Usually, all around the world, most of the people who like to talk a lot, don’t often say much.
Inuits of Qaanaaq in the far North of Greenland’s west coast are different. As we gently slide on the sled pulled by dogs towards the edge of the sea ice, I see why.
Omnipresent silence of the landscape must have played its role in shaping humans who have been living here for ages. Landscape is not talking much. It is early May, there is no wind, no storm, no birds or other loud animals around… But it is saying a lot.
"Omnipresent silence of the landscape must have played its role in shaping humans who have been living here for ages."
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Painfully beautiful Arctic landscape is telling one of the most amazing stories of our time. It is a story about fascinating but fragile beauty of Nature, and brilliance of humankind that have endured here in spite of all the hardships. It is the story about Life that thrives in the desert of the Universe.
Naimanngitsoq’s ancestors, so called Thule people, have come here a thousand years ago. Before them, there were few more or less successful attempts of people to survive in this wilderness, but Thule people were the first and so far only victors of survival in these most extreme conditions on Earth.
Main reasons for their successful long term survival were new technologies that they invented: dogsled, kayak and harpoon. Nowadays, there are only a dozen people in the whole of Arctic who use both dogsled as main means of transport and kayak and harpoon for hunting narwhals. Naimanngitsoq is one of them.
I contemplate about how unique and stunning is that, while we travel on sled towards the edge of ice. Naimanngitsoq doesn’t speak much with his colleague Aleqatsiaq Peary in the other sled, nor with me, but he constantly whispers to his dogs:
Haqoq haqoq haba haba
Atatatatoq atatatoq
Hoq hoq hutuq hoq hoq hutuq
Atatatatoq atatatoq
Those repetitive sounds drive me into meditation and melt into the silence of the surrounding landscapes. Sun circles around us, low on horizon, bathing everything in holy light. Locked icebergs rise from the flat sea ice as cathedrals, as transcient temples that will unlock soon, float away and thaw on their way south.
At the ice edge that we finally reach and camp there for days waiting narwhals, blocks of sea ice come and go with tides. Seals emerge from cold waters and dive in again, birds squawk and cry as they fly over in search for fish, in distance, whales produce their splashing sound… Ice edge is a whole new world for me, dynamic, full of sounds, full of life. Naimangitsoq, however, remains silent, watching toward the sea for days, waiting for narwhals.
In a month, it will all be open water, icebergs will float away, sea ice will thaw, world will change. Maybe that’s why the beauty here is stronger than elsewhere. Because it is ephemeral. Because it is transient.
Naimanngitsoq sits in his kayak, takes his harpoon and paddles away while his dogs watch him from the ice edge. This picture is archetypal. Its continuity throughout the ages, throughout all the changes of seasons and all the challenges of history, contributes to the inner beauty of this unique place.
No other people that have ever tried to sustain here in cooperation with nature, including Vikings and Danes, have been successful.
Thule people are the only victors of survival in this harsh world, in this cold heaven.
Having opportunity to travel on the dogsled with them, and witness the living art of survival is a true blessing that I’m deeply grateful for.
