Friday

Tags: Joe Smith

Musk ox burgers are one of the faster moving offers in the Kangerlussuaq airport café. A butchered deer and freshly shot Arctic hare were piled in the back of a pick up on the quay. The closest we’ve got to fauna and a good reminder of the fact that the Arctic wildlife that to date I’ve known only as the subject of natural history films and photos is a (fresh, tasty, free) resource for Greenlanders. Hunting for it is a job for some and a favoured pastime for most.

A night and day at sea – ploughing north up the west coast of Greenland having left the shelter of several hours cruising down the startlingly beautiful Kangerlussuaq fjord . You’d have thought banalities about ‘the quality of the light’ wouldn’t go down too well on a boatload of overachieving artists and film people but it turns out everyone seems to have the same gawping reaction, and draw down on the same clichés. Even a sleepless night-long fairground ride on rough seas doesn’t seem to blunt our collective awe at being in this place.

Read more of Joe’s posts, and his colleagues’ responses, on the Science, Technology and Nature Blog.