SC Copenhagen 2002 Discovering the Land of Immaqa
During three weeks in August-September 2002 twenty students from BEST-affiliated universities in 19 European countries had the occasion to experience something really out of the ordinary. This year's Copenhagen summer course was called "Greenland - Solving Technical Problems in an Arctic Region" and was in fact a short course in straightforward geology. The course was held at the Technical University of Denmark with a day trip to Møns Klint and two weeks of field work in the Narsarsuaq area in Southern Greenland. In Greenland the participant group was enlarged with two Greenlandic students and accompanied by 8 Danish organizers, a professor, a researcher and two PhD students.
"Somewhere down at those lakes we will find the old sheep tracks ... maybe", someone reasons loudly. We are in the heart of Mellemlandet, a rugged and remote plateau rising between two valleys in which two vast glaciers make their way from the inland ice south to the sea. Our small group decided to spend our last day before flying back to Denmark with hiking across this rather inaccessible and inhospitable terrain in order to get a glimpse of the Qoorqut Sermiat (Qoorup) glacier. We spent the previous evening around the campfire in our nine-tent camp in Flower Valley, a pleasant depression north of the airport of Narsarsuaq, wondering whether the weather would allow us to make the tiring hike the next day.
One of the most charming things when visiting Greenland is "immaqa" - "maybe" in the Greenlandic language. The Greenlandic unpredictable and harsh weather and the vastness of the land (less than 60000 inhabitants on a 40000 km long coastline) have developed a culture where the word "maybe" is a necessity. "Maybe we'll go out fishing tomorrow". "Maybe we'll return from the neighbouring village already tomorrow". "Maybe it won't be too foggy tomorrow and we'll be able to see the glacier" ...
We had adopted thus the "immaqa" attitude, leaving the decision whether to go to the glacier or not for the morning. Eventually, despite the disappointing weather situation, eight of us decide to go, hoping for no rain, or at least not too much of it. Shortly after the start our map turns out to be insufficiently detailed, sparking some debate about which the best direction is and why we never passed some lakes, of course unnamed on our maps, just as most smaller geographic features in Greenland. Two of us give up and turn back to join the others. We soon regain direction and continue through the wet and thick, low-lying vegetation soaking our boots and hiding ankle-cracking boulders. We cross a crystal-clear stream between two more prehistoric-looking lakes, flanked by tundra and glacier-scraped boulders, glooming deeply among intimidatingly vertical rock walls and start the final ascent towards the promontory that overlooks the glacier. Some of us have started counting down the steps, anticipating the appearance of the impressive ice mass. "Four, three, two ... one more small ridge and ..." Suddenly there it lies beneath us, the tortured geology of this tongue of ice, a spur of the inland ice crumbling down majestically between the valley walls, calving icebergs into the ice-choked waters of the Qooroq fjord. Its blueish ice wall continues in a shelf of half-frozen sea, full of patches of floe. In the meanwhile it has started snowing and the wind bites in our ruddy cheeks. We stand there exhausted, hungry and cold but the sight of this isolated and stunning landscape and the divine silence of the place make us forget about all physical comfort. A few photos and some chocolate later we hastily start the walk back, giving up on the thought of cooking our lunch on the spot. We cross fields of mossy bogs, ascending and descending often to avoid the rough and steep mountainsides. We walk sliently and quickly and after a while our thoughts focus more and more on the outlook of the final evening at the hostel and the first warm shower after 13 days of camping in the wilderness ...
Greenland is a country of glorious beauty that very few places on the planet can match. It might not be the most diverse in terms of landscape variety, fauna, flora, history or culture, but it is truly spectacular from all of these points of view. Rocky, treeless mountains, snowcapped peaks, endless tundra with marshes, lichens or mosses, sharp peaks (nunataqs) sticking out from below the earth's largest blanket of continental ice, countless glaciers and ice-filled fjords of all imaginable shapes, ancient inuit culture and more recent but still mysterious Norse remains, polar expeditions and Cold War strategies, happy and welcoming people in colourful wooden houses living in close symbiosis with nature are all the perfect recipe for leaving every visitor in a haze of dizziness, happily contemplating the essence of things.
Geologically speaking, Greenland is a true paradise (or nightmare), having an extremely tormented past, with the oldest rocks on the face of the planet still being found here.
Just as there are far too few adjectives to express the beauty of Greenlandic nature, the friendly atmosphere developed in our group is also undescribable. We were a united group already the first day in Copenhagen and the spirits just continued to rise even after we landed in Greenland. The organisers were doing a very good job and everything worked out just fine even in Greenland, where planning and logistics is a very difficult (and expensive) matter.
We landed in Narsarsuaq, the largest airport of Southern Greenland, a small community of about 150 people where everything seems to revolve around the tiny airport, built by Americans during the Second World War. We did not spend most of our time here though, but in a small settlement called Søndre Igaliku, about 30 km south-east of the airport. We reached it after a slalom-course between icebergs in a fishing boat that took us across Erik's fjord, named after Eric the Red himself, leader of the Norse Vikings who settled in the area in 980-981 AD. We continued by hiking over a land isthmus across to the village of Igaliku (ancient Garðar), the episcopial seat of Norse Greenland. Nowadays the 35-people village is dotted with interesting ruins and has a shop, the last opportunity to complete the food supplies and equipment that we had picked up in Narsarsuaq.
After several shifts of transfer in a zodiac across another fjord (Igaliku fjord) we finally reached Søndre Igaliku, a valley inhabited only by a farmer family. We set up our camp next to the mouth of a stream at the bottom of Kujalleq fjord. What followed were daily geological field trips, carried out come hell or high water. After a common introduction the participants and organizers were divided into four thematic groups, under the supervision of the four invited lecturers. The evenings were mostly spent in cozy gatherings, with the usual "sendimentary-smalltalk", eating, drinking and singing around the fire or the candles until the wee hours. After returning to Narsarsuaq we spent our last two days studying the Kiagtut Sermiat (Kuussuup) glacier above the Flower Valley. Incidentally (and not surprisingly), the weather was quite capricious with occasional snowfall during some of the high-altitude hikes, yet we had some very fine sunshiny days as well, just perfect for reaching for those photo cameras.
The sky was brightly blue and clear on the day of our departure from the island. As we lifted higher, comfortably seated in our Greenlandair aircraft, the pilot steered towards the inland in a wide arch, giving us a final chance to briefly see the breathtaking open landscape that has been our home for two weeks. Then, suddenly the ragged white icecap appeared below, pierced by toothy grey peaks and scars. The next moment we were already crossing above the monstruous glaciers of the east coast and the swathes of innumerable icebergs in the sea. There and then, in the benumbing buzz of the airplane engine, human beings seemed yet again just ridiculous nuisances in the eyes of nature.
text by Zoltan Bartalis, photos by Elisabete Serra, Åge Verstergård and Lieve Lauwers
