Qaqortoq Part I

After several weeks of routine it was again time to go on new adventures, and on Easter I allowed myself a seven days trip to Qaqortoq (Julianehåb). On the days leading up to Easter, Kurt, my host and friend, arranged some accommodation for me through Poul, one of his friends in Qaqortoq. I booked a ticket on the ferry and waited anxiously for the big day to come.

The days before Easter were very grey. The steady fog seemed to be closing down on the island like a shield protecting us from the sun. Only a thin line of blue sky was visible in the distance over the sea. For everyday that passed the fog seemed to drop lower and lower, closer and closer. It seemed like a mushroom of clouds that grew shorter by the hour. The experience of being on a small island received yet another visual dimension in the form of a sealing lid of clouds and a vanishing, remote stripe of blue sky.

Wednesday the 7th April had been a day of heavy fog, continuous drizzle and changing winds. Despite the weather, dozens gathered at the dock. About thirty of us were waiting for the ferry to take us to Qaqortoq, while the rest were awaiting visitors. Most of them were parents waiting for their kids to come home on their school holiday. Being the largest city in the South of Greenland, Qaqortoq is the home of the only high school in the area. The ferry, a red and white sixty passengers ship, arrived at 13:15, exactly as scheduled, and set sail again at 13:50, with a delay of only twenty minutes. For the first time in two months I left the island of Nanortalik and could once more feel the familiar sensation of travel bug taking over. It felt weird sailing away from this island that had been my home for the last couple of months. Yet it was fascinating seeing all the familiar surroundings from the seaside – the island and the town looked completely different from that new angle — since it is such a small island, I could see most of it and most of the town lying before me almost immediately after we left the dock. This small colourful town looked as taken out from a Noddy book and set by surprise out in the real world.

We sailed out to the tight net of fords, peninsulas and islands. The fog took a bit off, increasing the visibility to a few hundreds metres. It gave the whole surroundings a touch of mystery. A number of times, when looking towards the misty horizon where I didn’t think there was anything else than open sea and wide open sky, the fog shifted and revealed a mountaintop that seemed to be floating in midair not two hundred meters away. As time passed the fog lifted and the wind settled. The calm water reflected the snowy mountains and here and there the odd flock of birds glided silently in fixed formations so low above the water that they almost wet their feet. Around 16:30 we arrived at the first point of destination — Ammassivik, A town of about three hundred inhabitants on the eastern bank of Lichtenau Fjord. Literally the whole town was visible from the waterside. More than a town, it looked like a cluster of colourful timber houses scattered at complete randomness, or at least with no visible order to a stranger’s eye. A few passengers got off, some got on, merchandise and mail bags swapped hands, and after ten minutes we turned about, sailing again out of the fjord towards the somewhat larger Alluitsup Paa or by its Danish name —Sydprøven. Alluitsup Paa is a small town of 500 people, which lies at the mouth of the fjord. The same procedure as in Ammassivik was repeated.

From Alluitsup Paa we headed to Qaqortoq. The fog became heavy again, and the icebergs around us seemed to grow larger and larger. Massive icebergs were floating everywhere around us – some in the far distance hardly visible in the heavy fog; others almost close enough to touch. Those colossal icebergs showed up from the fog in all different forms and sizes — round, flat, smooth, clear, sharp edged, pointed, arched and holed. Some were white, others were blue, a few were clear like glass. Some forced us to sail around them, while we managed to push the small ones and sail through a sea of man-size chunks of ice. Passing just next to some icebergs, three and four times larger than the ship, I thought I began to gain some sort of understanding to the frustration that the captain of the Titanic must have felt when realizing what he was up against.

I stood out on the deck with a warm cup of tea, next to me a group of young schoolgirls leaned over the railing in a way their mothers surely would not have approved and shouted into the mist the Greenlandic version of the evergreen “If you’re happy and you know it”. While pushing their throats and the capacity of their lungs to the limit, they clapped their hands, stamped their feet and banged on the railing violently enough to distract my thoughts from the monstrous icebergs. Nevertheless I was hypnotized by the scenery and kept on trying in vain to spot whales and seals. The fog gave this charming combination of icebergs, clear water, mountains, birds and happy atmosphere of people on their way to a much-needed holiday a touch of magic and fantasy.

We arrived at Qaqortoq at quarter to nine. I knew I had to look for a bearded guy, and Poul looked for the misplaced looking guy. We found each other immediately. While I hadn’t counted on anything more for that evening than getting my room, having a quick bite of whatever I fished first out of my bag and falling straight into bed, Pout had other, friendlier plans in mind.

“So, do you want to grab dinner first and then go to your room, or do you want to drop your bags off first and then come over for dinner?”

There was nothing I wanted more than to put the bags down, so we walked first to the dorm. Even though it was late and dark, I could see at once that Qaqortoq possessed all the characteristic features typical of such a great metropolis of over three thousand residents – traffic signs, pedestrian crossings, pavement-resembling sections on some roadsides, a fleet of taxies, a bakery separate from the local supermarket, commercial signs, bus stops, banks, a fountain in a square – for a second I thought I was in New York. Most of you might not understand this, but that was a list of things that I have just seen for the first time in two months. If it wasn’t because my mum reads this as well, I would have described the countless times during the following days where irritated drivers honked their horns at me as if saying "Get your sorry backside off the middle of the road already.” They actually had real roads there! Talk about culture chock!

The dorm was situated half way up one of the three hills Qaqortoq is spread over. I received a small room with a window overlooking the neighbour’s truck, and went with Poul over to his place. Poul is the manager of the local STI College and active in a number of programs working for the improvement of higher education options for Greenlandic students. His house is located on another hillside, and has a beautiful view over the picturesque harbour. Greenland seems to be Poul’s greatest passion — the house is cosily decorated with the finest Greenlandic artefacts – a lot of the decorations in the house were made of either seal pelt or narwhal tusk. The impressive library in the living room contained countless books about Greenland. Poul was quick about feeding timber in the fireplace and serving a light dinner. At the end of a cosy evening, and after having discussed trekking in Greenland in general and the numerous trekking possibilities in the area in particular, I strolled down one hill and up the other back to my room, all excited about the wonderful trips I was going to conduct the following days. I was in for a surprise...

Continued here...