Finally I saw the ribbons in the sky, the northern lights. Slow and suggested, swaying velvet curtains in a drafty cosmos. We all played a gig in a bar tonight, I don’t know what happened but the great boot from outwith crushed my mojo…Floored by quiet endings, the rip of other roars, it’s not good when you reject yourself in a Greenlandic bar faced with the brilliance of Hitchcock, Cocker, Wainwright, Sakamoto, Carlton and Feist. Not my night. My heart is twisted up like kid’s balloon and I imagine looks like a poodle.
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The deeper we sail into the Arctic, the more incongruous humanity becomes. Snow and ice cover everything solid. Yesterday on the small island of Uummannaq – which means ‘heart-shaped’ in Greenlandic – we visited a children’s home in a 1400-person port. This is the northernmost habitation on this voyage, and the last place we will visit on this trip that has an ATM.
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Shlomo dedicates his beats to the cause at Hotel Uummannaq. Video: Matt Wainwright.
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By Shlomo
- Wednesday 1 Oct, 23:10
Jarvis Cocker, Robyn Hitchcock, Martha Wainwright, KT Tunstall and Ryuichi Sakamoto at Hotel Uummannaq.
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Navigating icebergs in Uummannaq to return to the Grigory Mikheev.
Five photos taken in and around Uummannaq.
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It’s 11am, the ship travelled through night storms and in morning we arrive at Uummannaq, the home of our guide Ludvig. It’s spring in Uummannaq, in winter it’s dark for two whole months and there’s a high suicide rate. We visit a children’s home and dogs howl outside as the social worker greets us at the door. “If they don’t do what we command ” he says in a rich Danish accent “we kick them”. There’s a silence. “There’s high alcoholism in the Inuit people hence the relatively high numbers of children in care.” He is about six foot tall, a tower of a man. “Welcome” he smiled broadly.
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Marcus Brigstocke inspects then samples the birthday spread laid out at the Meeqqat Angerlarsimaffiat (the Uummannaq children’s home). Photo: Nathan Gallagher
Greenlander guide Ludvig’s home town of Uummannaq. Houses sprinkled across a rocky island. In Jan-feb the sea ice in these parts will be very thick, and you won’t see the sun for 2.5 months. Spring is 10-15 deg below zero. The first thing people talk about if you ask what they miss when if they’re away in Denmark to study or work is driving a dog sled and sleeping on the sea ice.
Read on and more of Joe’s posts, and his colleagues’ responses, on the Science, Technology and Nature Blog.
Olga’s question
Will you comment on this survey? It were interesting. And what’s about the Grigoriy Mikheev. Is it a Russian vessel?
Carol Cotterill’s response
Dear Olga,
Firstly I’m so glad you’re reading the blogs on the Cape Farewell website! So in answer to your questions – yes the Grigory Mikheev is a Russian ship. She used to be a Russian research vessel and has now been converted to accommodate tourists. The crew are Russian, and the staff looking after us onboard are multi-national – Russian, English, Austrian and Belgian.
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