East Greenland 2003
We sailed to East Greenland on Professor Multanovskiy, an expedition ship taking tourists to the Arctic.
“Bonjour, Mesdames et
Messieurs”. Welcome aboard. We sailed from Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, in
the sunshine. There would be a sunset here tonight for the first time in 3
months, but the sun would only hide behind the hills for a short time before
becoming the sunrise and a new day would begin. Spitsbergen is part of a group
of islands north of Norway where tourists come to see Polar bears and walrus,
ice and glaciers. But it is the end of the season here and we were heading west,
out into the North Atlantic Ocean looking for the pack ice on our way to
Greenland. The sea grew bigger and the swell became more awkward - the
passengers disappeared to their cabins one by one – and the morning brought no
relief and no pack ice. Those hardy enough came to breakfast along with those
who foolishly thought food was good for seasickness! Th
ey filled their seasick
bags and were persuaded to leave the dining table before filling their second
one.
By the afternoon the ship, Professor Multanovskiy, had reached 79°10’ North 1° East. And we had reached the pack ice, calmer seas and sunshine, bearded seals and ringed seals basking on ice floes, and icy bergy bits with the sun shining through them - more than enough to inspire the photographers who emerged, blinking in the bright light. Fulmars glided above us and around us, rising on the warm current from the ship’s engines. Little auks tried to fly away from the ship but usually decided it was easier to dive. It won’t be long before these little black and white birds will be the penguins of the north. But we could see no polar bears.
We pushed forward ever more slowly as the ice we encountered became thicker and more compact. The ice floes cracked and opened or sometimes brought the ship to a shuddering halt, then we would back off and try another angle.
This was a French trip and the French love the ice. Our Expedition leader had the Captain stop the ship beside a huge solitary iceberg trapped in the pack ice. An ice floe close by became a dramatic setting where we set up props – dining chairs around a table set with a champagne bottle, glasses and a bowl of fresh fruit. Then we ferried the passengers to the ice, and served up hot chocolate milk with rum, and fudge cake in the middle of the Atlantic. Here we were on a bit of ice, rocking gently up and down with the swell. Quite absurd and totally French.
The day turned to dusk and the skies coloured pinks and golds. We stood on the deck and watched the light play with the shapes of the hummocks of soft snowy ice on top of the sea ice. And then with great excitement we watched as a shape became a bear and it was coming towards us, sometimes swimming between ice floes and sometimes climbing low crests, but all the time the sun shone gold through his wet and dripping fur. He was like a mystical golden beast. He came close to the ship, curious, smelling the air with his tongue, and watching the watchers. The skin beneath the wonderful shaggy coat was black. His head was small and his black eyes alert. And then when he found us neither exciting nor tasty he ambled away, back into his solitary existence.
And so on to Greenland, past the Isle de France of course and south to Dove Bay, where icebergs have blown into the fjord and grounded. But it is not a graveyard. The icebergs are alive with sounds and light. We climb into the zodiacs, large rubber boats with an outboard motor, for a cruise around these giants. The sea is calm and beginning to freeze with the autumn chill. We crackle through the thin ice and wind our way through the icebergs that lie close together, at times below us, and then the water is a beautiful azure blue. We are in an icy canyon where the water reflects ripples of light onto the glossy surfaces of the icebergs, some 50 meters high and wide. The icebergs are slowly melting, forming crystal icicles hanging like chandeliers, which in turn melt sending a tinkling of droplets into the sea. The sea ice becomes thicker and we become a Disneyland ride in four rubber boats, shunting through the ice or zooming up on it when it doesn’t break, sending ice fragments flying. The sound of the smashing ice is deafening. I wish I could drive. We photograph tiny rectangles of nature’s gems and then with cold noses and toeses we return to the warmth of the ship and the smell of Jocelyn’s freshly baked bread.
We sailed south to Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord - a geologist’s paradise, a rock climber’s heaven and an expensive place for photographers. The fjord is narrow by Greenland standards, about two kilometres wide and the sides rise up 2000metres as sheer rock walls. We landed by a trapper’s hut on one of the few beaches and wandered up a gully bright with autumn colours of crimson leaved blueberry bushes, orange birch trees and golden yellow polar willow – but this forest was only 50cm high. As we came over the hill we were startled to see three musk ox - huge shaggy beasts with large curved horns and moulting hair. We tried to get closer but they nimbly climbed up and away.
By the evening the ship had come close to the front of a glacier and we set off in the zodiacs at 10.00pm as the light was fading. Close to the ice front we stopped and listened. We were surrounded by brash ice full of air bubbles that popped excitedly, released at last after a thousand years, as the ice melted into the sea. The glacier cracked and moved, and a seal popped his head up to see what was going on. The mountains were stark silhouettes on the pastel skyline, the air was crisp and sharp and hard on the lungs and turned to vapour as we breathed.
Then with great ceremony we opened the anchor boxes and pulled out shot glasses and bottles of vodka. We drank a toast to the ice of course, then to France, and then we burst into song. Absurdly fun and totally French. We crept back through the ice and the darkening night to the ship waiting with its lights glowing festively.
We sailed for three days in Kaiser Franz Joseph Fjord, passed great tongues of glaciers calving into the sea, passed newly created huge icebergs, some coming and some going dependent on the whims of the sea currents. The icebergs were usually many times bigger than the ship - sometimes square blocks, sometimes pinnacles, sometimes with arches and caves, or sometimes covered with the black stones that had been carved from the mountain as the glacier pushed always downward. Some were opaque and the wet surface shone blindingly in the sun, some were blue and solid, some were crystal clear and sculpted in beautiful forms. Each one unique and different from every angle, each one worthy of a photograph! Dmitry the second mate announced that the iceberg we were passing was 120metres high and from the bridge at 11metres we felt rather small.
We sailed beneath towering ancient rocky mountainsides, some patterned in reds and blues and yellows zigzagging their way to the tops and finally we sailed through the maze of fjords back to the sea.
After a wild night on the ocean heading south we were glad to be in the calm waters of Scoresby Sound and the township of Ittoqqortoormiit. Whoever wrote down the Inuit language left their fingers too long on the typewriter keys and the spoken version sounds like chooks in the back yard! Colourful wooden bungalows, Danish style, perch on the rocks and the first sounds we hear are from hundreds of dogs yelping in excitement, or boredom or maybe anticipation. Children come down to the quay and wait for us. “What is your name?” they ask and giggle at their own attempts at English. They smile at us with pretty Inuit eyes and some of the young girls have beautiful long black hair. One boy has heard of New Zealand and a teenage girl tells us she and ten others go to school in Denmark. I give away postcards of the ship and take photographs and pretend that I’m not intrusive. Signs of their livelihood are everywhere. There is no mistaking that these people are hunters – shaggy musk ox hides hang to cure beside strips of drying seal meat, an arctic hare lies dead and cold on a house roof and the mangy huskies now tied up are waiting for the snow and ice to return so they can pull the sledges away to the hunt. We can buy souvenirs of polar bear skins, teeth and claws, carved bone trinkets or a whole narwhale tusk still bloody on the end.
Greenland is a big place and we had to sail 20 hours to get to Nansen Fjord, 68°10’N 30°W, but for Christian Kempf to bring us this far it must be good. We passed enormous icebergs, also heading south, floating like giant pavlovas. On board we dined on Ostrich steaks and Chocolate pear flan. Night came quickly and we were excitedly called outside to see the Aurora Borealis. Pale green and yellow curtains of light swished and undulated across the sky, now here, now there, now in a swirling motion from horizon to horizon. The pale lights moved in and out of greens and pinks then faded away. What a wonderful display, fantastique!
By second coffee next morning we were in Nansen Fjord, an artist’s study in blues and whites - the surface of the fjord white with brash ice, the spiky mountains shades of blue and topped with snow. Sometimes an iceberg drifted slowly by filling the view from my porthole but mostly the sea was covered in the wonderful brash ice, noisily popping as we sailed though, parting to leave a clear blue path in our wake. The sun shone on the glaciers, gleaming white, falling into the sea. The whiteness and coldness surrounded us. It looked cold, we felt cold, it was cold. The air temperature was 1.5°C and the water was only 1° warmer. This was a wonderful, tiny piece of Greenland and we loved it and said goodbye.
We battened down the hatches and prepared for the crossing of the notorious Denmark Strait. It lived up to its reputation and two days later we were happy to be tied up at the wharf in Kevlavik, Iceland. By lunchtime the passengers would be in Paris carrying with them many rolls of undeveloped film in their bags and unforgettable experiences in their memories - Greenland, ancient and so inaccessible, so much grandeur, and so much ice!
