Adventures in Greenland: Day 13

The day began with a talk on whales from Kasper, a Greenlandic teacher who is here right now. He has been living in Aasiaat, which is on the western coast of Greenland. There are some whales that live there year-round and during the summer Humpback whales migrate there to feed. The Humpback whales typically go just up to Disko Bay in the summer but they have been seeing them farther north recently. He showed us some pictures of whales that he had seen while kayaking there and also told us about the work they’ve done to catalog the whales according to the patterns on their flukes, which are like fingerprints. They’ve even been able to compare the Aasiaat catalog with the Nuuk catalog from farther south. They found that they have seen some of the same whales. These catalogs help them to estimate populations, set hunting permits, and monitor the effects of climate change. We also learned more about whale hunting here in Greenland and heard stories from some of the Greenlandic students. We heard about how there is a lot of tradition when it comes to the hunt and there is a very specific way that the meat is split up by the hunters.

Later in the morning we rode our bikes over to the weather station in Kangerlussuaq. We learned about the importance of predicting weather for the planes going in and out of the area. Because we are in a fjord, it is very important to know how low the clouds will be. At the weather center, they take measurements and hand-draw maps showing the different weather systems. They used to do more of the measurements by hand but we were told that they recently automated the system. Throughout the day and night they receive calls from throughout the country asking about the weather in terms of flight conditions. Even in the little time we were there, he got multiple calls from people asking about the weather conditions. Once we finished at the weather station we went to the grocery store to get some snacks since it was right next door. I bought some ramen noodles that Vince later discovered were really good when combined with some other tomato soup that we bought. They were also pretty cheap which was nice since everything here is so expensive. They have some electronic things at the store since it is pretty much the only store in town and all of it is really expensive. An iPhone costs 7000 kroner, which is almost $1500.

Once we finished at the store, those of us who are going to the ice soon went over to the KISS warehouse to try on our gear. We had parkas, snow pants, big boots, sleeping bags, and a few other things that we had to pull out to make sure they were the right size. It seems like they will keep us pretty warm. Trying on all our gear really pumped up our excitement about leaving for the ice too. I can’t believe we will be there soon.

After trying on all our gear we came back to the school for lunch. We then drove out to the harbor area so we could all take some more samples. We also heard about a certain type of orchid that grows there. It is one of the smallest types of orchids in the world. We set out hiking down the fjord and eventually found some of the flowers. We hiked down to where the water was and took some samples too. Then we just hung out for a bit and explored some. We found a nest of little baby birds in the space between some big rocks.

Once we got back from dinner, we spent a while working on our samples and trying to get everything organized for our presentations later this week.