Reykjavík Grapevine - 23.07.2004, Blaðsíða 37

THE MUSK OX: NOT AS STUPID
AS IT SEEMS? by Valur Gunnarsson
I got off the plane in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, and lit a cigarette. A woman immediately
came over and told me in a heavy Danish accent that smoking was not permitted. At least
we weren´t that far from civilisation. For anyone who´s ever promised to love each other till
the end of the world, Kangerlussuaq is as good a place as any to call it quits. There´s some-
thing unreal about everything this far north. Perhaps it’s the lighting. Even
though it was past midnight, it was still bright as day. I should be used to
that by now, but somehow it seems even more apparent up here. I
wondered if this was how travellers coming to Iceland for
the first time viewed it.
OUTSIDE REYKJAVÍK
The town has around 500 inhabit-
ants, almost all of whom work at the
airport. The area was uninhabited
until World War II, although it
was used for fishing in the summer
by the natives and still has some
ancient burial grounds. In 1941, a
year after Denmark was occupied by
the Germans, the Danish ambas-
sador in Washington DC handed
protection of the vast country over
to the United States. Kangerlus-
suaq, known as Söndre Strömfjord in
Danish, Sondrestrom in English, was
chosen as the best location for an air
force base as it is situated inside a
very long fjord, promising reason-
able weather conditions at all times
of year.
Codenamed Blue West 8, it
became one of the most important
stopover sites between North Amer-
ica and Europe during the war. The
base was handed back to Denmark in
1950 but, just as in Iceland, in 1951
the Americans were back having
signed a new defence agreement with
the government. The Americans also
operated early warning radar stations
in the area, and in the mid-fifties the
airport became a stopover for SAS
on its transatlantic journeys between
Copenhagen and Los Angeles. The
American base was finally shut down
in 1992, and control was handed
back over to Greenland´s Home
Rule, and renamed Kangerlussuaq. It
remains the country´s biggest airport.
A musk ox´s reputation
As I got out from the airport,
a guide herded us into a bus the
way his ancestors may have herded
reindeer over the tundra, and we set
off for the mountains. In Kangerlus-
suaq, there seem to be two things to
do; golf and search for musk ox. This
particular night, we were searching
for musk ox. The musk ox looks like
a cross between a sheep and a bull.
It´s Latin name, Ovibos, implies a
combination of the two. Translated
into Icelandic, this comes out as
sauðnaut. In the Icelandic language,
someone inordinately stupid can be
called a “sauður,” a sheep. If those
boundaries are passed still further,
the term sauðnaut may be applied,
denoting someone even more daft
than a mere sheep.
But does the mosk ox deserve its
reputation? The bus stopped, and
we tourists got out to take pictures.
Somewhere out there in the distance,
the oxen were blots in the landscape,.
“Can we approach them?,” asked
a girl. “Sure,” said the guide. “But
they´ll run away,” he added. The girl
decided to put this theory to the
test. Whether it was curiosity about
the habits of musk oxen or just an
ingrained habit of following girls
in whichever direction they were
heading, I followed. It was a long
downhill run. As we approached, we
learnt that the guide’s prediction had
proved correct. The oxen disappeared
over a hill, and I looked back at the
long uphill walk back, which seemed
somewhat more imposing than the
run down. In the intellectual battle
between man and musk ox, it seemed
the ox had won this round.
Breeding like a musk ox
It may have been the musk ox
that originally brought man to
Greenland. Before the invention
of the kayak, the inhabitants lived
mostly off land animals. There not
being a great variety of these in
Greenland, the musk ox must have
been a staple. The natural habitat of
Greenlandic musk oxen is the east
coast, facing Iceland. From there
they have lately been transported to
other parts of Greenland. 27 speci-
men were moved to Kangerlussuaq
in 1965. Now their population there
numbers some 3500. No doubt the
expression “breeding like musk ox”
will be catching on soon.
Sweating more than I thought
possible this far north, I made it up
the hill. The guide herded us back
into the bus. He told me he had been
doing this for 17 hours straight now.
He used to work in a shop at the
airport and do part time guiding. He
had recently taken the leap to being
a full time guide. Business was good,
but tiresome.
We drove back the narrow moun-
tain road to the airport. The airplane
took off and headed back over the
glacier towards that centre of civilisa-
tion and urban excitement known
as Reykjavík. During the Ice Age,
musk oxen were found as far south as
Illinois. When the icecaps retreated,
the musk ox followed them north.
Perhaps you need to be a “sauðnaut”
to follow a retreating glacier. But
then what does that say about all of
us inhabitants of the far north?
H
.S
.
H
.S
.
37