I came here yesterday. It snowed last night. A dusting. And this morning, after some instant coffee, I walked a few hundred feet from my berth and listened to the huge northern ravens caw at each other or me or the fjord. There are other birds producing a more pleasant song from somewhere behind the buildings. I haven't seen them and don't know what they are. The sun is out and melting some of the white from last evening. Accumulated snow slips in an entirely intact strip from a telephone pole and disintegrates, et voilà, into a fine dust at its base.
The flight from Copenhagen was a business of nothing; I slept most of it. A young, ginger documentarian came over and sat beside me briefly on the flight. He was interested in why people go north, what type of person decides to live this way, and what I might tell him about what I was doing in Greenland. There was a certain positivity to him that might have seemed charming to some, disingenuous to others, and merely ineffective to me. He'd seen some of the patches on my ruck when I went to pull a vest, gaiter, and gloves just prior to landing. I told him I wasn't the best person to ask. That I'd only spent three seasons in Antarctica and this was my first in Greenland. Although I had not meant to be gruff, I think I may have put him off a little. I didn't want to talk to him, but I also didn't want to be unkind. He went back to his seat.
Kangerlussuaq is a town on the southwest coast of Greenland. This is not an encyclopaedic entry, so I'll assume any who read this and are interested will research further. There are numerous and far more reliable sources than this one. The airport, which is very small, was dense with people. I was informed after arrival that I'll be here for a week. Travel to Summit Camp is dependent on the Air National Guard (109th Airlift Wing) and they apparently left the day before I arrived. After trucking my gear back to where I will bunk for the next week, reading over the NSF Emergency Action Plan, and making a short trip to the local grocer, I went for a brief walk around the south end of town, that is the several blocks of buildings and houses that make up Kanger south of the airfield.
There seemed nobody but me out on a Saturday and I was struck with the solitude of the place. From experience, and I'm unsure if this evaluation will be helpful to anyone else, it seemed like an admixture of McMurdo Station, Antarctica; Lofoten, Norway; and (strangely) some parts of Twentynine Palms, California. Maybe it's the dust that makes me think of Twentynine Palms. It is loose soil, gravel and silt from the estuary.
The soil is different than Antarctica. With the one exception of a single trip to the continent proper, I never really made it much farther in Antarctica than Ross Island. And Ross Island, where McMurdo smokes and hums and collects dust, is volcanic. The soil there is obviously and necessarily different. Perhaps I only notice or mention the difference now as a matter of record for myself. As much as Kanger might remind me of Antarctica at times, it is very much not the Ice. From the ravens to the unseen birds producing song behind the buildings, the alluvium soil to the pallid grass spike that wags just outside the window of my room, it is not Antarctica, and not her opposite.
The pictures associated with this post are from my first day. It is now Sunday and Tracy, the Science Operations Manager for the NSF and the person who picked me up from the airport, suggested that people may be inclined to head out of town a bit today. I've seen barely anyone this morning. So if this does not occur, I'll see about a walk and maybe getting my hands on a truck. Not sure if they'll let me drive around here yet. I feel a bit like they're still in the midst of evaluating me. Which is fine and something I am used to. More later.
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