MysteryHistories
A Cultural Expedition to Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland
August 31 – September 15, 2005
Escorted Travel: World Wildlife Fund
INTRODUCTION
Actually, there were lots of mysteries on this trip and not all of them centered on any kind of history. However, all of them probably require research of some kind to figure out how this adventure happened at all. But the most enjoyable parts of the trip turned out to be the many history lessons we learned and the many unanswered questions the cultural situations produced.
So, let’s get the first puzzle out of the way first! Why was this trip billed as an arctic wildlife viewing opportunity? The brochure that arrived from World Wildlife Fund, causing Kay and I to make the decision to go in about 5 seconds flat, was even titled “Arctic Wildlife: A Trip to Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland.” And note again that this brochure came from World Wildlife Fund! What else could we have expected other than the chance to see lots of marine mammals and lots of Arctic land mammals? The brochure even described and provided photographs of all the wonderful creatures we would see, like polar bears, walrus, at least 7 varieties of seals, sea lions, 7 kinds of whales, musk ox, caribou, moose, and millions of migrating seabirds. But see them we did not! Now this was truly a puzzle and mystery to us for a short while.
Maybe we’re just unlucky we might have postulated until we talked some Greenland natives at the airport in Kangerlussuaq. There the natives just laughed when we asked about polar bears. After they got over their hilarity, they told us that there hadn’t been a polar bear in that part of Greenland for over 50 years! How about walrus, we naively continued? Again with the laughs walrus need pack ice and ice bergs there are neither in this part of Greenland and its waters at this time of year. How about seals? All hunted out years ago and those that still exist stay far away from Southwest Greenland waters. Besides, they need pack ice as well to survive
Okay then, where are the caribou - they don’t live on this half of the island of Greenland (actually they thrive in Northeast Greenland). Finally, what about the musk oxen? At last, they smiled a satisfied smile rather than a smirk and took us on a musk ox safari on the hills about 250 feet above the landing strip. There, our guide
pointed enthusiastically! See? Well, we could see, after much looking into the binoculars, a very distant dark spot about 3 miles away. Then the guide explained that yesterday was the start of the musk ox hunting season so most of the beasts had wisely moved much deeper into the interior than we could go on this safari. Oh well, when will we see all the migrating seabirds? Again with the surprised looks! Oh, our guide related, the migratory season is about over and besides the waters around SW Greenland have been so fished out over the centuries that the birds do not cluster here because there is insufficient food for them. All right then, we will settle for some whales. Ha, cried the Greenlanders, fat chance! For the same reason the birds do not congregate here anymore (fished out waters), whales are rare sights indeed here.
Are you now as puzzled as we were? After these exchanges with the native Greenlanders, we surmised that that brochure was a lot less than accurate and truthful. Even later, we learned that the brochure sent to potential travelers with Smithsonian Journeys did not call the trip a wildlife adventure. Their brochure had advertised a cultural and historical voyage instead. Same dates, same ship, same guides! So what do you think now? Probably you have drawn the same conclusion we did a letter must be sent to World Wildlife Fund protesting the false advertising as soon as we get home. My letter went out on 9/20. We still believe in the mission of World Wildlife Fund and we will continue to support its excellent work all over the world; but we do think their travel department needs to “clean up its act” regarding travel program brochures! Otherwise, it’s going to be up to us to do our own research more carefully so that we know when advertisements do not reflect the truth! Actually, I’m sure wewilldo that very thing in future, no matter whose brochure it is.
Now that the first mystery has been solved and explained, I will go on to report that even with this disappointment, we nevertheless enjoyed the visits to those three unique parts of the world immensely. And there were mysteries still in store for us as we continued along the itinerary.
Our trip started in Ottawa where we met the other travelers and guides on September 2 and then took a charter flight to Greenland early the next morning.
OTTAWA
Since we had never visited Canada’s capital city, Kay & I decided to spend a couple of days exploring before the organized tour began. The city is a contradictory sort of place, but then probably most capital cities are. It contains some really impressive government buildings that are obviously cherished and well maintained. The only one of the original government buildings, The Library of Parliament, a copy of the exquisite Bodleian Library at Oxford University in England, was completely swaddled in scaffolding and white plastic like a giant hay bale while it awaits its rebirth after a 5 year renovation both interior an exterior it will emerge early next year according to the plans. Might be worth a return trip just to see itunveiled. What will it look like? ParliamentBuildingLight Show
The Parliament Buildings and the artful copy of Big Ben in London are quite attractive, especially during the wonderful “sound and light” show that plays across their Gothic facades. The show’s theme is “Spirit of a Country” and the pictures of the magnificent scenery in Canada from the Maritime Provinces on the East Coast to the towering Rockies in the West and splendid Vancouver on the West Coast truly convey the beauty of the country in all seasons of the year.
Expressive faces also flow across the buildings revealing the many cultures and peoples that have melded to form this very admirable northern neighbor of ours: First Nation Peoples (Indians), the Inuit (Eskimos), Europeans of French, English, Scotch, Irish, German ethnicity, and more recent citizens from the Caribbean Islands, Asia (particularly Hong Kong Chinese), and Indians from the subcontinent. All these different peoples make for a truly diverse citizenry.
The marvelous cinema continues running across the structural faces of the buildings in mimicry of the equally varied world of animals in this country. Grizzlies lumber across the screen in scenes from Alberta and British Columbia. Elk, deer, wolverines, wolves, moose, and coyotes follow. Then the superb polar bears of Hudson Bay country appear and fill the “screen” along with the other marine mammals like walrus, seals and whales. Canada is a beautiful country and this “sound and light” show clearly and effectively reveals its many wonders under a starry sky with balmy breezes playing around among the folks looking raptlyat the Parliament Building “clad in majesty”!
The East and West Blocks of the Parliamentary complex on Parliament Hill are matching structures that complete a fine governmental trio; it’ll be a quartet again with the rebirth of the newly improved Library. The lawns contain statuary pertinent to Canadian history, some of it pretty pedestrian (like the horseback riding Elizabeth II which does not look at all like her at 7 any age in her life so far) and some of it droll and inventive (the likenesses of Canada’s suffragettes known to all Canadians as the “Famous Five, in naturalistic poses such as drinking tea, talking with each other, speaking fervently). Why did it take so long for Canadian women to get the vote? Because first they had to convince the British Colonial Office thatwomenwere actually “persons.” No kidding!
CatSanctuary
The most touching area of the grounds was the Cat Sanctuary, tucked in a small, forested area at the rear of the West Block building. There we found living cats, not statues, occupying cozy concrete houses which are modeled on English cottages. There are stands for feeding stations and perches for observing the passing scene. These felines are free to roam the Parliament Hill environs and all are friendly. Interestingly, many of these multicolored cats are multi-toed as well; all have been vaccinated and neutered so the only way the population expands is by immigration of new strays into the compound. This haven has been run by Ottawa residents since World War II and is entirely funded by private donations. Needless to say, we added to the “alms box” that was conveniently located for tourist gifts. Huge black squirrels and outsized seagulls cohabit with the cats in apparent unconcern and very “unhuman” toleration for differences.
Another mystery we discovered in Ottawa centered on the human “strays” who wandered about on Rideau Street which runs right past Parliament Hill. Our B & B was located only two blocks east and two blocks south of the government buildings, but it might as well have been in another city entirely. The neighborhood certainly doesn’t qualify as squalid, but it’s heading that way. The young people looked lost and disaffected and the older ones seemed like tramps or folks with mental troubles. There was much sleeping under overpasses, beneath bridges, below elevated walkways. The dress of the young was like left over 60s clothing and the attire of the older folks was dumpster dirty and tattered. The kids had spiked and wildly colored locks as well as body–wide piercings. The older folks had
Lost Souls
straggly, filthy beards and matted hair. It seemed strange and even a little threatening to walk among these people who were mostly alcohol drunk or drug high. Canada must be another tolerant society because we saw policemen pass these folks on the street and not even seem to notice them.
Perhaps there is major unemployment in Canada for young people or perhaps these folks were just dropouts from society as their elders appeared to be. The mystery for us was what happens to these outdoor residents when Ottawa winter sets in. It is hard to believe that they could survive the long and very cold conditions. And there is no Florida for these Canadians to head for when the wintry blasts begin. All in all, it was a sad scene in a capital city of a modern country. However, we were not “judging” Canada by this unhappy spectacle because we would find it in our cities as well, including the direst poverty and awful conditions in Washington, D. C. However, there is not the constant juxtaposition of public grandeur inbuildingsandpersonaldegradationinthe people.
Rideau Canal
The picturesque Rideau Canal runs through the city and offers a linear public park as well as water recreation in the summer and then it really comes to life when the waters freeze and it becomes a many miles long skating rink. Originally built to facilitate commerce between Ottawa and the town of Kingston in the mid nineteenth century, it has always been a beauty spot for the city as it washes through lakes, ponds and rivers connecting them all into one continuous stream. The Ottawa River is one that flows into the canal and keeps the waters fresh, clean and moving. Many fancy restaurants sit on its banks as well as art galleries, theatres, museums and fancyhomes.
Weather
The weather while we were in Ottawa was truly spectacular: brilliant blue skies, crisp temperatures, and fresh air. We were thus inspired to take an ominous sounding city tour with a company called “Lady Dive” (we felt like we were already living among the “dive” portion the city), plus since this was also a water exploration of the city, that connotation of the word “dive” didn’t sound too comforting either. The huge bus like vehicle was also amphibious and after touring us about the town pointing out the various sights, the driver took us right down a boat slip and we floated on the Ottawa River seeing the city from the water. An interesting concept though the vehicle seemed a little top-heavy to us and it swayed a bit though there were no waves. We weren’t too happy on the water portion of the tour. However, we were given a pretty complete look at the Ottawa attractions and we did learn where we wanted to explore more completely.
Our first walk was to Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica; this largest church in the city was built in l841. The contrast between the rather severe exterior and the completely rococo interior was astonishing.
Outside, the church is Gothic with twin spires sheathed in silver but the façade is statue-free except for a large depiction of Mary and the Baby Jesus over the front entrance. The gray stones are uniform in color and rather dull, offering no hint of the resplendent decorations of the nave and apse.
There, colors run riot, statuary is everywhere, paintings fill the walls, stonework is elaborate in the extreme, and the vaulted painted ceiling ranges over all this grandeur in a likeness of the night sky with starry, starry points of light. We did not get an organ concert here, but the pipes are a wonderfully integral part of the adornments of the church building.
Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica
The Byward market
This was also a “happening” place though it is was very reminiscent of other such sections in other cities like the Slave Market section of Charleston. There were many inviting restaurants and bakeries with seductive odors emanating from their open doors, myriad little boutiques selling clothes only teenagers can wear, tourist traps with tiny replicas of bears, Royal Mounties on horseback, the Big Ben-like clock tower, and maple leaves tricked out as key chains, figurines, tie tacks and earrings, old book stores and bars. Funky but lively and enjoyable walking route.
National Gallery of Canada
The next place that called to us was the magnificent National Gallery of Canada, designed by the architect of the controversial Louvre addition in Paris. However, there is no reason to criticize his creation here because it is a totally new museum entailing no need to integrate the design with something old, famous and beautiful.
This museum is a glass structure with 4 towers at the corners of his fortress-like design. The glass walls are designed to capture the reflections of Parliament Hill structures across the river and Notre Dame Cathedral across the street. The result is a constantly changing façade as the light plays with the colors and shapes of these buildings, not to mention the trees and plants surrounding the structure like a moat
Outside the entrance to the museum stands an amazing 30 ft. high, 15 ft. across steel statue of a spider carrying an egg case of stones, created by Louise Bourgeois, and entitled “Mother.”
We were happy to see an excellent traveling exhibit of Renaissance paintings while there as well as a fascinating display of British drawings. However, the biggest attraction here is the wonderful museum building itself, sparkling and flashing in the sunlight.
We had come to Ottawa two days before the start of the escorted tour in order to take in the sights. During that time, we stayed two nights in a Gasthaus B & B were none too enjoyable since we had been mistakenly assigned a room with a double bed and there was no way to change the room once we had arrived. The bed was really a broken back piece of furniture too. And it insured that we awoke with backaches ourselves. The air conditioning was minimal and, surprisingly enough, after a breezy and cool day, the nights were warm in the B & B.
Watching the coverage of the horrible aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans was also so dispiriting that our nights there were certainly uneasy and uncomfortable. However, the hosts at the B & B made up for the sleepless nights by serving amazing breakfasts with all sorts and varieties of delicious Swiss things to eat.
Fairmont Chateau Laurier
Our transfer to the impressive Fairmont Chateau Laurier was a welcome change. The chateau is a vintage hotel built by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company at the same time it was constructing the Banff Springs Hotel and Chateau Lake Louise. It’s a stone replica of aFrench country chateau and opened in 1912. The hotel has been in continuous operation since then and caters to government officials and celebrities as well as tourists in its perfect location at the foot of Parliament Hill. It’s a mystery why our tour company housed all of us here for the night before our charter flight to Greenland. It must have been pretty pricey with all its history and magnificence. However, we certainly did enjoy the amenities and the comfortable and spacious rooms. Our two double beds, comfy chairs, a sofa and lots of lights dramatized our move “uptown.” The halls of the Chateau Laurier were wider than our room at the B & B! Our welcome meeting was hosted in one of the grand reception room but it was a stand-around mixer.
THETRIPBEGINS
Then came the bad news! We had to be up at 4 AM to ready ourselves for our early morning charter flight to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. The flight unloaded supplies at Inaquit in the new Nunavut province of Canada before continuing on to our destination an airport facility built by the USA in l941 as a staging area for bombing raids in Europe.
Greenland was characterized then as an island aircraft carrier. We used the facility as part of the DEW line defenses during the Cold War and then in 1991 gave it over to Greenland for a single US dollar. It is now one of the three airport facilities on the island capable of handling big jets. The other two are also legacies of the USA war machine in WWII.
The installation looks like a big military base with many outlying buildings used as barracks, mess halls, hospital and clinics, recreational arenas for sports and swimming (indoors), hangars, maintenance sheds, power stations, and officers quarters all built on glacial till (just very finely ground sand) with no vegetation around.
Up on top of the hills surrounding this shoreline facility, there are low tundra plants with some arctic flowers still blooming. Since the Raven Hills were heavily glaciated, there are also enormous granite slabs scattered over their tops shining with glacial “polish” (when the granite is rasped down by the moving ice of glaciers, it becomes smooth and glistening). Further evidence of the glaciers is easily seen in the many glacial “erratics” strewn over the landscape (those huge boulders that only something as strong as a glacier could have moved to these resting places). It is very bleak looking here, but not unlike all the other cold-weather military bases we have seen in the Arctic and Antarctic!
Now the real trip was going to begin! Remember, we still thought we would be seeing lots of wildlife and were eager to get started with the advertised “musk ox safari.” The result of that van ride is already on record so I won’t go into our disappointment any further. So, we will forget wildlife, and get on with the enigmatic histories we encountered on our “cultural- historical” expedition. However, we did achieve a notable goal at Kangerlussuaq: we were 60 miles above the Arctic Circle, the northernmost point in Greenland we would attain.
Spy Ship Mystery
After our brief tour of Kangerlussuaq on the Sondre Stromefjord (third longest fjord in the world), we boarded our expedition ship, the Akademik Ioffe. Here again was a mystery a double one actually. Our brochure had described our ship as the Peregrine Mariner, so why were we boarding this Russian ship? This ship has been recently modified so that it can handle tourists but it was obviously not built as one of the “fun ships.”
It turned out that the Peregrine Mariner is really a Russian “scientific ship” built for seabed surveillance during the Cold War. We were told that Its true function, working in tandem with its exact replica sister ship, was spying on our nuclear submarines beneath the Arctic Ocean. The two ships would home in on submarine “noise” in order to establish the exact positions of our subs.
Now it is owned by a Russian scientific institute and leased for tourist work to Australia’s oldest ecotourism company Peregrine Journeys. During the repositioning tours, the Russian scientists come aboard and conduct their researches mapping the ocean floor, checking for undersea minerals, analyzing columns of seawater at various depths. The equipment on board, the maneuverability of the ship, its unique stabilization system, and super- sophisticated sound gathering and creating systems make it a very unusual but
quite comfortable ship for expedition touring. According to the crew, the acoustical equipment has not been used in more than 10 years.
The ship is a 6,600-ton vessel capable of achieving speeds of 13.5 knots. It is vibrationless and runs exceptionally quietly (of course, the spy-work demanded that the ship’s own engine noises not interfere with collecting sonar readings from our ships plus the crew did not want to betray their position to the US spy ships operating in the same waters). It has 4 decks of cabins and even up high on deck 6 where we stayed the stability of the ship is truly astounding. The stabilization system is unique to this ship and her sister. It consists of moving water through many 8-inch pipes running from prow to stern and from port to starboard in answer to the sea’s own tides, currents, waves, and swells. A computer system analyzes the wave and swell patterns and sends the water rushing through the pipes accordingly to compensate for the direction and strength of these wave actions. It creates a remarkably stable platform for scientific experiments as well as for seasick prone tourists (hardly anyone was ever even queasy on this ship during our voyage).
Ship Accommodations
The cabins were not plush but they were comfortable and large enough to accommodate two beds, a desk, a love seat, and plenty of closets as well as our large private bath area. The “presentation room” where our lectures were held was on the first deck while we occupied the sixth and there was a seventh deck open to the sky for 360 degree sightseeing.
The dining room and bar/lounge were on the third deck, and the Library on the fifth. It is easy to see why we didn’t gain any weight on this expedition despite three large meals and afternoon snacks daily we were constantly running up and down many flights of stairs every day. We never took the elevator even once. And the exercise worked for us! Those Russian scientists must be very fit indeed. The “mud room” where we changed into our Zodiac gear boots, rain suits and life jackets, was on the 3rd deck as well and it contained the amazing acoustic equipment that was so intriguing. The equipment is at least 4 feet in diameter and reaches from the very keel of the ship (there is an opening into the sea called the “moon lake” there so the sensors can be lowered into the ocean) all the way to Deck 7 where it extends at least 50 ft. into the sky. There are steel pipes running all the way up and down the structure and in the “mud room” are huge toothed steel “feet” to roll the equipment into other positions. They extended nearly completely across the floor so that trips to and from the “mud room” for us meant being careful to step over these installations to avoid “tripping.”
They rose about 4 inches above the floor, so a misstep was easy. This is the “spy stuff” that tracked the nuclear subs. Maybe that mystery is now solved? Presumably they don’t need it any more at least not against the USA?
The Mystery of "Who's in Charge Here?"
The management and ownership issues on this trip created some of the disorganization we experienced during this expedition. There were too many levels of authority among the Russian crew and officers, the Peregrine Journeys staff, and the High Country Passage staff (working with the representatives of the special interest groups on board World Wildlife Fund, Smithsonian Journeys, and two university alumni groups). Strangely enough, this potential difficulty had apparently not been addressed prior to our boarding. So the journey was operating under three totally unrelated management companies. Of course, the Russian Captain and his officers were indisputably in charge of the ship itself: operations, safety, housekeeping, dining room staff, and itinerary as influenced by sea and weather conditions. Peregrine Journeys provided the expedition leader, the chefs, hotel management, zodiac drivers, and two naturalists. High Country Passage had contracted with independent travelers, WWF, SJ, and the two alumni organizations to arrange the trip through Peregrine Journeys. HCP staff included a tour director and the photographer and had made arrangements through the special interest groups on board to provide three more speakers, an historian, an archeologist and an ethnographer. So you don’t have to be a Russian spy to see the many potentials for conflict, for disorganization, and for lots of fissures through which important things could fall!
The other unavoidable complication was that our cruise was the last of the season for the Russians and for the Peregrine Journeys personnel. Needless to say, all these folks were looking forward to getting home and beginning their vacations. To say that they were “over” the whole thing is an understatement. But, hey, one trip of the season is always going to be the last one, isn’t it? Too bad, those two groups could not hide their eagerness for “making an end” and they also did not disguise their “don’t really give a darn” attitude about our satisfaction! Until the last two days of the trip, they were as uninvolved as they could be and still be said to function; they just went through the motions reluctantly. During the last two days when they could see that we would be soon off their ship, they perked up and were all smiles and all helpfulness. Could it be that they woke up and realized that it would soon be “tip” time and they hadn’t done much to earn one?
Some of the objective consequences of this disjuncture in authority lines were most annoying. Often announcements were confusing, contradictory or absent altogether, resulting in mass mad dashes to the mudroom for clothes changing resulting in unnecessary lines. If the tour director and the Expedition Leader had worked together, an organized pattern of zodiac boarding would have been arranged quite simply for instance by deck or by activity interest on land. If they had communicated well, then one of
them could have assumed responsibility for all announcements of that variety so that they were complete and clear. Once we were ashore with staff from Peregrine and HCP, we often faced contradictory instructions regarding important stuff, like when the last zodiac would leave shore for the ship. The Captain ran a very tight schedule due to his obvious devotion to conserving fuel; because it took half an hour to power up the ship, he wanted to know precisely when all passengers would be back on board so he could have the ship ready to sail immediately. The Russians and Peregrine were completely unconcerned about our intense curiosity over what was going on in the USA in Katrina’s aftermath and absolutely no help was given in producing any news that could be distributed among the passengers. The really frustrating thing to most of us was that when a few marine mammals were spotted from the Bridge or by the naturalists, seldom were any general announcements made so that anyone interested could rush on deck to look and take pictures. These were only annoyances to be sure, but they were exasperating to many of us.
Subjective consequences included the voiced dissatisfactions of many travelers so that there was often an undercurrent of griping and complaining that exacerbated our real disappointment in the lack of wildlife viewing opportunities. However, I never saw any passenger be anything but courteous and friendly to all staff members of whatever organization. One of the worst examples of the “couldn’t care less” attitude occurred when one of the alumni groups wanted to arrange a small afternoon cocktail party for his group in the ship’s library. He asked in plenty of time through the Tour Director who asked the Expedition Leader to implement the necessary arrangements. The Hotel Manager who was under the supervision of the Expedition Leader told the Tour Director that he didn’t have time because he wanted to go topside to view some fin whales who were swimming around the ship!
He obviously knew there would be no consequences to his outrageous behavior and didn’t care what the passengers would think. So the Tour Director and her husband (the photographer) scurried about and tried to physically arrange the library in an appropriate manner and pleaded with one of the three chefs on board to help with the refreshments. That person did come up with some minimal “munchies” but no other help. Such was the spirit of cooperation among the three staffs running the ship and the trip! Thus, we learned that a trip at the end of the season is not the best choice and a ship being run by three levels of management is also not going to produce the happiest results.
However, I must add that our fellow passengers on this trip were mostly very experienced travelers and they quickly made the best of things. After our first disappointments in the lack of wildlife, the disorganization, and the lack of interest in our satisfaction were digested, we all, without consultation, began to make the most of what was there. There
was excellent attendance at the lectures by all staff members; there was conviviality at mealtimes and in the bar/lounge; there were compliments to the chefs, cooks, and wait staff. Almost everyone went on every zodiac landing and everyone adhered to the schedule of landings and reboardings as closely as possible. We did not disappoint our fuel-conserving captain on that score ever.
Most folks were always enthusiastic and grateful when any staff members made any extra efforts on our behalf.
And the important thing to stress is that there were many wonderful aspects of this voyage! The opportunity to see Greenland with its spectacular scenery and its friendly people was worth whatever inconveniences we experienced. The magnificent fjords with their daunting surrounding mountains, the great ice cap which loomed at the horizon of almost every view like a floating cloud just above the land, the mighty glaciers with their surreal blues and their fractured surfaces and rifle-crack calving sounds, the absolutely unexpected “greenness” of this largest of all islands, the puzzling and fascinating human history of this Danish protectorate, the quaintness and color palettes of the several charming towns and cities we visited, and the welcoming smiles of the Greenlanders themselves made our expedition to their culturally unique land a happy, educational and thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Furthermore, Labrador and Newfoundland were worthy goals as well. In these two Canadian Maritime Provinces we learned about human histories with which we were previously totally unfamiliar. We saw different panoramas of scenery, which were equally breathtaking and picture-demanding. The people of these two provinces were also warm and friendly, though surprised to see us at this particular time of year late for most tourist trips. Once we had adjusted our expectations, I am sure that the big majority of the passengers would count this trip a big success!
VIKINGMYSTERIES
Did Leif Ericsson really discover America? Before Christopher Columbus found it? Was his father Eric the Red a murderer and a liar to boot? Did he deliberately mislead his countrymen into a disastrous emigration to Iceland and Greenland? Did the Vikings really dress like those marauders on the Capital One advertisements on TV right now? You know, with those horned helmets? Where do historians get their answers to these questions and others about these Norsemen?
Well, this voyage turned out to be much more concerned with providing possible answers to those mysteries than it was to facilitating wildlife photography and bird watching. So we decided that we might as well relax into learning something pretty fascinating. And indeed
18
it did turn into some very interesting lectures, haunting and evocative visits to old Viking sites in Greenland, and real disappointment when we were unable to land on an important spot in Newfoundland! But, let me tell you, we did turn our attitudes around and thoroughly enjoyedthis cultural, historical and scenic trip!
25 Several fellow passengers besides Kay and I had started their Viking studies in Norway, Sweden, and Iceland during several different journeys. For all of us, this trip would complete that arc of exploration in a very satisfying way, even though that is not what Kay & I were expecting. So I have to go back a little and mention just briefly recall what we had learnedabout Vikings in three previous trips to their homelands.
The Vasa
In Sweden several years ago, we had visited the Vasa, the marvelous Viking ship that had been raised from the seabed and placed on display in a singular museum. The exhibit was particularly interesting because the ship had to be kept constantly wet to prevent its deterioration in the air.
Therefore, it sparkled as the waters ran over it and it intrigued the onlooker with its beautiful lines and its excellent preservation after spending so much time under the sea. Now that the preservation process has been completed, the ship no longer needs to be continuously bathed in running water, but I think some of the mystique has probably been lost.
The ship, commissioned by King Gustavus Adolphus in 1627, was the largest ship ever built up to that time, so huge it contained 64 bronze cannons weighing 100 tons in aggregate.
The mast was 190 ft. tall and the rudder was 30 ft. tall. The ship was one of four battle galleons commissioned by the king for his royal navy. It was splendidly decorated with carvings of lions, mythical beasts, gods, warriors, kings, and demons. It had an ignominious fate, however, sinking only 1 nautical mile from port in Stockholm on August 10, 1628, on its maiden voyage. A sudden squall came up and the ship listed badly to port, so much so that its gun ports, still open from the farewell firing of the cannons, shipped water rapidly and the ship sank in minutes according to contemporary records. The cannons were salvaged in 1663 but the ship herself lay in the frigid, fresh water of the Baltic Sea until she was rediscovered in 1956 and excavated. Because of the very low salinity of the water and because shipworms do not live in fresh water, the ship was in remarkably good condition. As a matter of fact, 95% of the Vasa on display is original.
Many of the items found on board, tools, jewelry, ammunition, household good, textiles,
crockery, have helped historians and archeologists piece together theories of how the Vikings of that late period lived. It was clear that their standard of living was high for the times and that King Adolphus kept his kingdom strong by patrolling the Baltic and raiding weaker peoples. Items found also suggested that the Viking were great assimilators of other people’s good ideas and inventions and borrowed them freely.
It is also clear that the Vikings controlled the areas now known as Sweden, Norway and Denmark from very early times, well before 832 A.D. when it is known that they began to colonize Iceland and the smaller islands like the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Faeroes. They also are known to have gone raiding the coasts of Britain, Ireland, and France during very early 26 years before the colonization of Iceland. The Vasa certainly is a great treasure for Viking enthusiasts, and we really had enjoyed our visit to its museum.
Viking Ship Museum
On a later trip, we visited Oslo and saw the three beautiful burial ships on display at the Viking Ship Museum. These ships were buried in mud and were exhumed between 1880 and 1904. They are much older than the Vasa, dating from 834 A.D. by carbon dating methods. These ships are real works of art with their very narrow keels and their elegant sweeping curvilinear construction with their very high prows. Again, much of interest to history was found in these ships that had been packed with items for the dead to have with them when the ship carried them to the “other world.” These ships added to the knowledge of everyday Viking life and a life-size model of one of the ships was created in the 1970s and sailed from Norway to Newfoundland to prove that the Vikings could have made the trip in 1000 A.D. as the proponents of the Norse discovery of America have maintained.
Looking at those graceful, slender ships appearing so fragile in their curved majesty, it was discomfiting to imagine myself on a voyage with the Vikings. One morning on this trip, I awoke to see nothing but thick fog around the Ioffe. Though the ocean below me was hidden from view, I could watch the fog fingering its way softly along the curves and angles of the ship. Suddenly, I felt transported to one of those open-decked Viking ships. How frightening it felt to hear the wind soughing in the sails, to feel the dampness of the cold mists on my face, to smell the salty air rising from the waves slopping against the frail hull, to see nothing but impenetrable clouds of fog coating the ship, to taste the ashes of fear my dry mouth. Lost on the vast sea with no fancy radar or GPS equipment, no radio to make a mayday call to a nearby ship. What stouthearted explorers and sailors those Norsemen were!
Iceland Connection
Our most important stimulus to our growing interest in Viking history came with our visit to Iceland. There in that island the Viking stories and history were finally written down in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries after having existed for hundreds of years in an oral tradition. It is from these sagas that we have learned the very most about the Viking peoples and their seafaring traditions. Two of these sagas are most important to the history of the Vikings in Greenland and America: “The Greenlanders” and “Eric the Red’s Saga.” There are also many sites in Iceland associated with the Vikings clearly described and located in the sagas. The Thingvellir (the first Parliament in the world) is a Viking invention and its location is a tourist attraction and a national treasure. There is some controversy still regarding whether or not Irish priests, women, and/or slaves were brought to Iceland by the Vikings to help in the colonization of the island, but there is no question about whether the Vikings themselves were the first settlers there. Since the Vikings had settlements in Ireland, however, and had been Christianized by the Irish priests, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to postulate that they brought Irish people with them. All that red hair and those blue eyes in current Icelandersmust have entered the gene pool somehow.
Eric The Red
We know from the sagas that Eric the Red was banished from Sweden because of allegations of a murder and other crimes committed by him there. He was supposed to stay away from Sweden for three years. Accordingly, he betook himself to Iceland where he settled for a few years, long enough, certainly, to get himself into more trouble there.
He must have been a violent man because he evidently committed another murder and was banished from Iceland as well. He took his family, including the young Leif Ericsson, to Greenland to live out his banishment. Eric died before he could return to either Iceland or Sweden. However, he sent back word to Iceland about the “wonders” of Greenland for a farming people like the Vikings and apparently many folk were persuaded to join him in creating colonies there. He had described how “green” and rich the soil was on the huge island and convinced the folks that a good life could be made there.
Historians know that it was not only Eric’s super salesmanship that drew other Vikings to join him in both Iceland and Greenland. Instead, it was the scarcity of available land in the Vikings’ home countries, too much royal regulation for independent-minded people and the wanderlust inherent in their culture. There is evidence that they had already been exploring in the eighth and ninth centuries. This same urge to explore would take Eric’s son
Leif to the shores of the North American Continent in 1000 A.D. where he would try to found a colony himself in what he called “Vinland.”
Nowadays, Greenland is variously described as a huge island iceberg floating in the North Atlantic, as an Arctic world of snow, ice, glaciers and rock, as a polar region of the world. No one thinks of it as a “green” place. Scientists use Greenland as a testing ground for the theories of global warming since the ice cap is thinning, the glaciers are retreating, and the pack ice is later, thinner and of shorter duration. Greenland is probably a metaphor for a refrigerator in most people’s minds. So we were certainly sure that Eric had been a rogue, liar and swindler, when he convinced fellow Vikings to join him in colonizing Greenland or infollowingafterwards to live inthe settlementsand populate Greenland.
What a complete surprise it was to find that Southwest Greenland where we visited and where Eric settled really is green! This part of Greenland, though the central island ice cap is right over the horizon, is actually temperate in climate, its seas are ice-free through the year and have been for recorded history, and short summer crops can be grown here. Actually, though the Vikings were farmers, their basic crop was livestock: cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and horses. This section of Greenland was quite amenable to their needs and their knowledge.
According to the Icelandic sagas, Eric landed in Greenland with his group of settlers in 932 A.D. and their villages thrived until at least 1408 when the last written record of their lives in Greenland was recorded in a Danish religious archive, detailing a marriage that had taken place in a village we visited (Gardar). At the time of the Viking’s arrival in Greenland, it was an unpopulated island. The ancestors of modern Inuit people living here did not arrive until 1200 A.D.
The Vikings were a trading and a seafaring people but they did not live off the sea as did the ancestors of today’s Greenlandic people (Inuit). The Vikings traded iron and their technology of ship building most often. They were also raiders of small settlements and monasteries within reach of their long ships. Once they were Christianized, they ceased raiding the religious properties and continued to harass defenseless or poorly defended towns and villages.
Why did they vanish?
The biggest mystery the Vikings left us is what happened to them in Greenland? Why did they just disappear from that part of the world? Their civilization had grown and expanded, churches and bishoprics were established (there are 17 excavated ruins of Christian churches in Greenland today), and they had continued their world explorations
from their base in Greenland. There are many theories but none of them has achieved universalacceptance among historians of their culture.
Most experts believe that it was a combination of factors that doomed their society in Greenland: climate change affecting the ability to farm and to raise their livestock, fierce combat with the Inuit peoples who began to move down into southwest Greenland, disease, trading failures with the outside world, soil exhaustion, and continual raiding by Basque and English pirates.
GREENLANDMYSTERIES
Iqaluit & Kangerlussuaq
We touched down in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, the new Canadian province controlled by the First Nation peoples. It is basically a collection of buildings surrounding the airport that is vital to supplying all the tiny villages and settlements in Nunavut. The buildings provide housing for the airport workers and their families (about 300 persons in all) and storage for products flown in prior to distribution. It is located on a bay of the Labrador Sea and was in bright sunshine when we touched down to offload the supplies and refuel for the flight to Greenland. The buildings are painted in bright colors, particularly yellows, because it makes them easier to locate during the winter months when snow covers everything.
Our first steps on Greenland soil were at Kangerlussuaq. Here is the main airport for Greenland, built by the United States Air Force in World War II and deeded to Greenland in l991. The former base now serves as housing for the airport workers and their families (about 250 people in all) and for the many scientists who come and go doing research on Arctic topics like the auroras, polar ice and the ozone layer.
The City of Nuuk
Nuuk, founded in 1728, is the capital and largest city in Greenland. There are about 15,000 inhabitants. Most of the residents are Greenlandic (Inuit), but Danes make up about 10% of the peoples and mixtures of the two peoples make up about 5% of the population.
The majority of the folks live in large apartment blocks and do not own their apartments. There are some apartments available for private ownership but these are very limited and the waiting list is very long.
Our guide has been on the list for 15 years and recently learned she is about 2-3 years away from finally getting her own place.
Nuuk is the center of government for this island which has been under Home Rule since 1979 so there are official buildings there. The world’s smallest university is also located in the former buildings of a church diocese: it offers four basic courses the ministry, information technology, Eskimology, and business administration.
There is a wonderful museum in the area with excellent exhibits explaining the Inuit history of Greenland; many items of domestic interest are on display as well as weapons, umiaks and kayaks, and most intriguingly 7 mummies from the 1400s discovered in excellent condition.
There are 5 women of varying ages and two children, one a baby and the other a toddler. We were fortunate enough to be greeted at the museum by the Greenlandic Minister of Culture. She is a tiny Inuit woman with a great determination to preserve her people’s
heritage and she is very aware that tourism dollars can help foster that aim.
Here is the wooden Lutheran Nuuk Cathedral or Church of Our Saviour - which was established in 1849.
The City of Paamiut
Founded in 1742 at head of another long fjord Kuannersooq it is now home to about 2100 people. Again, the large apartment blocks are the favored housing, or at least the available kind. It contains a lovely old wooden church (Evangelical Lutheran) built in 1909 (the Church of Peace) in the style we were to find typical all over Greenland: the church looks like a ship turned upside down with the hull and keel as the top parts.
There is usually a spire as well and the woodwork inside resembles interiors of ships too. The décor is usually blue and white and very simple. There is a small pipe organ in this church and the pastor played Bach for us, rather haltingly, and it sounded so strange in this Arctic place. This little town also boasts the largest concentration of white-tailed sea eagles in the world and they have been protecting the birds for years. We did see a pair fly over as we entered the harbor on our Zodiacs, but it was impossible to see any detail because the birds were flying against a bright white overcast sky.
The City of Narsaruaq
This little airport town is also the result of World War II the US Air Force having built the base and airfield to support the refueling of airplanes on their way to Europe. The base was given to Greenland in l951. It is from this airport that we took our helicopter ride to the glacier at the head of Eric’s Fjord.
Helicopter to the galciers
While in the area of Eric’s fjord (where Eric the Red’s original settlement lies), we decided to take a helicopter ride to visit the retreating glacier at the head of the fjord. It is an enormous river of ice, actually composed at its head, near where we landed, of five separate glaciers that have jostled and rumbled alongside each other for many miles until they have fused into a single entity close to the sea where it calves into the sea. This is a magnificent tidal glacier (meaning one that empties into the ocean as opposed to valley glaciers which bulldoze their way across the tilted landscape ending at its melt zone where a river then is formed or a mountain glacier which hangs in between peaks of mountain ranges or off the high slopes ofsingle mountains).
We flew from another World War II, USAF-built airport in a 40 year old Russian Sikorsky helicopter powered by twin GE engines. The helicopter does regular flights between Greenland cities and is available for flightseeing when not on its scheduled runs. It seats 25passengers and requires a crewof three: pilot, copilot, and stewardess.
She has an interesting array of duties: besides giving safety instructions in a voice so soft it really cannot be heard over the “wapeta, wapeta, wapeta” sound of the helicopter rotors and the growling roar of its engines, she also dispenses the refreshments (a basket of hard candies is passed among the passengers) and then when the copter lands, she jumps out to lower the steps.
When it is time to take off again, she is outside watching for any problems as the copter revs up and signaling to the pilot when things are in readiness. Then she bounds back into the copter and pulls of the gangway. She’s a busy girl for sure.
The flight was smooth and much quieter than take-off would have suggested. The great “grasshopper” lifts gravely and unhurriedly straight up off the ground and then moves forward tipped with the front of the fuselage down below the level of the tail rotor. Gradually the front comes up and the rest of the flight levels off. It’s difficult not to feel that a helicopter is suspended from some invisible string in the sky. Flying in one is a very different feeling from being inside an airplane, even a very small one. Perhaps it is the maneuverability of thecopter thatproduces the feeling of “hanging.”
The special advantage of helicopter flightseeing is the low levels at which it can fly, permitting wonderfully clear views of the earth so close below. For glacier glancing, this is really good because you cannot get on top of a tidal glacier’s “bergshrund” (the area where the ice breaks up and falls into the sea) since it is a chaos of deep crevasses, craggy seracs (ice towers) and melt water pools atop the river of ice. The bergshrund area is usually very large, measuring in miles in some cases, because the breakup begins as the ice tears over ground that is falling away under it. As we hovered over the impossible surface, blues of every hue winked up out of the depths and flared out of the towers. It was an awesome sight. The blue of the escaping spectrum and the bright white of the ice produce a frigid picture of pristine beauty and yet menacing danger.
Our pilot landed us on a stretch of tundra right at the glacier’s head. The tundra plants were already tinged with autumn colors and the ground looked like a grandmother’s best quilt whose pattern was interrupted here and there by gray rock pillows on the featherbed of earth. Above the small plain on which we stood, the mountains created rocky ledges and shelves for plants to perch.
Amid the ochers, reds and yellows, a bright green moss patch would suddenly gleam out. Nature was so prodigious in her gifts of beauty here that it was hard to stay focused on the glacier.
However, those rifle reports would quickly command your attention; but by then it was usually too late to see the calving. Most of the bergie bits we saw after they had plunged into the water and floated back up because the calving was going on across the large fjord from where we stood.
As we flew back from this marvelous experience, the pilot took us straight down the fjord and now we could see the ice pack covering the water in tile-like shapes, some huge, some quite small, creating a mosaic “flooring” floating on the surface of the sea from one side of the fjord to the other. All that ice had been part of the glacier just hours or even minutes before. The waters of the fjord were a creamy white because of the silt suspended in them. The mountains rose around the fjord probably 250 – 300 meters high and they were covered with carpets of tundra plants but no trees. They reached raggedly up into the rising mists which were finally retreating after a morning of very low cloud cover. No sign of people or animals, other than the flitting of small birds, was seen in this huge expanse of stony mountains, multicolored valleys, mighty tidal glacier and shimmering rolling sea. What a masterful artist Mother Nature can be when she chooses to create something beautiful and unique!
ERICTHERED’SSETTLEMENT
Across the fjord from the heliport is Eric's original settlement. His name for his settlement was Brattahlid and today it is called Qassiarsuk. There were probably between 3,000 and 5,000 Vikings living there in Eric’s time. Since 1924, an extended Danish family has lived in the site and raised sheep.
A silvery-gold light picked out details of the stony faces above the water which was greenish gray because of the considerable amount of glacial silt in suspension. The rocks were craggy and scraped by a glacier, a remnant of which we would see by helicopter before exploring the farms that now occupy Eric’s settlement.
An extended family now lives on the site the sagas identify as Eric’s and there are several houses, barns, a school, church, and other public buildings on the place. The grasses were deep, damp and lushly green against the stony ground.
Brattahilde’s Church
The remains of the church, which Eric’s wife, Brattahilde had requested to be built, consist solely of a foundation in the shape described in the sagas Brattahilde’s church a squared off horseshoe shape. Excavation has also revealed the foundations and stone floor of a long house and a barn structure where the animals were penned.
A model of the church has been built near the original, as has a model of the long house. Both structures are turf houses with wood used only for the front doors and surrounding jambs and some interior supports for the turf roofs. Inside both buildings are benches and accessories believed to be authentic. The church is very tiny, really only large enough for about 8-10 people to occupy at any one time.
On the left – Outside looking in. On the right – the tiny interior and alter
The Long House
The long house has a fireplace for warmth and a private bedroom for Eric and his wife. Such houses would have been typical for other Viking families who joined Eric. We felt the spell of history as we stood where, one thousand years ago, Eric and his family had lived their lives, and left their legacy for the next generations. And then, suddenly and without explanation, the whole enterprise had vanished from the earth. But the mountains, glaciers and the fjord, the earth beneath our feet and the sky above had been witnesses to all that Viking history and had felt the searching eyes of Eric himself as he sought suitable ground for his people to farm and colonize.
Eric the Red Statue above the Town
The City of Narsaq
This is a comparatively new town, having been founded in 1959, with the birth of the northern shrimp fishing industry. 1700 hundred people live here and work in the fishery or the shipping company. Others raise sheep. The housing is more modern in that the apartment blocks are much smaller and there are actually several private single-family homes. As is usual here, the population is predominantly Greenlandic with about 10% Danes and the rest mixtures of the two. One of the area’s most interesting products is a mineral called “tuglupite” found only here. When dug up, the stone is pale pink but when it is exposed to sunlight or heat it turns deep red. Quite pretty really.
Narsaq church was designed by master carpenter Pavia Høegh in 1927 and refurbished and expanded in 1981.
Photos taken around town
Photos from the local museum
The Hike to Gardar (Igaliku)
One afternoon we took a 4-mile hike across a slender peninsula between two deeply carved fjords to visit the old Norse settlement of Gardar. People live there today and call their town Igaliku. The hike was very exhilarating because the weather was bracingly cool, the path was the Old Kings Road (used since Viking times for travel between two villages because it cut the travel distance considerably over going by ship up one fjord and down the other), the scenery really grand, and the sense of history deep and rewarding.
Gardar was a bishop’s seat during Viking times and the ruins of his church and some other buildings are still there to see. As in Eric’s settlement, the “ruins” are really just foundations of structures. But in their settings and with the evidence of their Viking existence present in the sagas, they are very impressive and satisfying to see.
Igaliku today has about 300 inhabitants, chiefly of Inuit heritage, who live primarily off the sea. The very small Danish population of Greenland in general and this little village in particular is not of Viking origin. Rather, they are modern Danish immigrants who have chosen to live in this Danish protectorate.
View from the ridge above the town
Our guides in both Eric’s settlement and Gardar pointed out that the Inuit peoples and the Vikings lived in the same parts of the island but at different times in a sort of braided pattern the Inuit peoples were there first, then the Vikings, and then the Inuit again. What is interesting about the archeological evidence in these places (obviously the best of the very few good places to live in Greenland) is where the Vikings and the Inuit chose to place their settlements.
The Vikings, though seafaring folk, placed their houses up away from the shore, on shelves of land, almost with their backs to the sea, looking in the direction of their food source, farm and pasture land. The Inuit who depended on the sea for their food, clothing, and shelter put their villages close to the shore, facing their “larder”, the ocean and its fjords. The result is that when archeologists dig in Norse sites, they find little or no evidence of the Inuit and when they excavate Inuit sites, there is little or nothing of Viking origin.
Igaliku, with both Viking and Inuit history in its borders, is charming and colorful. The homes are painted in bright colors and they sit in swaths of green grasses. There are animals living here: horses (the Icelandic breed), cows, and dogs in particular. There is an early twentieth century Lutheran church building, a school, and an activity center. We saw nothing that we could construe as a medical facility, but we realized that Narsarsuaq with its airport and resident 25-seater helicopter is just over a couple of fjords from Igaliku. Life must be fairlysimple here, as isolated as the people are from other communities
NEWFOUNDLAND MYSTERIES
Leif Ericsson's Mysteries
The Icelandic Saga, “The Greenlanders”,” contains the information regarding Leif Ericsson’s voyages to the North American continent from Greenland. It is generally agreed that he discovered the island of Newfoundland in 1000 A.D., almost 500 years before Columbus “sailed the ocean blue” and discovered some Caribbean Islands inhabited by peoples he mistakenly called “Indians.” One of the most convincing archeological digs for the Norse discovery lies at a place called “L’Anse Aux Meadows” on the north coast of Newfoundland. It has been extensively excavated and many artifacts that are unmistakably of Norse origin have been unearthed there. The archeologists are consistent in their belief that this settlement was ill fated. Most believe it lasted only a few years, though why it failed is not clear. Of course there are the usual suspects: harsher weather than expected, hostility from Native Americans, disease, and homesickness for Greenland. Whether or not this is the actual site of Leif’s first landing in North America is subject to much discussion still.
We were scheduled to land by zodiacs at this important and intriguing place but wind, sea and weather kept us from that adventure. We had fog and mist, sizeable sea swells, and gusty winds to contend with and the Captain and Expedition Leader determined that the landing was unsafe.
So we had to be content with lectures on the subject and a film about the married archeologists who were most determined that L’Anse aux Meadows is indeed Leif’s landing 60 site. Even the name given the area in the sagas (“Vinland”) doesn’t answer the question since the word itself is subject to several interpretations that can be reasonably argued. The most popular two are “land of the grapes” and “grassy meadowlands.” It has been established by paleobotanists that grapes grew no further north than New Brunswick in 1000 A.D., so it is not really believable that Leif found grapes growing in Newfoundland. However, that doesn’t really settle the question for two reasons: 1) Leif could have had his father’s propensity to exaggeration and may have wanted to persuade his fellow Greenlanders to move further West in search of more land; and 2) since it is agreed that the Norseman also went ashore in North American parts more southern than Newfoundland, they could have just named the whole land mass they had explored “Vinland” since grapes were a prized product and their presence would make the discovery more important. The “grassy meadow or field” theory could also be an exaggeration, either deliberate or due to enthusiasm at seeing greenery in such barren and bleak rocky isolation.
Even the controversial map of “Vinland” discovered in the 1950s and now considered a forgery does not really provide a definitive answer about where Leif and his sailors actually landed and settled in North America. The map has been studied by scientific methods including carbon dating, ink analysis, language and script analysis over the years since its discovery and there is still controversy about its authenticity as a medieval representation of the known world based on Viking explorations. Nothing suggesting a Norse settlement has yet been found in areas south of Newfoundland and that is probably explained by the fact that hostile American Indians inhabited these areas and would have been most likely to drive the Norse away as ferociously as possible.
At any rate, with or without a visit to L’Anse aux Meadows,” we were certainly convinced that the Norsemen really did discover the North American continent before Columbus was even born! Obviously now, our country’s many tributes to Columbus through place names, holidays, songs, poems and stories are incorrect we should be honoring Leif Ericsson and his fellow Norsemen. Maybe the hemispheres of the Americas should really be called North Vinlandia and South Vinlandia, or Leif’s Land, North and South, or Norseland? What do you think? Columbus was no doubt an intrepid explorer but he has been honored way beyond his true desserts!
What Viking Legacies?
Were the Vikings cruel and relentless warriors in horned helmets brutalizing everybody in their way? There is no question about their ruthlessness and their ability to wage wars successfully in pursuit of trade, land and security. They were superb sailors with a very advanced technology in shipbuilding. According to the sagas, they could be cruel when defied or met with resistance, but relatively civil when their targets did not resist them.
But did they wear those helmets, a la Wagnerian opera, Hagar the Horrible in the funnies, or Kirk Douglas in the movies? Most respectable historians are very quick to deny that aspect of Viking life and costume. They believe that the horned helmet is an invention of nineteenth century people who found the Vikings romantic and conflated them with German mythological warriors and kings.
Vikings indeed left the world with many legacies, not least of which are Danelaw (which early English peoples used as a basis for their own common law), many vocabulary items in English, French and Icelandic tongues, and a definite footprint in North America! It is fairly well accepted that Leif Ericsson did “discover” the North American continent, if you discount the fact that Siberians had crossed the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years before 1000 A.D. and found North America themselves as well as South America afterwards! Whatever, the Vikings were an amazing people and put the stamp of their culture all over the European world as well as in North America! For those reasons, they are worthy of study and appreciation.
Inuit Mysteries
The Inuit are the peoples we might call Eskimos (they call themselves Greenlandic people) who appeared in Greenland in at least three waves of migration from Siberia, Alaska and Canada at varying times in history and even pre-history. The three most common migrations were labeled Saqqaq, Dorset and Thule and they arrived in that order. They are separated from each other due to the differences in their cultures as interpreted from their tools, weapons, toys, pottery, and houses. There may have been an overlap between the Inuit of the Thule period and the Vikings of about 50-100 years but it did not produce any evidence of cross-fertilizations of cultures. It is probable that the meetings were hostile and that the two groups avoided each other as much as possible. It is presumed that when the Thule people advanced into Southwest Greenland at the end of the Viking period and discovered the Europeans living there, they retreated back up the West Coast higher into the arctic rather than engage in prolonged conflict.
War between the Thules & the Vikings is not postulated as a possible cause of the disappearance of the Vikings from their Greenland settlements. And when the Viking culture vanished from Greenland, the Inuit began to expand their settlements all over the island.
Scientists believe that the Saqqaq migrated into Greenland from 2500 to 800 B.C. These folks did not survive over the centuries. Artifacts have been found that are identified as having been produced by these peoples. Dorset peoples probably arrived from the Canadian Arctic from 700 B.C. to 200 A.D. and they were oriented towards living off the sea, fishing and hunting. Artifacts giving evidence of their culture have also been excavated in Greenland and it is believed that they survived much longer than the Saqqaq. Thule people arrived in Greenland in more modern times probably only thousand or so years before they ran into the Vikings in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Anthropologists believe that the Thule peoples are the ancestors of today’s Greenlandic people. It is truly amazing to consider that today the heirs of the Thule culture number only 56,000. The Arctic is a harsh and difficult environment to inhabit and it does not sustain large numbers of any kind of animal including human beings and it never has.
When imagining the conditions that the Inuit have endured and overcome, it is impossible not to admire their resilience, their inventiveness, and their courage. One day we were treated to a kayak demonstration by two residents of Narsaq a 27-year-old woman and a 61-yearold man.
They paddled out from the harbor to our ship anchored a considerable distance away and we watched the patient rhythm of their strokes as they knifed their way through the water. Their kayaks were made of driftwood (remember, there are no trees in Greenland) and are much narrower than our styles. Not only that, they ride much lower in the water, much less freeboard to rely on. They do have the skirts to prevent swamping, but theirs are made of animal skins rather than synthetics. Their oars are much different in that the paddle faces are quite narrow. But what they can do in those craft!
Their primary purpose was to demonstrate their “rolls” when the kayak capsizes for any reason. They must have shown us 15 or 20 different kinds. They learn how to right the boats from any position their bodies might have adopted before the turnover. Since they hunt from the kayaks, they must be able to recover from many stances, such as hurling a harpoon or dragging in the prey or gaffing a fish. Each of these requires a different style roll too.
However, each of the recoveries ended with the kayaker lying backwards on the deck of the craft. From that position, he/she would sit up carefully to resume paddling immediately. When the kayakers from our ship showed the Inuit how we are taught to perform an “Eskimo” roll, they found our method uproariously funny.
Imagine these intrepid hunters out in the thick fogs that often hug the coasts of Greenland venturing out in these treacherous seas to hunt for his food. No option to stay on shore if the day looked “iffy” not if he wanted to feed his family and himself. So out he paddled in that frail craft created from driftwood, bones and animal sinews. How did he find his way in this blindness? How did he locate the prey? What music in his heart sang him home when he turned back? The Vikings were not the only brave and inventive sailors in these parts.
Though the ancestors of the Inuit arrived in at 3-4 separate waves of migration, they were probably essentially the same peoples. It has only been since the 1900s that the Greenlandic people had a written language. It is a strange looking alphabet, not based in anyway on ours. It is very angular and made up of straight & slanted lines, triangles, circles, and other totally unfamiliar characters. However, it obviously works for them and now all over Greenland this written language is everywhere. The children are taught in Greenlandic and Danish and many learn English as well.
Languages are fascinating phenomenon and we rarely think about how integral our language is to who we are as individuals and as recognized social groups. We think the way we do because of our language. Other peoples may think totally differently because of their language. We got a very instructive lesson in this simple fact from one of our guides in Nuuk. She is half Greenlandic and half Danish and her father was the first Greenlander to receive higher education in Denmark.
He went there to become an architect and succeeded. However, his daughter told us that he found the studies stupefyingly difficult because his mother tongue had no words for the concepts he was trying to learn. He had mastered Danish but his mind worked in his mother tongue.
When he became a father, he insisted that his four daughters learn Danish as their mother tongue rather than Greenlandic because he did not want their education and their worldview to be limited by a language that did not at the time equip its speakers to comprehend the scientific, philosophical, and social sophistications of the modern world.
The Mysterious Basques
The Basques are probably the most mysterious people in Europe as well as the oldest surviving ethnic group there. They occupy an area in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France and are believed to have lived there since the Stone Age. So far, science has notbeen able to link the Basqueswith anyotherknown tribes or peoples in Europe. History has established that the Basques were present in their homeland at the time of Julius Caesar because he mentions them in his writings from 75 B.C., identifying them as a tribe he was never able to conquer or control. Not only can no relationships with other European groups be proven, but also the Basque language is totally unrelated to any of the Indo- European languages or to the Proto-Indo-European tongues. It is hoped that the completion of the human genome mapping will finally show the origins and kinships of these elusive folks.
The Basques were pertinent to our particular voyage because of their presence in North America during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries with a subsequent legacy in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Basques crossed the Atlantic to reach the rich fishing grounds off Newfoundland in their search for cod from 1540 to about 1610. During the same period, they were also whaling off Labrador and established summer settlements there for the processing of whale products. At least 16 of these stations have been found by archeologists.
The Basques were a powerful and rich people during those years and only declined in the seventeenth century after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 by the British. Because of their close ties with the Spanish, they were persuaded or coerced into adding many of their own ships to the Armada. When that combined navy was destroyed, the Basques lost their oceanic power and were no longer able to reach the New World in any significant numbers for fishing and whaling.
Other factors leading to their abandonment of a North American operation included the near extinction of the right whale population and the decimation of the cod fisheries. However, their influence did not evaporate and many place names and words are attached to bothNewfoundlandandLabradorthroughgeographyandborrowedwords.
Until the 1970s, the Basque influence in their country was even a mystery to the Canadians. Only when an inquisitive and persistent archival researcher studied records in France and Spain pertaining to the Basques did the extent of their empire into North American waters become known. Her researches revealed that the Basque actually “invented”
whaling in European waters. Their harpoons and whaling boats were developed without reference to the whaling procedures and tools of Eskimo peoples. The Basques did their whaling in their own Bay of Biscay waters until the stocks were too depleted to support an industry any longer.
Where Did the Basques Go?
Though the Basques themselves are a mysterious people because of their enigmatic origins at the dawn of humankind, the reasons for their disappearance from these waters is not a puzzle. Overfishing of the cod and too many whale kills destroyed the industries then just as surely as overfishing in modern times has devastated the fishing industry in these same waters and at the Grand Banks in Newfoundland. Mankind hasn’t developed much self- restraint regarding hunting and fishing over the last hundreds of years. We fish to the max and then wonder what happened to all the bounty of the sea. That in itself is a verymelancholyrealizationinthispartofthe world.
One of the lectures on the current condition of the seas in this area informed us that many experts in the field expect a complete collapse of the oceanic ecosystem by 2010. “Oh, when will we ever learn?” as the 60s song put it. A newspaper article since we have returned documented the melting of the North Pole ice cap, the rising of air temperatures in the Arctic, and the retreat of the glaciers over the past six years!
“After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” asked T. S. Eliot back in the 20s in his great poem, “The Waste Land.”
The evidence points to the truth that we are still making a wasteland of our earth home. That may be the biggest mystery we all face and will ever face.
And the French?
The history of the French in Labrador and Newfoundland is not really mysterious since its rise and fall are well documented in the many conflicts between England and France during the periods before and after our American Revolution. Before the French & Indian Wars, the French had a considerable empire in North America. It became smaller when the British were the victors. The Treaty of Utrecht signed in 1713 required that the French give up all their possessions in the New World except for their fishing rights along the Newfoundland coast which they had been using for 200 years and four small islands: two in the Caribbean and two off the Newfoundland coast. Those rights were so important to them that they continued struggling against the British during the Seven Years War even though they were defeated time and again.
The French government felt it could not surrender because it might mean the loss of those fishing rights. As the years wore on and fighting continued between the two European powers, the effects of that conflict had ramifications in the New World even though there was very little fighting in North America and that usually centered on local strife with village- pillaging back and forth. Finally, after the American Revolution, the British were firmly in control of the area that is now Canada. In 1763 the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon (20 kms. off the Newfoundland coast) as well as two Caribbean islands (Guadeloupe and Martinique) were restored to the French and that is all that remains of their vast North American Empire today.
At one time, the French had 20,000 fisher folk working and living in the Maritime Provinces and sent 300 vessels per year. France was literally fed off the bounty of the Labrador Sea and the Grand Banks. The “French Shore” fishing rights actually lasted until 1904 when Britain and France concluded all disagreements about territorial claims in Newfoundland and Labrador. The importance of the cod fishing industry to France gradually waned as the fish stocks themselves ebbed and so France was willing to give up those long ago rights to fish those waters.
An Avian Mystery
Our fifth day at sea produced a minor miracle; well, maybe it was a major one to those of us who were so hungry to see wildlife. After lunch, we heard an announcement “Stowaway on board!” came through loud and clear, followed by “Come up on Deck 7 and see for yourself!”
This usually stable ship trembled beneath all the pounding feet running, climbing, and clambering up the many steps to the top deck. There on the aft mast (actually steel girders that are part of the acoustical equipment we have been puzzling over in the “mud room), feathers rippling in the fierce winds aloft was a magnificent bird a terrestrial bird, not a seabird. Her piercing yellow eyes skimmed carelessly over her human audience she couldn’t have cared less that we were all staring at her with jutting binoculars and camerassounding like castanets!
The birders among us quickly identified the bird as a female peregrine falcon a bird way out of her usual haunts; after all we were about 280 nautical miles from the nearest land in the middle of the Labrador Sea. The naturalists postulated that she must have been pursuing migrating songbirds and gotten herself way off course. Her talons held a fluff of yellow feathers and she was clearly finishing off her afternoon snack. No one could think of a seabird with yellow feathers, so we presumed she had taken a member of a migratory species. Even though she dropped the beak and feet to the deck where we watched, no one could identify the prey by these remains.
When she finished her meal, she began to move cautiously through the girders seeking protection from the wind behind the widest pieces of steel she could locate. But she had to endure lots buffeting even though her talons held her fast to her perch. The falcon stayed with us for three days, actually until we were within a few miles of the coast of Labrador.
Occasionally during her passage with us, she would be gone from her perch and we would all feel sadness. Then she’d reappear with something in her talons. She was definitely a very successful huntress. None of the naturalists or really good birders ever saw her actually catch anything because she would fly out of sight of the ship. Finally, Jacques was able to tell us after he had examined the “leftovers” from a couple of her meals that she was preying on Leach’s Storm Petrels and he had a perfectly logical explanation for that choice. The little petrels do not dive for fishing or for protection and they have the further liability of sluggishness in getting into the air. Perfect prey for a land bird who could not risk getting her own “dress” wet. Dragging her skirts through the water would have meant certain death for her.
Aaron, our Expedition Leader, began to solicit ideas about how to fairly charge our “girl” for her passage. She was taking care of her own meals so something would have to be deducted for that. Also, the Zodiacs were never launched while she was aboard so she was not using that ship service either. She stayed on deck rather occupy a cabin, thus it was certainly not just to charge her for quarters. We convinced him that she had given us all such pleasure that she should actually be paid for her three days because she was the best entertainment we had throughout the voyage! Besides she was the perfect mascot for his employer Peregrine Journeys! She deserved a bonus for arriving so magically on their leased and renamed ship,the Peregrine Mariner.
The Glacial Mysteries
Most of the glaciers in Greenland are retreating as are the majority of those in other parts of the world one of the indications scientists use for their conclusions about global warming. Most scientists and lay people accept the fact that global warming is occurring; the argument surrounds how much of that warming is a natural, cyclical phenomenon which has been taking place over the millennia of the earth’s existence and how much human activities are influencing, worsening and hastening the process. Arctic peoples are mightily concerned with the reality of the warming because they are like the canaries in the mineshafts the firstpredictorsofproblemssince theyfeelthe effects first.
Already, they can see that most of their glaciers are retreating, the ice cap is thinning, and the pack ice and field ice are less dense, arrive later in the season and disappear earlier than before. One might think that people who live in the coldest climates on earth would welcome a little warmth, but that is certainly not the case. These people are alarmed because just a few degrees of warming change their ecosystem so profoundly that their whole way of life is threatened.
Without the presence of ice, many of the fish and animals their hunting life depends on will disappear and are indeed already scarcer than ever: particularly the five species of seals that live in these waters, the whales, and the walrus which are really almost already gone from southern Greenland. Tourism is one industry with growth potential for Greenland and much of it depends on the uniqueness of the Arctic world and the animals it supports. Without polar ice, polar bears will go extinct.
While Greenlandic folk do not dine on polar bear meat, they do understand the place of the world’s largest bear in their ecosystem and in their tourism draw. While musk oxen and reindeer are “farmed” in Greenland for protein sources, even these “managed” herds are dependent on the cold weather to thrive. Without snow to cover the reindeer lichen in winter and thus preserve it for another season as well as for food in the winter, reindeer will not survive. When vegetation is exposed during winter, musk oxen will eat everything they see and thus cause the reduction in available lichen for reindeer in the rest of the year. Too many musk oxen will also overgraze the vegetation that is their normal food source.
Mother Nature has woven a complicated tapestry of the interrelationships between climate, plants and animals. Are we hastening the change that is inherent in the earth’s history making it difficult or impossible for the plants and animals to evolve adaptations to those changes? The Arctic peoples around the globe are desperately seeking answers to these and other interrelated questions aboutclimate change and its ramifications.
Settlement of Red Bay
Then they pushed across the Atlantic to ply their trade in the Strait of Belle Isle. The settlement of Red Bay on the southern coast of Labrador is the largest Basque site yet discovered. We visited this tiny town of 300 people today whereas during the eight-month whaling season in the 1500s, there would have been 1200-1500 Basques working. The town now highlights that heritage with a portside museum accenting the whaling industry. Basque-era ships have been excavated and explored in the frigid waters around the little town and there is a 1/10-size replica of the most complete of these vessels, the San Juan. Items found in the ships, such as tools, weapons, crockery, wooden utensils and the like are also on display.
Museum display - basque chalupa recovered from local waters
Saddle Island
After walking around the tiny town, we got on a zodiac and went over to Saddle Island, a very well excavated and labeled site revealing the “tryworks” associated with the town. Tryworks is the name given to a whaling station in this part of the world.
There is a signed gravel (and at times boardwalk) path completely circling the perimeter of the island and the walk around it highlights the red tiles the Basques used to roof their structures (brought over as ballast in their ships), the sites of ruins of cooperages for assembling the barrels needed to ship the whale oil, the sites for the vats used to render the blubber into oil, and the flensing stations.
The island is barren rock except for low grasses and willows with interspersed tundra flowers, all of which greenery is already turning into the yellows, reds, golds and browns of autumn. The winds are incessant and very strong and the great granite boulders have been polished and worn down almost into stepping-stones or dance floor surfaces. The island is dotted with tiny lakes and ponds of brackish water and there are a few birds flitting overhead. Strangely enough, we saw only a couple of pieces of whalebone, very unlike whaling stations in Antarctica where the sight of many skeletal remains is so sad to experience.
The cemeterycontains the skeletons of 140 sailors in60 graves from the Basque period.
Gros Morne National Park
The tiny village of Woodpoint is a gateway into Gros Morne National Park on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland. It is charming, clean and very Canadian in appearance. Its double bay is quite beautiful and we enjoyed the visitor center for the park there very much.
Gros Morne National Park Visitor Center
Along the west coast of Newfoundland lies Gros Morne National Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of what it reveals about the present configuration of the continents on the earth’s surface as well as its display of the materials within the mantle of our planet. Harold Williams, a native of Newfoundland, studied the park extensively in the 70s and 80s (following his education in Engineering and Geology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s) and contributed extensively to the current theories of plate tectonics based on his findings at this Park.
The Tablelands of the park is the area associated with the geological studies. The park also contains spectacular scenery, waterfalls, mountains, pristine lakes, ancient fjords and forests. The Long Range Mountains are an extension of the Appalachian chain which we learned also extends over into Greenland and Scandinavia. The Park is named for its highest peak, Gros Morne (“mountain that stands alone”) that is the second highest in Newfoundland at 806 meters.
Our geologist guide asked us to think of the earth as an apple: the solid lead center of our earth is analogous to the apple’s seedy core, the middle layer (the mantle) is squishy and plastic like the meat of the apple, and the earth’s crust upon which we live is the apple peel. Normally, we see only the crust of the earth that supports all the plant life we require for food and oxygen.
However, when mammoth upheavals occur in the earth’s middle layer, the enormous plates on which the continents float crash into each other and cause mountain building, volcanic eruptions, and even the rise of new islands or the swamping of older ones.
Millions of years ago, the African plate was driven against the North American plate causing the uplift of the Appalachian range of mountains as the North American plate “wrinkled” in response to the enormous pressures. The collision also caused a rupture in the crust forming the seabed and allowed the material of earth’s mantle to up well and form 600-meter mountains in Newfoundland.
This material had not undergone any of the metamorphic processes by which rocks in the crust are formed (the famous trio of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks) like intense heat and huge pressures. Because it was “fresh from the mantle” these rocks had not lost any of the toxic metals found in that central layer of the earth. These mantle mountains are chiefly formed of iron, but other elements like nickel, cadmium, chromium and others are also present. Plants generally cannot live in the sand formed from the erosion of these rocks the metals are toxic to them. Therefore, these mountains and the tableland between them are largely barren no flora can live in them and therefore no animals either. Theserocksare as lifelessasiftheywereon the moon.
Though there are other places on earth where tiny bits of the mantle can be seen, these mountains in Gros Morne provide the greatest array of mantle material on the surface of the earth. Needless to say, this place is a Mecca for geologists, botanists, and biologists. As the years have passed, bits of crustal material have blown into the Tablelands allowing some plants to grow in these circumscribed places where the mantle is covered. Some small insects and animals have been able to colonize these islands of safety as well. But even more interesting to the botanists are the evolutionary changes occurring in some plants which are beginning to have the power to live in the toxic areas At least 6 species of plants have begun to grow on the formerly barren mantle rocks)
As the continents have drifted together with great collisions and pulled apart with enormous ruptures, some strange things have happened. One of the strangest happened in these parts: the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland was actually part of the African plate when it slammed into the North American plate. When Africa pulled back due to the eruptions of mantle materials in between the two plates, that small peninsula was “left behind” and is now part of North America. However, the geologists have determined that the crust of the Avalon Peninsula has much more in common with Africa than with North America. Of course we cannot see the same plants and animals as we see in Africa because the climate conditionsatthis latitudewouldnothave allowed for their survival anyway.
It’s difficult to imagine that the continents have drifted and changed their positions on the face of the earth over the millennia and even harder to imagine their future movements, but places like Gros Morne have helped scientists like Harold Williams determine that the process is real and that it continues to this day. Another place in the Arctic region that
demonstrates that the process is ongoing is Iceland, where the European & North American plates are separating at the rate of about an inch each year with consequent “growth” of the island as the lava and seabed materials rush into the tiny breach forming new land. It was a beautiful day for a walk and a beautiful place to be.
The Town of Ramea
Despite the fact that the 300+ folks in this island town had prepared mightily for our visit, the swelling seas and buffeting winds nearly prevented our landing in their protected harbor. The Akademik Ioffe could not enter that harbor and had to anchor pretty far away so the Zodiac ride was quite bumpy and wet. However, when we met the townspeople at the fire hall, we were so relieved that we had been able to get there. The people had planned a big welcome celebration with their mayor, their fire chief, and various prominent folks, as well as an energetic lady wearing a puffin costume in which she graciously posed for pictures endlessly. They had outlined three activities we might want to choose among.
It was a wonderful gathering.
They had opened their senior craft center as well with many handmade items for sale. This town has fallen on such hard times because of the collapse of the fisheries that we all felt compelled to reward their hospitality by buying some of the things the ladies had been making all season: sweaters, socks, pillowcases, crib blankets, aprons and such like. In their Lions Club building they had pulled out all the stops and provided tables full of local foods, tarts of local berries, potato cakes, reindeer meat sausage, jams, and jellies
Two guitars and an accordion) supplied the music for energetic and enthusiastic dancing among the travelers and the townies. Our lighthouse guide told us that things were looking up for Ramea since their unused codfish processing plant is being retooled for processing whelks which are plentiful and in demand in Asia and Europe. We hope they adopt good conservation practices so they do not fish that creature out too
Some folks walked up the seemingly endless staircase to Signal Hill for a view, most of us walked out to the windswept lighthouse on the easternmost tip of the island, and a few just wandered the city with a guide pointing out the buildings of interest.
ISLESOFST.PIERREANDMIQUELON
So that brief history explains what was a mystery to us why there is an actual department of France so close to the Newfoundland coast. When tourists arrive in St. Pierre and Miquelon, they really are in French territory under French entry law and customs. Of course, there was very little evidence of that authority as we zodiacked into the little port of St. Pierre. We were not asked for our passports or declarations of our goods. But there was no doubt about the Frenchness of the island. All signs were in French (as opposed to the English and French on all signs in Canada), French was spoken everywhere on the streets, in the shops, at church, the police were dressed just like gendarmes in Paris, and the heady aroma of French bread curled out of many little sidewalk bakeries and cafes. The people of the islands are very proud of their citizenship and tightly maintain their ties to the homeland. Of course, the fact that they are very dependent on monetary support from the French Government may account for some of that loyalty as well (hey, that’s cynical, isn’t it?).
We enjoyed our day in the pretty little town and especially our walk up to the top of the highest hill on the island for a really panoramic view of the harbor, the many little islets beyond St. Pierre, lighthouses spread over the horizon, the jetties and breakwaters which have so improved this port facility, the dazzling blue of the sky overhead and the glitteringsilversea below us aswellas the colorfulbuildingsdecorating the town picture.
The islands comprise 242 square kilometers of land that is mainly barren rock with only 13% of its land arable. 7000 people inhabit the three islands that comprise the Department, with 5600 of them on St. Pierre. St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Langlade have been described as a self-governing territorial collectivity of France since 1763. Interestingly enough, the three islands are now actually two since at some point in the eighteenth century Miquelon andLangladewerepermanentlyjoinedbyanimmense sand bar and dune.
Sailor's Island
Sailors Island, a short distance across the harbor from the town of St. Pierre, is now a living museum of the French (from Brittany and Normandy) fishing history in these waters. Buildings in the now uninhabited settlement are original to the place or have been built and or restored in the style of the period. The gravel beds on which the cod were dried still crosshatch the island even though grasses now grow up between the stones. The church was active until 1965 when priests were no longer assigned to say masses there.
The little village provides a graphic lesson in how difficult life was during those centuries when Europe was so dependent on New World cod. From the seventeenth to early twentieth century (when the fish stocks crashed), fishing, curing and shipping the cod was
the major activity of the summer months for all the people living here: men, women and children. The work was dangerous and arduous for the men who went out to sea in small open boats called “dories” to catch the fish during times of tumultuous seas as well as the rare calm days. Many died because fishing was and is a perilous livelihood, especially in the frigid waters of the northern oceans.
The women and older children worked equally hard, if not as hazardously, insuring that the gravel pads were completely cleared of everything that could contaminate the drying fish, including intrusive grasses. After that backbreaking labor, their responsibility was to spread the cod fillets (the men handled the fish cleaning and filleting) out to dry on the gravel pads. It took 8 days of sunshine to adequately dry the fish for shipping and in this part of the world, there are seldom 8 straight days of sunshine. Not only that, the fillets had to be protected from evening and morning dews and mists so they had to be gathered into sheds every night and then spread out again on the gravel pads the next sunny day. The small children had to work at bringing the fillets in every night. There was so much work to be done that everyperson,regardlessofage,wasrequired to participate.
Of course, in the meantime other daily activities of life had to be performed too cooking, baking, sewing and mending clothing, making and repairing sails, keeping the dories in seaworthy condition, harvesting what vegetables could be grown in the short summer season. The fishermen and their families often could supplement their manpower needs by importing orphans from France to come with them as indentured servants. None of us wanted to contemplate what the lives of those benighted children must have been like.
One can only imagine, too, how poor and desperate the fishing families must have felt at home in France why else would they have clamored to join the fishing fleet and come to this harsh and unforgiving environment to perform such grueling work. I suppose that the mystery in this history surrounds the survival of these people who passed on their legacy to their children and grandchildren who now proudly remember their struggle and honor them for it
ENDINGINSTJOHN’S
Capital of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador:
This city sits on one of the most perfect harbors in the world. We approached the harbor in fairly heavy seas and watched in amazement as the Pilot Boat chugged out to meet us, alternately tipping way over to the left and then way over to the right and sometimes totally disappearing in the wave troughs only to bounce up on the crest and keep coming. When the little boat finally struggled alongside, the intrepid pilot must climb the rope ladder onto the deck so he can reach the Bridge. St. John’s Harbor is entered through an
incredible gateway called “the Narrows” and it is narrow indeed: ranging from 400 ft. to 1200 ft. across. No wonder ships must wait for the pilot. The currents are also quite treacherous and there are many hidden obstacles to navigation like tiny islets and skerries.
As the ship sucked in its breath to pass through the entrance, we were surprised to see the World War II bunkers and cannons set up on the cliff heads on either side. The bluffs rose higher on the left than on the right, but we could see that the city had been well defended by the Americans and the British. Remember, Newfoundland was still a British colony until 1949 when it finally joined the Canadian Confederation. Once inside, the change in the sea conditions was remarkable. The water was flat and the winds had settled to gentle breezes.
Prior to our brief tour of the city, we went up Signal Hill above the city to enjoy the vista and visit Cabot Tower.
While there, our guide entertained us with his city’s three claims to fame.
1. Claims to be the oldest city in North America We Floridians took quiet exception to that “tall tale.” After all, what about St. Augustine?
2. Claims of the tower being the site of Marconi’s first successful transatlantic telegraph reception when the single letter, “S,” was received from Ireland. We were on Cape Cod a couple years ago and visited Wellfleet which makes the same claim.
3. Claims that Cape Spear being the easternmost point of land in North America. Some say that Greenland’s easternmost cape should have that honor since the island is actually on the North American Plate.
We were allowed to sit for awhile watching boats making their way through the tight harbor channel. And then taken for a whirlwind bus tour of the city which took us by Memorial University, the Roman Catholic Cathedral, and the Anglican Basilica. Both churches are dedicated to St. John. Who else could it have been?
We drove by Government House, built by the British during the colonial period, was the scene of many angry discussions and demonstrations when Newfoundlanders were trying to find their way to economic stability and governmental independence. When at last Britain allowed the citizens the chance to choose becoming a part of Canada, that building became the provincial primeminister’s residence.
We also visited the commercial center of the city and had lunch in a nice restaurant that served us cod! Believe it or not, that was the first codfish we had tasted on this trip even that fish has such a prominent position in the history of this part of the world! After all we had learned about cod in the history of the area, that entrée was fitting indeed. After that, we made the very long drive out to the Airport for our departure the next morning.
It was hard for us to believe that it would take us 4 different flights to reach home on the day after the voyage was over. We flew out of St. John’s on September 15, landing first at Halifax, Nova Scotia, continuing on to Montreal, thence to Chicago and finally to Jacksonville all in the same day.
View from Signal Hill
CONCLUSION
As you can see from this journal, our expected Arctic Wildlife Adventure metamorphosed from disappointment into fascination with the interesting human and cultural and geological histories we encountered at every place we visited.
Though the animal sightings were sparse, we had profoundly beautiful and impressive scenery before our wondering eyes in all three of the magical places we were privileged to explore. The Arctic is such a special place on this planet of ours, for its human inhabitants, its flora and fauna, its terrain, and its mercurial weather.
So while we felt it necessary to chastise World Wildlife Fund for its patently “false” advertising on this trip, we certainly support its Herculean work (along with countless other organizations, local peoples, and governmental agencies) in trying to preserve the singular Arctic world from any effects which may be human-induced or accelerated. The whole world should be interested in scientific research which attempts to understand the process of “global warming” and our human part in it
The Little (and last) Ice Age ended 12,000 years ago and the earth has been “warming” up ever since so it may be that this present trend is just part of a natural cyclic pattern of the earth’s own design and there is nothing we can do but try to adapt to forces way beyond our powers to control. But if we are intensifying the effects and accelerating the warming trend so rapidly that the change outstrips evolution’s ability to provide effective adaptive mechanisms in plants and animals, we should acknowledge our culpability andmakeeveryattempttostopourdepredationsofour planethome.
