First Impressions of Greenland

After two long days of travelling, I was finally able to go out and see some of our surroundings in Greenland. It all started with a very early flight on Monday morning to Chicago. After taking some time to navigate the labyrinth that is the O’hare airport, I then made it on my flight to Albany, NY. In Albany we met up as a group and were treated a dinner at the house of a past participant. We were able to enjoy some good food and hear some stories from previous trips. The next morning we left the hotel quite early after getting up at 4 am (1 am in Tucson) and went to the 109^th Air National Guard Base in Schenectady. There are no commercial flights to Greenland from the United States so a lot of scientists fly with the ANG. They fly LC-130s, which are large cargo planes equipped with skis so they can land on snow when needed. We were lucky enough that we were the only ones on the flight that day besides a lot of cargo. The plane is really loud so we were given earplugs to wear for the entire 6-hour trip. Despite the fact that we were just sitting in net cargo seats, it was actually fairly comfortable since we could still stretch our legs out and the roar of the engine eventually lulled most of us to sleep. We spent most of the flight sleeping, reading, listening to music, and playing games of charade-esque Go Fish. Eventually Greenland came into view and we were able to get up to look out the windows and take pictures. We also got to take turns going into the cockpit and I even got to sit in the cockpit for our landing. It was smoother than any commercial landing I’ve ever experienced. Upon arriving in Kangerlussuaq we were taken to the school that we will be calling home for the next couple weeks. We did some exploring around the building and found it is a very interesting place. It has been used as a school as well as a prison at one point. We looked around the different rooms and found a plethora of treasures left by the past inhabitants including a Danish-English-Greenlandic dictionary, a soccer ball, a dead plant, old art projects, and a Michael Jackson poster. We also found a book of Greenlandic children’s stories, which includes stories such as The Dog Who Acted Like a Woman. We had a fun story time after dinner last night. For dinner last night we went to the restaurant attached to the inn next door. It had some really spicy Thai food including some with Musk Ox. After dinner we walked down to the river that flows from the ice to the fjord. It was a little strange experiencing the infamous midnight sun last night. Between the 5 hour time change, lack of darkness, and multiple early mornings, it was pretty difficult to sleep last night.

            Since the rest of the students don’t come until Friday, we have a couple days to explore the area and finish setting up for the Field School. This morning we started our day by having breakfast at the Cantina at the airport. We got to meet a bunch of the researchers that are staying at the Kangerlussuaq International Science Support (KISS) next door to us. It was really cool getting to hear their stories of how they got involved with polar science and the work they are doing right now. After breakfast, a couple of the grad students, Lauren and Jeff, took us out to see some of the area. Before we left, though, they gave us a quick presentation on the work they were doing. Lauren is working on her PhD at Dartmouth and is a freshwater ecologist who was doing research on mosquitoes. We have found that there is a reason that they call mosquitoes “Greenland’s Air Force”. Since there are only a few things that eat mosquitoes, there are a lot of them around. We have apparently arrived in the midst of mosquito season and have spent most of our time outside swatting them away. The current record amongst our group for most mosquitoes killed at once is 5. Lauren told us about some of the things you can find in the lakes around the area. There are only a couple species of fish and most of the freshwater is instead dominated by macro invertebrates including larvae and some predatory beetles. Kangerlussuaq is a popular area for research since there isn’t much biodiversity in the area. That makes it easy to isolate a species to study. Jeff, a grad student at Penn State, then told us about his work researching caribou. Caribou have to eat lots during the summer so they can raise their calves and survive the winter. With climate change, plants have started arriving earlier in the year. Caribou, however, do not change their patterns and continue to give birth to baby caribou at the beginning of June. Plants arriving earlier can mean difficulty for caribou since they need to eat the plants when they are young since they have less cellulose and are therefore easier to digest. Eating plants that are older means the caribou don’t get as much energy from the plants, which is why climate change can cause trouble for the caribou. It is absolutely necessary that they store up a lot of energy in order to survive the harsh winter. If they don’t, it makes survival unlikely. We also learned a bit about Musk Ox. They are actually a very old species dating back to the same time as wooly mammoths. I’m really hoping we will be able to see some while we are here.

            After their presentations we headed out on the road towards the edge of the ice cap. We stopped and took a hike up Mt. Sugar Loaf. It was a bit of a tough trip to the top and there were a ton of mosquitoes but the view from the top was definitely worth it. We were able to see out to the edge of the ice cap, which is the “second largest ice cube in the world”. We could also look back and see Kangerlussuaq. After the hike, we went and looked at a lake that contains sea tomatoes. As their name implies, they look and feel like tomatoes but are found only in a couple freshwater lakes around Kangerlussuaq. They are actually colonies of cyanobacteria. There are lots of them gathered around the edge of the lake. We picked some up and looked inside and found out you can actually skip them across the water like a rock.

            After playing with the sea tomatoes for a while, we were going to head back towards town for lunch but ended up getting the car stuck in some sand. After trying to dig out the wheels and having seven of us pushing the car, we ended up having to call someone to come tow us out. We took the extra time to explore the area a bit more and before long we were back in the car heading to lunch. For lunch we went to the little pizzeria in town. I had some fairly good pineapple pizza and we were all pretty entertained by the owner as helped us pick out our orders and threw in some words in Spanish. All the locals here have been pretty friendly and we are looking forward to getting to meet the other students when they get here soon. After lunch we headed back to the school where we ended up spending awhile taking apart bunk beds and moving furniture to get ready for everyone else. Now we are just taking a break for a while before going to dinner and meeting some of the researchers for a game of soccer later this evening. We also finally got the TV to work so we’ve been enjoying trying to figure out some of the Danish shows that come on as well as watching some American shows with subtitles.

            So far it’s been a great time full of lots of surprises here in Greenland. In addition, it has actually been pretty warm (at least in Greenland terms) which has made for some good weather for getting outside. Tomorrow we are going to explore more around the area and hopefully get out to the sled dog area where there are supposed to be some little puppies. 

First view of Greenland on flight

One of the LC-130s

At the lake with Mt. Sugar Loaf in the background

View of Russell Glacier from the top of Mt. Sugar Loaf

Sea tomatoes