A little bit of everything

Usually this is the way I go with my guests on the hikes. Just behind the big rock to the left in the picture there's a small water stream - it's the best water I've tasted for a looong time!


View over my camp on a trip to the mountains. Pretty ok view waking up to :-)

Guess who. Taken on a trip to the mountains


One of many many pictures of icebergs I've taken so far - they never stop impressing me


I present to you: Uummannaq


Trip to Qilakitsoq. The mummies were found in graves under the rock, where the guy in the khaki shirt is standing.


"The Bird Cliffs". The cliffs goes 1000 m in the high working as a nesting site for thousands and thousands of birds.
The small black spots around the cliffs are not dust on my lense - it's birds soaring on air streams. Pretty amazing view.


Nature's own compass in "The Desert". The stone is completely scolded on the south side and mossy on the north


"The sleeping man". Do you see him?


Saattut. A settlement north of Uummannaq. The settlement has 231 living souls, a supermarket, a school, laundry facilities, and a lot of happy kids.

Good times in North Greenland

My apologies to those of you who doesn't speak any Danish.

I'm simply to tired in my head to think in English – and more important, I'm dedicating this post to my grandparents who (I believe) would appreciate if I once in a while did my posts in Danish.

Tiden går vanvittigt hurtigt heroppe. Det må siges.

Jeg tænker, at det primært bunder i, at jeg stort set har arbejdet siden jeg ankom til Uummannaq.

Godt nok var de første dage ikke så stringente, eftersom det hovedsageligt handlede om, at jeg skulle sætte mig ind i, hvordan byen er indrettet, hvordan tingene fungerer her, hvor vandreruterne er sat, hvordan jeg skal lave mine ture med gæsterne, osv. Men arbejde, det gjorde jeg.

Efter den indledende tid her, er jeg til gengæld blevet et velkendt ansigt på hotellet.

Mine dage starter kl 8 med morgenmad (både egen og hotelgæsternes), derefter gøres klar til frokost med efterfølgende formiddagskaffe.

Fra 12 til 13 serverer vi frokost for hotelgæster i den ene restaurant og for de lokale i den anden. Menuen er fuldstændig ens, men prisen er meget forskellig – gæt engang hvorledes.

Efter frokost gør vi klar til middagen, for derefter selv at nyde en velfortjent spisepause.

Derfra sker der som regel ikke meget før middagen begynder, hvilket betyder, at jeg ofte har noget tid til at gå en tur, læse, drikke kaffe, eller noget helt fjerde.

De sidste par dage har dog (heldigvis) været en lidt anden historie. Jeg har haft 4 gæster boende her over weekenden – og vigtigere endnu: 4 gæster som har været enormt nysgerrige på at opleve noget heroppe. Jeg har haft dem med på udvidet vandretur til fjeldet med frokost på bjergskråningen, haft dem med på byrundtur, samt på heldags-bådtur. Og det er især bådturen, der gør, at jeg må skrive dette indlæg.

Bådturen er en tur rundt i fjorden, hvor man først tager til Qilakitsoq, hvor der i 1972 blev fundet 8 ekstremt velbevarede mumier (derudover er her en masse husruiner og grave fra 1400-tallet). Dernæst tager man forbi Ikerasak, hvor Flemming Jensen boede i en årrække i 70'erne (det er denne bygd hans bøger ”Vejledning i Sælfangst” og ”Imaqa” tager udgangspunkt i), på vej mod et utroligt, geologisk fænomen på østsiden af Storøen. Her er der den massiv forekomst af svovl og mange andre mineraler, der har ætset og formet landskabet til et ørkenlandskab uden lige. Den store forekomst af forskellige mineraler giver et utroligt farvespil i landskabet, samt en god chance for at finde rubiner, guld, granater og mange andre spændende ting.

Efter besøget i ”Ørkenen” sejler man ud forbi et fjeld, der rejser sig 1000 meter direkte ud af vandet. Udover at være imponerende i sig selv, huser fjeldet tusinder af ynglende mallemukker og tejster, hvilket giver et vanvittigt syn, når man lægger sig ind til fjeldvæggen og kigger op.

Til slut sejler man ud til en virkelig velfungerende bygd kaldet Saattut, der har en befolkning på omkring 231 mennesker (hvilket er en stor bygd). I Saattut er en Royal Greenland-fabrik (selvfølgelig); et Pilersuisoq-supermarked; en meget smuk lille kirke; et servicehus, hvor folk kan tage et bad og få vasket deres tøj (der er intet rindende vand i bygden); en skole (1.-9. klasse), hvor samtlige lærere er uddannede og lokale (et meget sjældent fænomen i Grønland, men et tegn, hvor godt bygden fungerer); en masse hunde og en masse glade børn.

Fra Saattut kan man derudover se klippeformation (Den Liggende Mand), som har form som ansigtet på en liggende indianer.

Slut går turen hjemover mod Uummannaq. Den store udfordring er her at fordøje alle indtrykkene.

Udover det planlagte program er der på turen selvfølgelig udsigt til smukke fugle, isbjerge og klipper. Og sidst men ikke mindst er der udsigt til Indlandsisen, der rejser sig ude i horisonten.

På turen i går fungerede Arne (min chef heroppe) som guide, eftersom der også var en gruppe danskere med, og jeg var så tolk for mine 4 gæster (og så gav jeg lidt bonusinfo til de gæster, der var omkring mig, når jeg mente der var brug for det :-)).

En ting var at turen var ubeskriveligt fantastisk, men en anden ting for mig var, at gæsterne (både mine egne og de danske) gav udtryk for, at de var rigtig glade for min deltagelse på turen. Altid dejligt med lidt ros :-)

Så hvis du/I nogensinde skal til Grønland: Drop Ilulissat, Nuuk, og alle de andre byer. Kom til Uummannaq. Naturen og byen her er alle pengene værd.

Mine gæster tager så hjem i dag (mandag), og hverdagen på hotellet begynder igen. Men jeg skal sgu ikke brokke mig. Jeg står lige nu i restauranten og nyder en udsigt over Uummannaq-fjorden inden jeg skal op og lukke øjnene i et øjeblik – de sidste dage har været helt vidunderlige, men også 14-16 timer lange, så jeg er lidt træt.

Jeg har en hulens masse billeder jeg så gerne vil vise fra bådturen og fra min overnatning i fjeldet, men det kræver lidt mere tid end jeg har til rådighed nu, så det må blive senere. Men de skal nok komme!

Jeg håber I alle det fint!

/ Aslak

Life in Uummannaq

Slowly I'm getting a bit more settled in the daily chores.

I have some long days here, beginning at 8 am and ending at 10 pm closing down the restaurant after dinner.
Fortunately though it's not like I'm working every minute in this time gap. Usually I've got time to go for a good walk and to read a bit.

Of course this is only the case when I have no guests to attend to. Right now there are only two Arctic Adventure-guests here, but two guests that don't want my assistance. It's two German women in their 40's, and they hardly speak any English.
They are afraid that they will crowd their program and overload the experience, which is why they just wander around the town and island – on their own.
If it was me that had 3 days up here, I would try to experience as much as possible, but hey! That's just me.
But fortunately I was able to set up a Kaffe-mik for them today (the only thing they wanted help with). So today I'm picking up the two ladies and taking them to a local woman called Elisabeth, who has prepared a traditional kaffe-mik for them.
That'll be fun to try!

I wont have any guests before next Friday, so until then I'll just work in the hotel.

I can feel that I've been here for a while now, and that I can recognize people around the town – and that they can recognize me as well (at least that's what I tell myself). It gives my stay a stronger ”home-like” feeling, which is a nice feeling.

Well, I just wanted to say hi, and show you some pictures I taken during my time here.

Oh, before I go: I had the strangest but coolest experience here on last Friday. A German acting group (Das Letzte Kleinod) had set up a play about the meeting between the Inuit people and the German whalers back in the 17th and18th century.
They used the old house for storing all the blubber from the whales, which gave the whole thing a real authentic impression.

The inuit was portrayed by a famous Greenlandic actress (whose name I don't remember now..). All her lines were done in Greenlandic which meant that I didn't understand a word, but they were good at showing the moods with their faces and gestures. So you kind of had an idea whether to cry or laugh. The rest of the play was done in a combination of English and German.

Great experience!

The village of Niaqornat. Situated on the Nussuaq Peninsula


One of the hundreds of puppies. Taken in one of the villages north of Uummannaq


The newest cemetery in Uummannaq


View from a trip north of Uummannaq town. The town is placed on the far side of the land from where I took the picture. Maybe you can see it?


Probably the best placed football field in the world. But definetely not the best football field quality-wise. Taken in Uummannaq


Typical Uummannaq houses



Storøen (The Great Island). The neighbour of Uummannaq. A beautiful view to wake up to


The view from the hotel's terrace. You can see the church, the old house where the doctor used to live (the yellow house next to the church), the supermarket (the big red house on the left), the water-cleansing facility (?) (the big silo behind the supermarket), and last but not least, the Board (Brædtet) all the way in the front of the picture. This is where the fishermen sell their catch.


It can be like this also.. You can just see Storøen under the clouds.



Guess who. Taken at the same time as the previous picture

Sitting on the dock af the bay – or something like that

Writing this I'm enjoying a much needed cup of coffee on Cafemma – the only cafe in Uummannaq (not counting the restaurant in Hotel Uummannaq), located by the harbour with a beautiful view of the town center. The sun is shining and I couldn't ask for more.

Now I've been here for almost a week and I'm beginning to get the hang of how things work around here and where everything is – with emphasis on beginning, for there is a looong way a head.

I've been put in one of the hotel rooms with my own bathroom and tv. The tv just has 2 channels, KNR-tv (the Greenlandic network in cooperation with DR) and a radio channel, so it's turned off most of the time :-)

Instead of sitting in front of the tv I've been out exploring Uummannaq and I've been busy figuring out how to do my trips with the guest; since Uummannaq is a new destination for Arctic Adventure (my employer) there are no manuals on how to do the different trips. This means that I get the full say so on how I want to do it! Excellent – but hard.

Some info about the town of Uummannaq:

The town is located on the south part of the island. And sitting where I am right now, I have a view of Ikesarak and Store Øen towards east, the bottom of Ummannaq Fjord towards south east and the snow-covered mountains of the Nussuaq Peninsula in the south. It's breathtaking.

There are several supermarkets here and they are all surprisingly well-stocked.

The town is so beautiful with small houses in all kinds of colors placed around on the hills – I guess that's how it's done in Greenland.

All over the town you can see a lot historical buildings, e.g. the old hospital, the old storages for food, and even old huts build from stone and turf. One of the was still used up until the 1980's.

And of course you always have a view of icebergs and of the famous mountain on the island, Uummannaq-fjeldet (Uummannaq means heart-shaped. Can you see why?).

The Uummannaq mountain in the background

Very typical view. Looking towards the Nussuaq Peninsula

For those of you who doesn't know, I'm doing work for both Arctic Adventure (AA) and Hotel Uummannaq. When I have guests here through AA I'll be completely committed to them, but at other times I'll be doing both guide- and reception-work for the hotel. For example, today I was helping out at the local lunch room, taking orders and payment.

This might need some explanation:
Hotel Uummannaq is the only proper restaurant in town, but the prices in the hotel restaurant are too high for the locals here. Therefore we serve the same lunch for the local people in another room for a lower price.
Everyday we have 25-50 people in for lunch

My co-workers in the hotel deserves a mentioning. There are Louise and Britta mainly working in the reception and then we have the cleaning-/cooking-/serving-crew. Before I came here I figured that I would have Greenlandic co-workers, but no.

Apparently Arne travels a lot in the east, where he has a lot of connections. Because of that the mainpart of my co-workers are Philipino and Thai. Weird.

But they are lot of fun, and they have been so welcoming from day 1. They've really made the first days a lot easier for me.

Now. I've finished my coffee and I have to prepare for friday, when I get my first two guests! Again, I have no idea what to expect, but it'll be good!

Schüss!

On the verge of unknown territory

I wrote this just before leaving Ilulissat. Thought I just as well could post it also.

_____________________________________________________________________________________


So, been in Ilulissat for a week now. Tomorrow morning I'll go to the airport and take a flight to Qaarsut from which I have to go by helicopter to Uummannaq.

The last 4 days have been kind of strange, since we haven't had any visitors. We've been passing the time reading up on our Greenland history, hiking in the mountains, drinking whisky while watching The Pacific and much much more.

Yesterday we had booked a table at Restaurant Marmatut, that is supposed to have the best Greenlandic Buffet. I don't know if they do the best buffet, but it's very good!

The buffet consisted of 25-ish different dishes (ranging from seal over reindeer to hallibut - and the very (in)famous matteq/mattak).


My plate after 3rd run to the buffet - and Greenlandic beer from Nuuk

It's been nothing less than great here and I'm so excited about what the next 2 months will bring. Because I have no idea what to expect. All I know is that I be placed on an a 12 km2 island in the town of Uummannaq. The town is not that big (only 1400 people live here), but it's still the biggest one in the district. The other villages having between 100-250 inhabitants.

I'll be staying at Hotel Uummannaq, which is owned by a Danish guy, Arne, who has lived here for the last 35 years. I will not be bringing a lot of info up there, but I reckon that I will be a lot wiser on my assignments once I've been there for a while.

But I'm unbearably excited.

Video video

Aslak on hike - part 1 from Aslak Lau Rolvsen on Vimeo.

Untitled from Aslak Lau Rolvsen on Vimeo.

A quick photo-introduction to Ilullisat - in Danish (but it's 90% BS anyway)

Vores kære hjem (altså huset til højre)



Mine med-guider ved kællingekløften. Jeg ved ikke om Ugne står og overvejer at aflaste os..?



En af de tre kirkegårde i Ilulissat. De er dog ikke alle aktive. Denne kirkegård har været ude af brug i en længere periode, men de ældre der skal til at finde et sted, vil gerne ligge hos deres forældre, der ligger her. Derfor tages den i brug i højere grad nu. På den anden side af kammen er der en smuk havudsigt.



Udsigt mod nord fra vejen, der går op til Sermermiut-dalen. En af byens mange hundepladser i forgrunden. På den lille stenknold er det byens kirke nr 2. Blev bygget som trøst for en af de mange nedlagte bygders tvangsflyttede befolkninger.



Et meget almindeligt skilt. Det større hus på højre side af vejen er Restaurant Marmartut, hvor vi forhåbentlig skal op og spise grønlandsk buffet her en af dagene.



Byens pragt af en fodboldbane, hvor byens to hold kæmper hver weekend. Det må gøre kedeligt ondt lave glidende tacklinger.



Sportshallen - og kulturhuset i baggrunden. I weekenden er her loppemarked



Pisifik. Et af supermarkederne. Her kan man både finde varer fra Urtekram og Svansø. Vareudvalget har virkelig imponeret mig. Gad vide om det er lige så høj kvalitet i Uummannaq. Noget siger mig, at jeg ikke skal regne med det.



2'eren. Der er to tankstationer i byen. Den ene ligger her, den anden ligger nede ved havnen (selvfølgelig).

Getting to see Ilulissat from a different side

After having the pleasure of sunny, warm Ilulissat for the last 3 days, I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the window.

It's weird how the view changes when the clouds are lying heavily around the surrounding mountains. The light is much dimmer and little by little your body slows down.
There's a general consensus between the three of us here saying that today is a 'read good books, have coffee on the couch'-kind of day.

But. Before we could enjoy a day on the couch, we were going on a guided tour around Ilulissat. Yes, it might sound a bit strange that the guides are going on a guided tour.. But it actually makes a lot of sense.
In Ilulissat there are two schools, Mathias Storch and Jørgen Brønlund-skolen. Apparently Jørgen Brønlund is doing a project week this week focusing on tourism in Greenland. As a part of that the 8th graders are offering guided tours (in English) of the city.
We figured that it could be a lot of fun to see the city from the perspective of young people living here. And it was. Of course we knew a lot of what they were telling us, but spending 1,5 hour with these kids learned us a lot about the life in Greenland - things you can't read about in guide books.

Well returned to the house, the coffee is on and I'm on the couch writing this post.
My plan for today is to read an incredibly interesting book about a Norwegian guy (Børge Ousland) following Fridtjof Nansens journey from the North Pole to Oslo (unsupported). Inspiring!
And then I'll try to upload some short videos I made yesterday on a small hike in the mountains.

I hope you're all doing great!

Schüss!

First impressions in Ilulissat

So arrived in Ilulissat yesterday afternoon after a long wait in Kangerlussuaq.
The flight here was perfect - blue sky and a seat by the window made me forget the time, and I just tried to take in all that I could.


View from my seat south of Ilulissat

After 45 minutes flight we landed in Ilulissat, and I was picked up by one of our partners assistents and driven to the house we live in.
It's a nice little house 5 minutes walk from the harbour. The house has a small balcony from which there's view over one of the areas in the city where the dogs are kept.


The view

After a little while my two fantastic co-guides (Kasper and Ugne) came home after an excursion with some guests and the three of us went to eat at Hotel Ice Fjord - it was an huge experience. I had reindeer steak and mashed potatoes, a cold beer and the most beautiful view of the Disko Bay. Nice

Kasper (a guy that's been working with the company for four seasons) had organized a midnight cruise for our guests (and me :-)). That meant that there was no time for me to close my eyes, but I figured that it would be ok to go on a boat, look at the icebergs and have a martini. And it was totally ok.
Besides the amazing scenary, we had the pleasure of a small, tired humpback whale. During Kaspers speech about the different types of ice Jens Ole (our captain) got a message saying that a whale had been spotted close by.
He turned on the engine and we started looking.. and there it was. A bit far away, but it was there.



Jens sailed us closer and we followed the whale around for 40 minutes. At the end the whale disappeared for a while, but it came back. Big time! :-)



My first day in Greenland. Not bad. Not bad at all.

After a great boat trip we started going back to Ilulissat. Mean while the clock turned midnight and we were just enjoying an unforgettable view.


Pic taken at 00:02. Ilulissat lit by the midnight sun


Icebergs in the midnight sun

Till next time.

Schüss!

Ankommet

Så er første del af dagens rejse vel overstået.
Min kære papa og bedre halvdel havde forbarmet sig over mig, og trodsede en meget tidlig morgen, for at vinke farvel, idet jeg trådte op ad trappen på vej mod sikkerhedstjekket i CPH. Så jeg blev sendt godt afsted.

Kl. 9.15 lettede mit fly så fra CPH og rettede snuden mod Kangerlussuaq, Grønland.
Turen gik fint fint (kun forstyrret af en utrolig dårlig film (Old Dogs starring Robin Williams og John Travolta)), så det vil jeg ikke bruge mere tid på.

Til gengæld har det allerede været lidt af en oplevelse endelig at befinde mig i Grønland.
Vejret er dejligt og solen varmer godt. Eneste problem er bare de vanvittigt mange myg, der er her. Jeg havde hørt at det ville være vildt, men det her! Det er utroligt. Da jeg trådte ud af flyet efter landing, var det som at gå ind i væg af myg. Lidt af et skrækscenarie for en, der har dårlige erfaringer myg!
Heldigvis holder de små kræ sig udendørs, så jeg har sat mig ved et stort vindue, så jeg stadig kan få lidt af vuet med.

En anden lidt skæg ting er, at det mange måder er fuldstændig som at være på et cafeteria i en hver anden dansk provinsby - folk ser bare lidt mere anderledes ud, samt taler et uforståeligt sprog. Mærkeligt.

Nu kan det være at du sidder og tænker: Jamen, hvordan kan det være at han sidder der og skriver posts til sin blog?! Ja, nu skal du høre:
Da jeg kommer ind i den lille ankomsthal ser jeg at mit fly videre til Ilullissat er forsinket 2,5 time. Det vil sige, at jeg havde 5,5 time at slå ihjel. Jeg har spist frokost, skrevet Friluftsland-annoncer (en lille sidegeschäft), drukket op til flere kopper kaffe og set 1. episode af United States of Tara (tak til Mixi og Pepe for tip!!). Men så fandt jeg ud af, at jeg er så heldig at kunne købe mig tid på internettet til den nette sum af 100 kr for 3 timer (lidt hurtig hovedregning siger mig, at jeg så er underholdt i en ellers trøstesløs lufthavn).
Og er det så en bedre måde at bruge de timer på end ved at genetablere sin gamle blog? Ok, det kan godt være jeg ikke bruger samtlige 3 timer på denne post - men lidt tid går der da med det :-)

Så værsågo'! Jeg vil fremover linke via Facebook, når der er nyt på siden.

Lidt billeder fra min stol:



Nu vil jeg gå ind mod bygden og tusse lidt rundt.

Ha' det!