… of an easier day for me today, although you might not think so.
Being awake at 03:05 this time (just for a change) and then again a short while before the alarms went off, I did finally manage to fall out of bed and totter straight down into breakfast for 06:30.
Once breakfast was over we had to dash back to our rooms to don our winter clothing because we were off for a very long zodiac trip. And we needed our clothing too because it was to be a very long trip in the cold and wind.
We’ve anchored in Arsuk Fjord and almost at the head of it is a really impressive waterfall. It’s not the highest in Greenland (we have already seen that) and not by a long way either, but the volume of water that pours over it is phenomenal.
On the way there we kept a look-out for wildlife, although our first “sighting” was of a cabin on shore. It looked as if it had been abandoned for a considerable period of time and was in a poor state of repair, but it would make a very nice home for someone who craved solitude. Going to the shops would be an issue, though.
A little farther on, someone on our boat spotted an arctic fox. We all craned our necks and one or two people managed to catch a fleeting glimpse. I wasn’t so lucky unfortunately. But then, someone later explained that an arctic fox was only the same size as a domesticated cat so I don’t feel so bad about not seeing it.
Much more luck later on. Someone called from another zodiac that they had seen a musk-ox on shore, so we all headed that way. After a good deal of searching and scanning, I finally saw it. And it put on quite a performance for us too, gambolling about in a clearing amid the rocks.
But it was strange to see a musk-ox on its own. They are herd animals. And so the consensus thinking was that although it didn’t look much like it, it was possibly a male adolescent that had been ejected from the herd by the dominant male and had yet to establish its own harem
The waterfall was impressive. It was really powerful and the amount of water cascading down from it was enormous. It’s all melt-water off the Greenland ice-cap so it gives you some idea of what’s going on in the interior of Greenland and how badly climate change is affecting the place.
Some of the zodiacs went quite close to the fall, but our driver was somewhat nervous by the looks of things and wasn’t too keen to go too close.
On the way back we were waylaid by another zodiac. Our driver is apparently the expedition’s ornithologist and the others had seen some birds that needed to be identified.
Not that this kind of thing would interest me. As I have said before, there may be several interesting species of bird in a Greenland fjord but not a single one of any type that I would be interested in watching.
They had repositioned The Good Ship Ve … errr Ocean Endeavour while we had been away and so it was a long – and I do mean long – ride back to where we were supposed to go. In fact all the way up to the end of the fjord, past the Danish navy’s naval base at Kangilinnguit and then along another arm, following the only road in Greenland that connects two communities together.
The reason for the naval base is that not too far away (although it seems like miles when you are in a cold and wet zodiac in a freezing fog) was the world’s only cryolite quarry, in the abandoned town of Ivittuut.
While looking for silver (which they found, but not in sufficient quantities to make it worthwhile) at the end of the 18th Century they stumbled across an outcrop of cryolite. At first is was used as an additive to salt (the Pennsylvania Salt Company was the chief purchaser) and pottery but later they discovered that added to bauxite, it reduced considerably the energy needed to smelt aluminium.
The Danes worked it for a while and then the Americans took over, but when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis there was a fear that the mine would fall into their hands. Thus a Canadian and later an American detachment of troops was sent in to protect it. The naval base was built to repel any possibility of a German raider or invasion party.
The mine was exhausted and abandoned in 1984, and cryolite became the first of the earth’s minerals to be commercially exhausted. But by then scientists had succeeded in making it in a laboratory.
The whole place looks as if it’s abandoned now and it’s really sad, with all of the equipment lying around. Even a half-dismantled Bedford lorry, a 6-cylinder diesel of the 1970s is just lying there.
I had a good explore around and found the cemetery, full of graves of workmen who must have died in mining accidents (this must have been a dangerous place to work) as well as the graves of a couple of young children. There were also several plaques relating to people lost in shipwrecks in the vicinity.
We did find several examples of habitation though. Two or three houses looked as if they were still occupied, there was a garden growing potatoes and lettuce and there was an array of solar panels. These seemed to be powering the equipment in a Seismology reading station carved into the side of one of the rocks.
By the way, as a matter of interest, this is not the first time that the town had been abandoned. Although it is very well-known that the Norse had an Eastern Settlement (Brattahlid and its environs) and a Western Settlement (near Nuuk) here in Greenland, there was also a much less well-known Middle Settlement too, of about 20 homesteads. Some excavations on the site of Ivittuut have revealed Norse ruins that would correspond with what is known about part of the site of the Middle Settlement.
Back on board ship it was lunchtime and I was good and ready for it. And much to our surprise there was free time – the first of the trip – afterwards. I went down to my cabin intending to do all sorts of things but ended up under the covers for well over two hours. And I wasn’t sorry either.
Later there was an exhibition of Admiralty charts of the High Arctic and, even better, the guy presenting the exhibition had them in *.pdf format and offered to copy them to anyone who wanted them. Ever since then, I’ve been armed with a memory stick for the next time that I bump into him.
Tea tonight was in the company of several other people. I always enjoy people-watching and there was plenty to see tonight that caught my interest.
But now I might go for an early night. There’s a lie in (of sorts) tomorrow so there’s no urgency but it will still be nice to take advantage of whatever is available to help me catch up with my sleep.
