Northern highlights

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This article was published 01/12/2017 (2334 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KANGAAMIUT, Greenland — Jen Kilabuk is kneeling by the freshly flensed seal, holding the curved blade of an ulu in her hand. “Who wants to try some of the liver?” she asks, cutting off a chunk and putting it in her mouth. “Mmmm, delicious,” she says, smiling with unnerving blood-rimmed teeth.

Beneath its undeniable organ-meat quality, raw seal liver has the tang of copper and an undertone of fishiness. It’s intensely fleshy and is certainly an acquired taste to a southern palate reared on overcooked hamburger.

Passengers on Adventure Canada’s Greenland and Wild Labrador cruise are being offered this treat as part of a welcome by villagers in Kangaamiut, a town of about 350 people, who have processed two seals for our visit.

It’s just the first example of hospitality on a remarkable two-week journey that takes us from the Arctic Circle down the west coast of Greenland, across the Davis Strait to Nunavik in northern Quebec, then follows the east coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, ending in St. John’s.

Our journey begins in Toronto, where a charter flight takes us to Kangerlussuaq in Greenland, home to the only airport capable of handling large commercial planes. We land at about 2 p.m. and, after a short bus ride to the dock (down the longest road in the country at 20 kilometres), passengers are ferried across to our ship, the Ocean Endeavour, on a fleet of Zodiacs — sturdy inflatable boats that will be our ticket to visiting almost every ­out-of-the-way stop on our 14-day excursion.

At first blush, the impression of the late September landscape is one of barren, treeless greyness, but as the low light hits the hills, you begin to notice subtle colours that glow like tamped-down embers. It has an austere beauty that worms its way into your affections.

After settling into our cabins and a quick lifeboat drill, we’re off. Sailing down Sondre Stromfjord, one of the longest fjords in the world, you can’t help but be struck by just how vast and uninhabited Greenland is. At more than two million square kilometres, the Danish-owned island has just 55,860 inhabitants, making its population density essentially zero.

About 30 per cent of the population, 17,000, lives in the capital city, Nuuk, which is a charming and cosmopolitan centre.

The rest of the people are scattered among settlements, mostly along the coastlines in bays, where seal and Arctic char are plentiful. There is no network of roads in Greenland, so the only way to visit is by boat.

Kangaamiut is one of these settlements. Its population has dwindled, owing to lack of employment, but the people have turned out in full force to welcome the ship.

Gulls wheel over the harbour full of fishing boats; the sun, low in the sky for most of the day this time of year, gives a permanent golden glow to the brightly coloured wooden houses scattered across the craggy landscape like Monopoly pieces tipped out of a box. Wooden staircases stagger drunkenly around the rocky terrain, which seems perilously inhospitable to construction.

The people, however, are nothing but hospitable. In addition to the seals, they have provided a table full of crafts, including beadwork and gorgeous knit goods made of cloud-soft light brown muskox hair, and coffee and snacks are served in the schoolhouse. Some passengers are invited to take part in a christening and we are all treated to a concert by the church choir.

Many Greenlanders are Christian, converted by missionaries hundreds of years ago, and there’s a long tradition of European hymns and classical music, sung in Greenlandic, the country’s official language (children are also taught Danish and English in school). It’s close to Inuktitut, the language of Canada’s Inuit, and there’s something ineffably moving about the language, which is both guttural and softly lilting, paired with the familiar hymnal harmonies.

Inside the church, the pews are painted a striking lavender and the beams above are white. The choir has lost members in recent years as the town’s population has shrunk, but the voices of the four remaining women, in dresses that match the pews, are augmented by the deeper tones of the male pianist (who also penned some of the tunes) and create a melancholy magic.

Kilabuk, who is part of the Adventure Canada staff, takes some of the seal meat back to the ship to give guests a sample as part of a night celebrating Inuit culture and country food (traditional meals based on what the land and sea provide). Also on offer are Arctic char (raw and dried), narwhal and beluga (both served raw, in chunks containing skin, blubber and flesh). The char is tasty, the whale is mostly just chewy.

While we chew (and chew and chew), we get a display of Arctic sports from several of the Adventure Canada team members on board. Renowned sculptor Billy Gauthier squares off against Michael Milton, a young trainee culturalist, to demonstrate the Alaskan High Kick, the object of which is to jump up and, with one foot, strike a knotted rope dangling above shoulder height (you can see this in competition at the biennial Arctic Winter Games). Two more trainees, Barbara Okpik and Erica Tungilik, shyly show the right way to leg wrestle; we also see the muskox push, fishhook and superman.

We hit the capital, Nuuk, on a crisp but sunny day in late September. After an excellent walking tour through the oldest part of the city — our guide tells us the buildings’ cheerful primary colours once had meanings, with yellow indicating a hospital, red for administrative buildings and blue flagging places where fish was processed — we visit the National Greenland Museum and Archives.

It’s so filled with detail and lovingly displayed artifacts, I could have spent all day there.

An unsettling highlight is the famous Greenland mummies. The museum houses four of the naturally preserved family members found near the Qilakitsoq settlement by Danish grouse hunters in 1972.

The bodies are more than 500 years old and fully dressed for their journey to the underworld, as would have been the custom of the Thule culture. Their skin is brown and wrinkled, but intact; you can see their tattoos. The small child is particularly haunting, his hollow eyes staring at you through the centuries (the men who found him initially thought he was a doll). He was likely smothered after his mother died and buried with her to prevent his slow starvation.

It’s a bit tough to shake that off, but the day is warming up, and there is a row of gift stores and galleries to visit, and then a quick peek at the market and the fishmonger, where a table of dark red seal meat awaits parcelling out.

The food here reflects the tastes of both the Greenlandic people and Danish settlers. A fine example is the Restaurant Sarfalik (which means “gathering place”) in the Hotel Hans Egede. The bright dining room offers a 270-degree view of city and combines clean Scandinavian decor with Greenlandic touches, such as sealskin napkin rings.

We feast on a lunch platter that includes prawns, dried muskox, lamb terrine, mackerel and lumpfish roe, served with chewy black bread and washed down with a pilsner from the local Godthaab Bryghus brew pub.

After Nuuk, it’s back to Canada, with one day’s sailing ahead of us to reach Ungava Bay in northern Quebec.

Though I adore the ocean, it does not love me back. I am wearing a Transderm patch behind my ear to prevent seasickness, as well as popping Dramamine and wearing “sea bands” on my wrists that are supposed to hit pressure points to reduce nausea.

None of these is a match for the six-metre swells we encounter as we cross the Davis Strait; I am reduced to a whimpering mess in my cabin, clutching the edges of the bed to prevent myself from rolling off and praying for the sweet release of death. At one point, all the items I’ve foolishly placed on the desk slide off onto the floor, taking the phone with them, and I’m almost too nauseated to get up to replace the handset.

I miss three meals, which is the real indication of how miserable I am. When I finally manage to stagger out of my cabin, I almost weep with gratitude to see the pot of hot broth and crackers in the ship’s Compass Lounge, which also houses a library, well-stocked with adventure and science titles. I curl up in a chair with tea and a copy of Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams to regain my equilibrium.

• • •

In Kangiqsualujjuaq (also known as George River) in Nunavik, northern Quebec, Adventure Canada welcomes community members aboard to greet us, including Mayor Hilda Snowball and some elders. Snowball translates for them, as, speaking in Inuktitut, the men tell us of being born in tents along the coast in the 1940s, of believing they were the only people who existed. They say they never imagined a day when a cruise ship would visit.

Once ashore, we are welcomed into tents to sit around a welcoming fire, as smiling women offer up Labrador tea and cups of berries served with “dream whip” — a topping with the texture of whipped cream made from the roe of Arctic char.

At stops where there are A) roads and, B) less risk of bear activity, passengers can rent bikes (US$40) for the duration of the visit. It’s a lovely way to see little bit more of the community and get some exercise. Some of us cycle up to a spot where you can see vast stretches of water and rocky hills, covered with lichen and ember-bright shrubs, with the shocking blaze of yellow-orange tamaracks in the distance.

Too soon, we have to return to the Ocean Endeavour. The Torngat Mountains of Labrador await us.

Jill Wilson travelled to Greenland and Labrador courtesy of Adventure Canada. Part 2 of her story will run in the Free Press in January.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier