If you go through a settlement during winter in East Greenland, one often meets scenes like that: an Ivi, that’s how the Inuit call themselves here, comes to his dogs, that gladly greet him, snaffles them and afterwards hits the road in order to chasing or making a trip to another place.
Beginning of March 2006: our journey starts in Tasiilaq, the main place of the region Ammassalik, surrounded by another seven little colonies. Throughout East Greenland there are only two occupied territories, the next one is about 800 km away. Only 3500 people live along the 10 000 km coastline. And mere during the summer (three month) ship can come hither for accommodation, in the rest of the time this is impossible because of a belt of pack-ice located in front of the coast.
At the icebounded harbour we meet the leader of our dogsledes. The price for their engagement was extremely high, because the last three winter were very hot, there was too little ice, as a result of that too little captured food (fish, seals)- so they had to kill 1000 of the approx. 4000 Greenland dogs living at their place, which consequently are missing now in the first winter with again normal snow conditions.
Last preparations - one pad of the dogs becomes staked, so that they can`t start running and the luggage becomes stored- and then our two day- tour to Tiniteqilaq, a small village of huntsmen on the other hand of the district, starts.
The sun was shining the whole morning, but now fog raises in the space of a few minutes, in that we enter. We are sitting on a sledge in pairs, our leader first of all.
Approx. 10 dogs are in front of a sledge, headed by a leader, they are robust and take much pleasure in drawing, the leader of the dogsledding navigates them by proclaiming short, pointed commands like ili ili ili (rightwards) or iu iu iu (leftwards). They walk in a diversified harnessed team, i.e. every dog is connected with the sledge by a seperated leash.
At first we drive across the icebounded Kong Oscar Fjord and then inbound across several lakes. In this way long distances could be covered easier on the sledge in the winter than on foot during summer.
After about 2 hours we pause, and the sledge becomes assured with the auxiliary- leash on an iceblok (if the driver is thrown off during the ride, he tries to abide by this leash in the snow).
The work starts directly and every single leash, that always gets mixed up because of the spirited run of the dogs, becomes arranged again. Sometimes Lars, our leader of the sledge, has to do that during the ride. Our foot is dried fish.
The journey goes on, it becomes steeper, and we need to descend some mountainsides and walk next to the sledge, which can be very sudorific in the deep snow and the dogs’ tempo. We are lucky with the weather, it is a wonderful winterday, bright landscapes and silence in the air. During the first descents Lars is standing on the back of the sledge, always prepared to apply the breakes- chains of metal as additional breakes were winded around the vats. We need to learn to adjust the weight on the sledge, because we often go down the mountain in breakneck speed- and one or another lands in the snow.
In the afternoon we reach a glacier (> 600 m high), that needs to be negotiated. The strong and persistent dogs trail us for a long distance, they can cope with weights till 400 kg. Arriving on the top we have a panoramic view over the Sermilik Fjord till the inland- ice on the opposite side. From now on there is nothing but ice till the West coast.
We finaly reach Tiniteqilaq near sunset. It’s a small place, approx. inhabited by 30 Ivis, mainly hunter- families. It’s nearby the Sermilik Fjord, one of the richest ice fjords in East Greenland, because it is fed by 3 big glaciers of the inland- ice. The houses are illuminated warmly by the last sun and soon the blue hour approachs.
At night we experience wonderful long lasting northern lights. Early in the morning the sun slowly immerses the fjord and the mountains into soft, watercoloured moods, later on the big as well as the small ice- structures gleam in a strong white.
The life in the village awakes, the children, with whom we already formed a friendship yesterday, are playing with their sledges, some men are going out for ice fishing.
“Give me winter, give me dogs- everything else you can keep”, that’s what the well- known polar- explorer Knud Rassmussen once said, whose expeditiones (around 1920) would have been impossible without the application of sledge dogs.
For more than 1000 years these animals are the most important companions of the native hunters. They can sniff the seals’ spiracles, they protect against unsought polar bears. Their coat ideal defends from coldness and they can manage maximum distances till 200 km/ day.
They epitomise an ancient way of locomotion, that stood the test for centuries and allowed different Inuit- groups a spread over the arctic world.
I am thinking about all that on my way home. In the meantime I accustomed myself sitting on the sledge, it’s even fun to cope with the unattended and strong movements.
At the same time I experience a deep calmness on the straight passages, an inner immension in the winter- landscapes, in the wide and virginity of this region, in the gazing of millions of twinkling, little ice crystals- in fine: at the end of the trip I actually would like to drive on, sitting behind Lars, for days.
<<<back
 |
| kontakt@ma-mo.com |