take on a fast boat to see the Norse ruins across the fjord.  Unlike Hvalsey, these ruins had actually been painstakingly reconstructed recently, and featured a guided tour inside the rebuilt home of Erik the Red and Tjodhilde's Church.  The tiny church was the first church built in North America, by Erik for his wife, Tjodhilde after her conversion to Christinity.  It was the first Christian church built in North America, in the year 1000.  The church was reconstructed 1,000 years later in the current town of Qassiaruk, on the shores of the same fjord where Erik and Tjodhilde lived.

We arrived in Narsarsuaq after a short helicopter ride and walked outside expecting to be met by someone from the tour company.  We saw a couple of guides unloading a van, and asked them about it.  They didn't know about our tour, but offered us a ride to the office, which was 100 meters away.  In case you're not familiar with the metric system, 100 meters is about half a block, but we weren't sure which building they meant, so we took them up on the offer for a ride.

Inside the office, Frank met with Jacky, the fellow he had been e-mailing for several months about the tour.  Jacky told us that he would take us to the boat.  He drove us about a mile down the road to the dock, where there were a number of small fishing boats and powerboats tied up.  He spoke to the boat captain, and waved as we got on.  I had thought he was going with us.  We set off in small white speedboat across the blue green water for a 5 minute ride to the other side.  The captain dropped us off, and asked when we would return.  Frank told him we had two hours, and he looked a little confused.  "Ok, maybe Jacky will get you." 

I got a little nervous about this, since it was not clear if this fellow had any intention of taking us back, or we would have to swim across.  I was pretty sure we would freeze to death within about 10 feet of the shore, so this was not a good plan.  I noticed a number of boats passing back and forth, and figured if nothing else, we could pay someone to take us across before our flight to Nuuk departed.  I made a mental note not to spend my cash, just in case we needed money to bribe someone. 

We saw a sign pointing down a long dirt road toward "Tjohilde's Church" and the "Cafe Brattahlid".  Frank thought we could have lunch at the cafe.  The road was covered with red dirt, similar to the red dirt in Hawaii.  This was the first time we had seen this kind of dirt.  I started calling it the "Erik the Red Dirt" as it started covering our shoes and pants legs.  Alex particularly enjoyed kicking up a red dirt cloud as we walked along.

Along the way, we passed the Leif Erikson Hostel, a long rectangular yellow building that looked like a triple-wide trailer with a number of bright orange kayaks in front.  I thought of it as the "Leif Erikson Memorial Trailer," conveniently located near the Leif Erikson Memorial Statue, and down the hill from the Erik the Red Memorial Statue.

Leif Erikson was the son of Erik the Red, and was called "Leif the Lucky" by the Vikings. According to the Icelandic sagas, Erik the Red had been banished from his colony in Iceland in 987, and set out across the sea to find a new place to live.  He happened on this fjord, and settled down with his wife and children, and a few others.  When his banishment was over, he went back to Iceland to recruit other settlers to come to Greenland.  Supposedly, he named it "Greenland" as a ruse to convince others to join him, since most of Greenland is actually covered with ice and snow.  Looking out over the verdant pastures as we walked this road, we could see why he would call it "Greenland" and actually mean it.   This fjord, Erik claimed for himself and actually lived here.

Erik's son Leif, was also an explorer.  He had heard a story from a man name Bjarni of fantastic lands to the west.  When Leif came of age, he set out with a small group to find these lands, and discovered "Markland" (Labrador) and "Vinland" (Newfoundland).  His small group settle in Vinland, but didn't last long due to hostility between the Norse and the natives.  Leif eventually returned to Greenland and his story was written down in one of the Norse sagas.  He also brought the Christian faith to Greenland from Norway, and his mother, Tjohilde, was an early convert. 

We walked about a mile down the Eric the Red dirt road, past farmhouses, barns, and various statues and pieces of art commemorating the Viking settlers and this little town's place in history.  There were sheep grazing on the hillside, and a stone farmhouse that reminded me of Scotland.  Alex got sidetracked by a rocky little stream running down to the sea and took a break to throw stones into the water to see what kind of splash he could make. 

We stopped at a small red church and went inside, thinking it might be Tjohilde's Church.  It was not the church we were looking for, but the modern church used by the people of the town.  Of course, I named this the "Erik the Red Church," because I'm corny like that. The church had a lovely, but simple interior, with lamps hanging from the ceiling.  One of the lamps was in the shape of a ship.  Alex was intrigued by the candelabra at the altar and wanted to know if it was a Menorah.  Several of his school friends are Israeli, and he has often expressed an interest in becoming Jewish so we can have a Menorah and "eight whole days of Christmas."  I've explained to him that it would be eight days of Hannukah, but he doesn't seem to get that part.

My son's lack of religious education aside, we spent a little time looking around the church.  We noticed that across the road there was a large rectangular pit with a placard marking the spot where Tjohilde's Church had originally stood. 

We kept walking and walked down a narrow path through some lush, tall grass past a few more farmhouses and toward the site of the rebuilt home of Erik the Red and Tjohilde's Church.  Outside the church is a short stone fence with straw on the top.  In front, is a small wooden arch with a brass bell.  The church was a tiny little building, with a turf roof and wooden door in front.  It looked like a very elaborat child's playhouse.  We tried the door, but it was locked, and we were disappointed not to get to see inside. A small placard outsided indicated that there was a guided tour at 10:30, and it was 10:30, but there was no guide anywhere to be found.

 

Across the path was the house, which looked like a wooden door pushing out of

a hillside.  The house was covered in turf, so it seemed to blend into the surroundings organically.  I half expected Bilbo Baggins to peek out of the door, since it looked so much like a Hobbit house.  The door was locked, so we couldn't peek inside, and since there were no windows, we didn't know if this was just a shell or if there was anything to see inside.  We thought maybe they just stuck a door and a chimney on a hill, just so you would get the idea of what the house looked like.

We decided to head down the road to the Cafe Brattahlid for a bite to eat.  As we were walking down, we saw a woman in a long, white wool tunic approach. She waved and called out, "Are you here for the tour?"

We told her yes, that we would like the tour.  She apologized profusely for being late, and started to lead us back to the tiny church.  Alex suddenly was beset by a nosebleed, and was dripping blood on the ground.  Frank asked for tissues, but I had left my backpack at the Blue Ice office, and had nothing but my camera and wallet with me.  The woman said, "There is a restroom in the cafe, near the door!"

Alex started running toward toward the Cafe, and Frank trotted along behind him.  I sat down with the woman on the stone wall surrounding the church and exchanged pleasantries.  She told me that her name was Inga, that she was originally from Iceland, and that she works here in the summer.  She runs the cafe and the tours during the tourist season, and goes home to Denmark during the winter.  She seemed to enjoy her work tremendously.

Greenland by Air

After the lovely day we had at Hvalsey Church, I was a little sad to be leaving Qaqortoq on July 7.  We were now rounding the bend of our vacation, and traveling to our last stop before heading home, the capital city of Nuuk.  We had a long travel day ahead of us by helicopter and boat. 

Air Greenland's fleet features a number of Sikorsky helicopters that are used in the smaller, more remote areas. Frank was excited because part of our trip to Nuuk would take us over parts of the polar ice cap.  We would be flying at a fairly low altitude, so Frank was hoping to get some good pictures of the interior landscape.

The first leg of our journey was by helicopter. The helicopter was fairly roomy inside, and I think may have been a repurposed military helicopter.  It was refurbished inside to look like a passenger plane, with two seats on one side of the aisle, and one seat on the the other.  There was a flight attendendent onboard who served us hard candy during the short trip. There were no seat assignments, so I ended up sitting on one side of the helicopter several rows up from Frank and Alex. I was particularly amused by the fact that there was a "Duty-Free Shopping" brochure in the seatpocket.  It's comforting to know that you can purchase cheap Chanel No. 5 even on a 10 minute flight.

The helicopter ride was smooth and pleasant, though a little noisy.  After about ten minutes in the air, we set down in Narsaq en route to Narsarsuaq.  Narsaq looked much larger and more impressive coming in by air than it did on our accidental visit there two days before.  The ice in the bay seemed to have thinned out a bit since we last saw it.  That might have been just an illusion, because seeing it from the air was much less threatening that driving right through it on a boat.   We stayed on the helicopter while some of the passengers deboarded and others got on.

Taking off in this type of helicopter is a little disconcerting.  First, you go straight up and then,  in order to go forward, the nose goes down.  The helipad was right next to the water, so it looked as if we would zoom right into the icy bay.  Despite the scary take-off, we had a smooth and uneventful ten minute ride to Narsarsuaq.   We had gorgeous views out the window of pink granite mountains studded with green plants and moss, and the crystal blue glacial waters.

Where Have All the Vikings Gone?

On Friday, the day after our accidental trip to Narsaq, we were able to arrange a private tour to take us to the Hvalsey Church ruins.  This time, it was just the three of us, a guide, and the boat captain.  It was nice to go without other tourists, so we could take it at our own pace.

We sped down the fjord on Captain Karl's small boat, along with our guide, Susannah.  It was a clear, sunny afternoon, and there was little ice in our path.  The water turned from deep blue to turquoise as we got further down the fjord, closer to the ruins.

At the site, there is a small wooden dock, where we debarked easily.  When we arrived, there was noone else around except for a number of sheep grazing on the hillside that had wandered over from a nearby farm.   Small white and yellow wildflowers dotted the landscape. It was a beautiful, pastoral scene, with the lush green and golden grasses rimmed by the blue-green water and the dramatic granite mountains rising overhead.  I could see why the early settlers would be attracted to the place and want to live in such a setting.  I had read that the weather was milder further up the fjords, and during the normal weather cycles, somewhat similar to Norway.

We hiked aong a narrow path to the ruins of a Norse church.  Most of the structure is still standing, even though it is over 1,000 years old.  Erik the Red first led settlers to Greenland in the year 987, and at one point, about 5,000 settlers lived among the fjords of southern and western Greenland.  By 1450, they had disappeared and the farmsteads were completely abandoned.  All that remains are stone ruins of churches, barns, and homes.  The Hvalsey Church is one of the most complete, and stands much the way the later explorers found it in the 1800s.  The only thing missing is the turn roof, although Susannah explained that one of the walls had been rebuilt for safety after it started to lean.

Susannah explained to us that the granite in the surrounding hills has the amazing property of breaking off on smooth, flat planes, and at 90 degree angles.  This made making "bricks" of the rocks fairly easy, even with primitive tools.  The settlers used ground mussel shells to make a mortar paste to hold the bricks together. It looked pieced together like a giant unfinished jigsaw puzzle.  Luckily, the area is not prone to earthquakes, because I doubt this building would pass inspection in California.

Usually, the walls of buildings were made from these granite bricks.  There are no native trees in Greenland due to the extremes of the climate, so any wood had to be brought in from Norway, or occasional but dangerous trips to "Markland" (Labrador, Canada).  The roof was covered with cut-outs of the turf, which insulated the building from the cold in winter.  Unfortunately, dirt and sod erode over time, so all that is standing now are the brick walls.

Nearby, there is a large rectangular trench with more crudely crafted bricks around.  Susannah told us that this was the church hall, where social gatherings would take place.  A smaller rectangle between the two was the evidently the barn, where the priests kept their sheep and cows.  Even though there are no native sheep, goats or cows, all of these domestic farm animals were introduced and raised by the Viking settlers.

In the center of the complex of ruins stands a marker with an explanation of the site.  I walked up to read the marker with Susannah. A large ram was laying on the grass next to it.  Only when I got right next to it did I realize that the animal was dead.  It must have died recently, because it had not decayed or started to smell bad.  It was a bit disconcerting to see this dead sheep lying on the ground, and I was worried about how Alex would take it.  He has refused to eat lamb chops in the past because as he says, "Mom, I don't eat nature."

I'm not sure Alex noticed the dead ram.  If he did, it didn't register with him or scare him.  He did, however, ask me a few times when we were going to see any real, live Vikings.   I guess he was expecting something like a Viking Colonial Williamsburg, where people would be dressed in costumes and pillaging villages when they were not milking cows. I told him that this was where they lived, but they had been gone for a long, long time.  I think he was envisioning some guys in bearskin clothing with horned helmets running up to greet us at the site, so he was a little disappointed.  He amused himself by finding rocks with quartz in them that glistened in the sun, along with some blue mussel shells at the water's edge.  Susannah said, "Your boy has a lot of energy, but is a very focused little being.  I like that."

Susannah told us that she once had a tour group of Swedish Vikings come to visit, led by an archaeologist.  They wore Viking costumes and had swords and metal tools that they had forged themselves.  They wanted to test their theories on how the Vikings lived, and see whether the tools they made would actually work.  She said it was a little embarassing to be walking around town with a group of Viking re-creators.  I think Alex would have loved that, especially the part with the swords.

There is something very moving about looking at ruins of ancient civilizations.  We've been to Leptis Magna, Pompeii, Stonehenge, Maltese temples, and other historic sites, and I always feel as though the stones are embedded with secret stories of the past.  The thought that human hands helped to shape the structures for dwelling or for worship, puts us in touch with what we all have in common, both the need to survive and the yearning to understand the unknown and unknowable.

After an hour of snapping pictures and taking in the scenery, we head back across the water in Captain Karl's boat.  He stopped at some bird cliffs and got out a brass horn, opened the hatch, and tooted the horn.  The white birds left their rocky perches and circled overhead, against the blue sky.  Alex took a turn with the horn, and was delighted at the sight.  There was something magical in that moment of looking out from the boat at the sky with the birds circling, hovering and diving overhead.  This was one of the most memorable days of our trip to Greenland.

How Do You Pronounce "Qaqortoq"?

We landed in Qaqortoq, in the far southeast corner of Greenland, on July 4.  The only indicator that we had that it was a holiday in the US was that one of the cashiers on the ship wished us a Happy Fourth of July at breakfast.  Otherwise, we sort of forgot about it.

Qaqortoq has a population of about 3,000 people and most of the houses are set along a a ziz-zag of roads up a granite hillside.  It's a picturesque place, with colorful wooden houses, wooden fishing boats in the harbor, and beautiful views of the bay set out at its feet.  The town boasts a small museum, a tourist office, a couple of restaurants, grocery stores, and a few bars as well.  We were later told that there were several secondary and trade schools in the town, so young people came from all over Greenland to be educated there.  Frank had read that there were Norse ruins nearby, so we decided to check it out for a few days. 

We arrived after three days at sea, and stood on the dock on our wobbly sea legs, scratching our heads.  There was no one from the hotel to greet us, so we were a bit at a loss for what to do.   We saw a few taxis whiz by and pick up large family groups and take off up the mountain.

Frank went out to scout the scene.  I had met a friendly Greenlandic woman on the ship who asked me if I was Greenlandic, and exclaimed, "You look just like my sister!"  Frank saw her at the dock and asked her what we should do.  She pointed over his head at the top of the mountain to a bright blue building, and said, "That's the hotel.  Just get a taxi to take you up.  You can share mine."

Frank came back to collect us and our bags, and the next thing we knew, my Greenlandic sister was speeding off in the only available cab.  We sat on our luggage and waited a while, and eventually, another taxi came down the hill and took us up.  The driver didn't speak English, but I said, "Hotel?" and he nodded and took us straight up to the hotel.  I guess it helped that there is only one tourist hotel in town.

The Hotel Qaqortoq is a two-story building perched on the side of a cliff overlooking the bay.  There is a steep staircase leading up to it from the main street, and a series of winding roads going up as well.  There is no way we could have dragged all of our suitcases up that far, but a taxi only took about 2 minutes to get us there.

The hotel is manned by two young Danish people, a man and a woman who look to be in their twenties and have identical spiky blonde hairdos that reminded me of Tintin.  They were friendly and proficient in English.  The girl Tintin had us wait in the lobby and made coffee for us while our room was being made up.  We had been told that the family who ran the hotel had a 7 year old, and made the mistake of telling Alex in advance.  He demanded to know where said 7 year old was hiding.  We were told that they were no longer there, and that no one under the age of 50  (aside from us) was currently staying in the hotel.  The TinTin desk clerk did tell us that the big group was leaving the next day, so there might be kids coming tomorrow. 

The hotel had a pleasant reception area and lounge, a pub, and a restaurant downstairs, with all the sleeping rooms upstairs.  The walls are painted bright colors, with some sealskins stretched on wooden dowels hanging on the walls.  The decor blended Scandinavian and Arctic motifs in an interesting way.

The room itself was fairly small, and appointed like a college dorm room, with spare Ikea-style furnishings, two twin beds and a mattress on the floor for Alex.  Luckily, there was a large closet where we could store our luggage.  It was not a terribly comfortable situation, but there was a TV that worked, so Alex flopped down on the mattress to look for some Danish cartoons he could watch.

Frank and Alex decided to take a walk down to the tourist office at the bottom of the hill to confirm our excursion for the next day to the Norse ruins.  Frank came back and said we were all set for an 8 am departure, and we hoped that it would get dark enough for us to fall asleep by 11 or 12.  He picked up a brochure about an art project in town called "Stone and Man" in which a group of Scandinavian and local artists carved designs and scultures into the granite hillsides and in boulders they found about town.  We decided to look for some of them as we walked down the hill to dinner. Alex had purchased a flag of Greenland at the tourist shop, and for the rest of the trip, he carried it around like a pint-sized Greenlandic explorer looking for lands to claim.

We walked down to the town square, which features the first working fountain in all of Greenland (according to the guidebook).  It was a cute, small fountain with a dolphin motif in the middle of the town square, not exactly the Trevi Fountain, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

We couldn't get into the Restaurant Napparsivik, billed to be the best restaurant in town, because they were booked up for the night with a tour group.  Evidently, the King of Sweden was in town, and the town was abuzz with the visiting dignitaries who were there to study the glaciers and the impact of global warming.  We weren't sure, but we decided that we were probably getting the boot in favor of the King.  Instead, we went to the fast-food Grille Baren across the street and had pizza, which delighted Alex to no end.

When we told people we were going to Qaqortoq, we would pronouce it "Kar-ka-tuck".  They would invariably correct us and say "no, it's cchhah-ka-tocchh" with the "q" pronouced in the back of the throat, like you're about to hock up a lugey or clear your tonsils of popcorn debris.  The closest we could get to pronoucing it right was saying it like the "ch" in the Hebrew words "l'chaim" or maybe "chanukah".  By the end of our three days in Qaqortoq, we were pronoucing it like natives.