Lecture 3 images and cultural/historic notes : 12x2004 Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) and Nunuvut (Canada) Greenland towns and villages have 2 names: Home Rule began in 1979; visit www.nanoq.gl www.gh.gl/uk/govern/organiza.htm Greenland is a special cultural community in the Kingdom of Denmark. The Home Rule Administration consists of representatives elected in Greenland, constituting the Greenland government, and an administrative section operated by the Greenland Parliament
For a wide-ranging view of Greenland today, visit http://www.greenland-guide.gl/ The population of Greenland is 56,000 humans, with 14,000 living in the capital Nuuk where I saw one traffic light. The caribou population is 142,000 according to Greenland Inst of Natural Resources (our hosts for Seaglider expeditions). http://www.mst.dk/udgiv/Publications/2001/87-7944-977- 8/html/default_eng.htm Snowmobiles, a popular vehicle in the Arctic, are banned in most of Greenland. There are 30,000 cherished sled dogs, with almost all dogs living north of the Arctic circle. In order to discourage interbreeding, there are almost no dogs south of there. www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/ issues04/jan04/pdf/top dog s.pdf www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/gl.html
Under Home Rule, yet with ties to Denmark that are widespread, both Danish and Greenlandic are spoken and the newspapers are bilingual. The article at the right in Nuuk’s daily newspaper has the same text in both languages. Our Seagliders, which we were launching offshore of Nuuk, were called ‘U-boats’ by the press. At left a boy displays the eye of a whale just caught.
A short distance across the water, Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay) on Baffin Island is the capital of the new Canadian Territory of Nunuvut; home rule was established very recently (1999). The differences are great however, with less investment by Canada in infrastructure. The Canadian Inuit speak Inuktitut, which is written in beautiful unfamiliar symbols; yet it is close enough to Greenlandic that they could converse. Visit http://www.explorenorth.com/library/weekly/aa040199.htm Inuit means "the people" in Inuktitut. Eskimo, a Cree Indian word meaning "eaters of raw meat," was meant as an insult, and is no longer used in Canada The population of Nunavut is 27,000 (23,000 Inuit) humans and 750,000 caribou
The Arctic circle, in black is at approximately 66 0 33’ North (66.5 0 ); this is the southernmost latitude of polar night (where the sun does not rise at all, one day of the year). As you go north from their, polar night fills more days, weeks, months. But, the moon and stars are bright, the snow is white and the aurora (northern lights) brilliant and amazing. You can almost read a book by them. Greenland is mostly made of ice: the ice-cap crests at about 3000m altitude (~10,000 feet). The ‘island’ continent is 23 degrees of latitude long (from north to south). Each degree of latitude is 111 km, so this is about 2500 km long. Its width is about 700km on average, which gives a basis for estimating the volume of ice…and (in the spirit of the spherical cow) you can estimate the rise in global sea level, should Greenland melt. In fact it is melting according to Dr. Konrad Steffen of Univ. of Colorado. He estimates that global sea level is rising at a rate 1.3 mm per decade due to the current melting rate. Not quite what we see in The Day After Tomorrow but nevertheless enough to build up over time (13 cm/century). . The usual maps of the Earth distort Greenland and all polar regions. A polar projection (as here) more accurately shows the sizes of things.
Viking settlement of Greenland, Labrador and Newfoundland began just before A.D. 1000. Eric the Red was banished from Iceland in the year 982; the Norse sagas record his activity in Greenland (so named to attract people there and, well, it was the Medieval Warm Period and was greener: stone walls are found beneath the permanent ice). The population may have reached 3000 or so and lived successfully until almost the year 1500, as climate cooled off. Eric’s son, Leif Ericsson, was likely one of the Viking settlers in L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland…long before Christopher Columbus in 1492 reached the ‘New’ World. There is no record of contact with natives, although there must have been some. It seems likely that the native populations of maritime Canada inhibited the Vikings from pressing farther south. Legends like ‘Vinland’ (a map looking like New England turned up at Yale University a couple of decades ago) continue to suggest that they may have visited the warmer latitudes. The Danish presence in Greenland, where so many natives have intermarried with Danes, is still strong, and it makes the natives distinct from those in Arctic Canada. Viking influence is widespread, across Europe and even through Russia to the Middle East. Their great facility with long-distance boating helped to make them a powerful people. On the 1000 th anniversary of the voyage,Ericsson’s voyage from Greenland across to Canada was re-enacted with an accurate reproduction of a Viking long-boat. http://www.greenland-guide.gl/leif2000/ The Norse sagas give remarkable detail about these explorations and settlements. To read a sample from Jon Thorharson, 1387, go to http://www.canadahistory.com/sections/documents/thorharson_saga.htm http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/vikgrn.html
John Shelden in 1639 told of his discovery of the North Pole, supposedly made of iron, sticking several hundred feet up and surrounded by a ring of ice. Perhaps he thought a planet with a magnetic field must have a magnet .
Martin Frobisher, 1576 Early seeking to reach Asia through an imagined northwest passage, Frobisher did manage to explore ‘Frobisher Bay’ on Baffin Island. Iqaluit is now the native name for the town there, which is the capital of the new Canadian Territory of Nunavut. from J.P. Delgado, Across the Top of the World, British Museum Press, 1999, 228 pp
Frobisher’s ship Gabriel; a 30-ton bark The idea of ‘discovery’ by Europeans is a little hollow, with the native Inuit already happily settled in the region**. Frobisher soon ‘discovered’ them (He ‘perceived a number of small things fleeting in the sea farre off, whyche hee syupposed to be Porposes, or Ceales, or some kind of strange fishe; but comming nearer he discourvered them to be men, in small boates made of leather’. Frobisher hired a native to help him pilot through the ice, but then had a disturbing interaction with the natives, involving 5 of his crew who disappeared mysteriously. But Frobisher stayed there two seasons, apparently peacefully. But then, using a small bell as bait, he lured a native and his kayak on board, taking him captive as proof of his success, back in England. The native died soon after the voyage. This pattern of exploitation of the native population from the very first encounter is a sad statement, repeated many times in many expeditions. How can it be that Frobisher did not value the natives as humans, and admire their remarkable skills and strengths? Money is involved: he returned with a black piece of stone that a wishful assayer determined to be gold ore. Queen Elizabeth contributed 1000 pounds and a much larger ship, the 223 ton Ayde , to his next voyage. This voyage was a story of puffed up imperialism, lust for gold, brutal approach to the Inuit, and ultimate failure. In all he carried about 1500 tons of worthless black rocks to England ** The same might be said of many expeditions including that of Lewis and Clark
Henry Hudson on the Discovery, 1610
The last voyage of Henry Hudson: a painting by John Collier, Tate Gallery, London, as imagined by the artist Part of the legacy of Henry “ The bounds of Hudson was the Hudson Bay Company, founded in 1670 after America doth stretch the explorer Pierre Radisson many thousands told tales of fur trading with the mies; into the frozen natives. King Charles of England partes whereof one granted a royal charter to the Master Hudson an “gentleman adventurers of English Mariner did Hudson’s Bay” in that year. make the greatest The trading post was a central part of the Company’s discoverie of any success; they were established Christia I knowe of, at the mouths of rivers, on Hudson where he Bay, James Bay, the Arctic Ocean unfortunately died.” and across the western interior Captain John Smith, of Canada. For 300 years they 1616 were a dominant force, changing the lives of the natives. Introduction of guns, alcohol and sugar altered the caribou hunting and seal hunting of the Inuit. from J.P. Delgado, Across the Top of the World, British Museum Press, 1999, 228 pp
Roald Amundson finally navigated the entire NW passage in 1903-1906
Fridjoft Nansen strived to be first to reach the North Pole, and failed but his drift in the vessel Fram , locked in the ice intentionally, was a scientific bonanza, and successfully verified the ocean circulation that carried the ship from the Russian coast near the Pole, then south to the Atlantic, just east of Greenland… through what is now called Fram Strait (1893-96) . His book Farthest North tells the story. http://www.ocean98.org/nans.htm Nansen’s observations laid the basis for understanding the way the upper ocean currents work, in response to winds, which is a key part of the oceanic general circulation. In 1922 he was awarded a Nobel Prize, not for science but for peace. He worked to resettle refugee prisoners after the 1 st World War.
Recommend
More recommend
