December 2016 – Jenna Kinghorn

Month: December 2016

Ittoqqortoormiitt Visit: Part 3: Amazing Art

December 22, 2016 / Jenna Kinghorn / 0 Comments

Art seems to flourish in the tiny town. We had a wonderful conversation with the woman who runs the gift shop of the Piareersarfik art school that teaches Ittoqqortoormiit’s inhabitants a mix of traditional and modern crafting techniques. We assumed that the crafts on display were made by teenage students, but the school actually serves adult learners.

As our hostess explained it, Ittoqqortoormiit isn’t big enough to have a high school, so teenagers are sent away to state boarding schools. Overwhelmed by being away from their close-knit community, they don’t always do well in school, and many drop out. After they come home, the school gives them a second chance to learn, at whatever age they decide they are ready to try again.

Items crafted from sealskin.

Many of the crafts on display at the school and the Tourist Office gift shop used traditional materials: walrus tusks, narwhal “horn,” sealskin, musk ox wool and leather, animal furs, bones, teeth, and sinews. These materials are actually easier for the local artists to get than are the glass beads, metal, wood, and plastic that were used in some of the artwork!

Viewing the pillows, mukluks, and other admittedly beautiful wares crafted from sealskin was much more than an aesthetic experience for me.

Coming from the U.S., where marine mammals of all types are protected at the federal level, I was appalled to see their skins being used as crafting material.

I must not have been the first tourist to react that way, because a note on the display informed me that at 12 million, the seal population of Greenland far outnumbers the approximately 50,000 humans who call the place home.

It also noted that the sealskin is a mere byproduct of seal hunting, which is done primarily for food. The artists take pride in being able to use the whole animal after its death.

Although there were no sealskin crafts among the souvenirs I purchased, I appreciated the change of perspective. The abundance of seals versus the number of potential human consumers of them made me realize that some resources have to be considered regionally, not globally. And such changes in perspective are, of course, one of the reasons I travel.

For more information, contact ittartshop@yahoo.com

Ittoqqortoormiitt Visit: Part 2: Puppies!

December 21, 2016 / Jenna Kinghorn / 0 Comments

The ground is covered with snow from October until mid-June, and there were still big banks of it all over when we arrived in mid-August. Young sled dogs wander at will and we were greeted at the boat launch where our Zodiacs arrived by an enthusiastic pup who enjoyed belly rubs. One of the highlights was going to a “dog yard” where we got to handle the still-nursing puppies of two very relaxed mama dogs.

: Relaxed mama dogs…

: …under the watchful eye of their preteen keeper…

: …seemed to enjoy our attention

I hadn’t heard of Greenland Dogs until this trip. Draft animals with a lineage that stretches back thousands of years, these sled dogs are highly prized possessions, able to work in conditions with which mechanical snow machines just cannot cope. They are not tied to the sled in joined harnesses like the dogs that run the Iditarod, but instead each is attached by it’s own long lead. This makes it easier for the sled driver to release all the dogs if there’s come kind of emergency — falling into a crack in the pack ice, for example — or to release selected dogs to keep a polar bear at bay.

I was surprised to learn that no dogs can be imported to Greenland to protect the breed from having its characteristics watered down. In fact, if a Greenland Dog has to be taken abroad for medical treatment, it is not allowed to return. That’s a big problem in an isolated community that doesn’t have a vet, let alone the kind of veterinary specialists my dog Boomer is all too familiar with! (If you know of a vet interested in making a volunteer visit to Ittoqqortoormiit, have them contact ittartshop@yahoo.com.)

Ittoqqortoormiitt Visit: Part 1

December 20, 2016 / Jenna Kinghorn / 0 Comments

After leaving Svalbard on August 7, our only contact with humans not associated with the Polar Pioneer was a few hours of exploring a tiny town with a big name: Ittoqqortoormiit. (It’s not as hard to pronounce as it looks if you say it quickly: i-tok-a-tor-mit.)

It’s the youngest town I’ve ever set foot in, having been founded in 1924. Tourist ships visit two or three times in summer, and passengers come ashore to learn about local history and the traditional Greenlandic ways of life.

: The visitor’s center had informational displays and a small gift shop.

: We got to touch the pelts of musk ox, polar bear, and several species of seals.

: They opened their beautiful church for us to view.

: The local museum pointed out that this was the site of a weather station important to the Allies during WWII.

On the east coast of Greenland, overlooking the mouth of the Scoresby Sund system of fjords, this hamlet of less than 500 inhabitants is about as far off the grid as you can get. The Greenlanders who live here have electricity and satellite service including Internet connectivity.

But they have no running water or sewage system — the permafrost penetrates so deep into the ground that such infrastructure is impossible to construct. Dirt roads connect the colorful little houses and commercial buildings that climb up several hills in photogenic ranks.

Let Them Explore…Cake?

December 19, 2016 / Jenna Kinghorn / 0 Comments

One of my favorite excursions in Greenland was what the Polar Pioneer‘s crew called “Gateau Point,” although I think the formal name for the place is Segelsällskapet Fjord.

The nickname was apt, since the definition for the French term gateau is “a rich cake, typically one containing layers of cream or fruit,” and the geological formations we explored were a visual feast.

They were also almost a BILLION years old! This was not the only stop where I wished we had had a geologist aboard who could have given us more information about these amazing structures.