Leg 6, Equi Glacier

We spent the night at Ataa and left early for the head of the fjord at Ikerasak.  We moved in through the broken ice as close as we were comfortable to the Equi glacier and shut the engine off.  The sounds of the glacier calving even small chunks was awesome.  We never did see a full sized berg calved, but the spectacle of the constantly moving ice focused our attention and occasionally our adrenalin. 

Once we got on the ice cap it was hard to know where to stop.  It created the illusion that if we just went to the top of the next rise we could see forever, but the next rise only offered  a view of the next and on and on; thousands of miles of ice.  We had heard of an extreme melting event a week earlier, and whether that had anything to do with the ice conditions I do not know, but the ice was glazed over from melting and re-freezing and very hard and difficult to walk on without crampons.  Marina had none so we slipped and stumbled our way up the glacier until we were on relatively clean white ice and had satisfied ourselves that we could not make it the hundred miles or so to the top in the few hours of remaining daylight. Throughout the ice cap there are depressions and channels where black sooty mud collects that is blown onto the glacier from distant fires and industries and dust storms. The black color accelerates melting which in turn concentrates dust deposited in previous years further accelerating the melting in a positive feedback loop.  Melting of Greenland ice is of huge importance in the models of climate change and sea level rise and I was interested in seeing the process firsthand.  However, in a single snapshot on one summer the only way to see the changes is from photographs or personal accounts.  In every glacier we encountered there were accounts of the retreat and thinning of the glacier in recent years.  The difficulty is separating natural glacial cycles of surge and retreat from the long term effects of climate change induced by human consumption of fossil fuel. Research has accumulated data from many glaciers in different regions to show that this is not a local phenomenon but worldwide.  James Balog has done an amazing job of documenting the retreat of glaciers with time lapse photography and presents it in the film "Chasing Ice".  It is incontrovertible that climate change is happening.  The massive size of the Greenland Ice Cap is is hard to comprehend even when standing on it.  The rate it will melt is a complex issue, but it is clearly melting feeding huge amounts of fresh water into the oceans, both raising the sea level and altering the ocean currents.  

What was more clear and also troubling was the rapid development of infrastructure and the total dependence on fossil fuels to make life in Greenland possible.  Every major town had new hotels and commercial buildings under construction. Diesel fuel was less expensive than in the U.S.  Many commercial projects are under construction focused on resource extraction or oil exploration.  Greenland is the canary in the coal mine of climate change, but also the raw frontier of the spread of the industrial age.  The momentum of development is so great that I was left both sad and discouraged at the possibility our civilization making the changes necessary to sustain a reasonably healthy planet.  

We were back at the trail head by 12:30 but did not pause long because the blackflies were thick.  They  did not seem to be able to penetrate my skin, but were annoying in their habit of getting into ears noses and eyes.  Back on the boat we set out for Qeqertarsuaq, a 16 hour run under power as there is rarely wind in Disko bay.

Aug 3

Qeqertarsuaq (Godhavn) on the south end of Disko island was a stunning sight.  Green hillsides backed by sheer black and red cliffs rise from a sea studded with grounded icebergs.  It is a very secure harbor which was welcome after the last three stops.  We arrived around 5:30 in the morning and slept till 10:00 to catch up on rest. 

Once ashore we asked the first person we saw if there was a place to take showers and get on the internet.  She responded that there was no place, but we could come to her home and use her shower.  We accepted and went to her cozy house, had tea and cookies and showered.  She had worked in the town for several years then moved back to Denmark, but missed her life in Greenland with her dog team and fishing to feed them so she bought a little house for a few thousand dollars and spends the summers there. Her hospitality was a wonderful gift and a great example of how it is possible to live simply and cooperatively.  We found that kind of sharing to be quite normal in Greenland.  With the boat it seemed that it we were always welcome to tie up to any mooring or dock or raft up to another boat without any hesitation.  It seemed that any situation was workable.