Greenland and Patagonia

I have been only for 2 nights in Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland. It does not really give me any experience to talk about the land. The land is wild and barren. The people are indigenous with the Europeans coming here to work (and some stay) every summer as nature guides or in some kind of tourism activity. Greenland is not green! I guess that’s a known fact and since most of it is permafrost there are only algae and some moss that finds its way above the ground. Food comes from Denmark and so does the cultural influence. Sure, the locals preserve their heritage and some of them even told me that they feel closer to their Canadian cousins than they feel with Politically aligned people of Denmark. The name, Ilulissat literally means the town of 1000 floating icebergs.

The town of Ililissat in Greenland at twilight in Winter

There is a walk on a wooden pathway near the town, which leads to a lookout point on the glacier. The point that makes you open your mouth in surprise even before you open your camera lens.

So, I couldnt help but compare that memory with my view of the Perito Moreno Glacier here in Patagonia. It is now that I realize that it's not only the Glaciers and the ice fields but also the people stories, their survival instincts in the cold that connect these two lands.

When the European missionaries found the Yamana tribe here on the South Chilean fjords in Patagonia, they were covered in seal fat to protect them from the cold. The animal skin was used to make shelter and everything from the animal was made use of.

I haven’t heard anything of the Inuits from Greenland, which still are sizeable in numbers both in Canada and in Greenland. What the temperatures did in the north, the winds do in the south. Human’s do not really conquer nature, they never can. They learned to co-exist.

I don’t even want to talk about what we are doing today with nature.

A walk in Patagonia in summer

On my 6^th day in Patagonia on this expedition cruise I learn more about this land and its past. The more I do the more I feel blessed to have visited both Greenland and Patagonia in the span of less than 3 months.