Iceland review - 2002, Page 45

ICELAND REVIEW 43
view of the bay between Kulusuk and Ammassalik island. “I’m try-
ing to see some whales down there.” Ice floes jam up between
rugged brown mountains, but no whales.
“There are more ice floes than usual coming down from up north
this summer so you can’t see the whales,” he explains through our
headsets in a Danish accent. “I guess because of the global warm-
ing. Up north, they say that fjords that are usually covered in ice
year-round are bare now. So things are pretty well twisted.”
The helicopter pilot has been living in East Greenland for three
years, and in Greenland since 1994. Today, 20% of the country is
foreign born, or not of native Inuit origin. Though Greenland home
rule was instituted in 1979, it is still a part of the Kingdom of
Denmark, and most of Greenland’s non-native residents are from
Denmark. A Danish woman in Tasiilaq estimates, for instance, that
of the town’s 1,700 inhabitants, 300 are Danish, most of whom
work in the town’s school, hospital, and occupy most of the gov-
ernment positions.
“The population of Greenland is 56,000 now. Twenty years ago,
it was 30,000.” The pilot attributes this to better standards of living
that the country’s light-speed modernisation has brought.
“Everything is generally better here. A hundred and twenty years
ago, this country was living like we did in the Stone Age. Now it’s
a modern society, with all the problems that it brings.” He adds,
“And the benefits as well.”
Between two steep fjords, a collection of red, yellow, blue, green
and white buildings suddenly comes into view far below. “The cap-
ital of East Iceland,” he says, holding his hand out for me to behold.
From this vantage point, it is immediately clear how physically soli-
tary the town is – a concept difficult to grasp from the perspective
of many countries and cities around the world that grapple with
urban and suburban sprawl. The helicopter blades beat steadily as
the pilot delivers us without a bump on to the tarmac of the
Tasiilaq heliport.
The capital
Tasiilaq gets under your skin. It has the rare quality of being as
interesting as it is beautiful. If you’re walking around town on a
seemingly quiet street, beware: the town’s two taxis periodically
tear around corners at maddening speeds, delivering residents up
and down the steep hills of neighbourhoods where fish hang from
driftwood racks and seal skins are stretched taut on wooden
frames. Roughly half of the town still fishes or hunts seal, whale,
and polar bear for a living.
Though the one central intersection and modest clutch of central
businesses offer the illusion that anybody can get a feel for the
place in a few hours, the more time you spend covering its looping
side streets and hills, the more you notice the town’s smaller enter-
prises.
Tasiilaq is host to an eclectic mix of businesses – both govern-
ment run and privately owned. You can buy couture seal-fur gar-
ments and walrus jaw, tusks, molars and all on the main drag in a
shop that doubles as a tourist information centre. Up the street,
Gerda Vilhom runs Neriusaaq, the bookstore that keeps longer
hours than anyplace else in town and is an unexpectedly eccentric
gathering place for Tasiilaq’s residents. Out front, a wooden sign
reads Verdeusuuiversitetet – ‘The University of the World’. “The
World University is down there,” she points downstairs to a room
lined with books and magazines and a computer terminal. People
stop by to buy ice cream, have a cup of coffee or use the Internet.
Another worthwhile stop, if you ever manage to get there during
its sporadic tour hours, is the Greenland Post, not to be confused
with the post office down the road, lest you severely perturb its
In the Inuit communities native to East Greenland, there’s no sense of ownership over the land or the life in it. In Greenlandic, you would not say, "my
daughter," but "Daughter."
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