SULUK 1-20 - Agent Kit Survey - Air Greenland

200 years old. Oskar Sigurdsen, who
is now 73 years old and Kaalariit’s
only surviving child, explains that they
moved here at the beginning of the
1960’s from Uummannatsiaq, which
lies on the other side of the island, a
hunting society that used only rowing
boats and kayaks for transport in
those days.
Reunion
Over the years I had often dreamt of
going back and now it was actually
happening. We arrived only 15 minutes
after leaving Uummannaq in the
small helicopter. It wasn’t like before,
when we made the journey by dog
sled in minus 30 degrees. One of my
old pupils, Oline, recognized me when
I disembarked from the helicopter and
she welcomed me. She led me through
the settlement from the small, outof-the-way
helistop, talking on the
way. She was originally trained as an
industrial laboratory technician, but
there wasn’t any work for her at the
settlement so now she functioned as
the settlement’s »nurse«. She was just
as quick to laughter as I remember she
had been as a child. She was now
expecting her first grandchild.
There were many new houses and the
new part of town, where there had
been few houses when we left the settlement
in 1982, was now well-developed
with about 20-25 houses. I could
see that the school was bigger and the
shop had an extension, so the old part
was now only used for storage. At a
later visit I could see that the stocks
were computer-controlled, so the shop
with its female grocer was up to speed
in the 21st century. And up by the
church was the green house that we
had lived in, and which I visited again
when I was invited to dinner with teaching
couple Betina and Thomas.
Dinner with the Norwegian teacher
Marianne, with whom I stayed, consisted
of sushi and South African food.
It was all made, of course, with the
local fish – the Greenland halibut – as
the basic ingredient. I had not expected
to eat sushi with chopsticks in
Ikerasak. These teachers, who had
been here for a couple of years and
had therefore learned some Greenlandic,
wanted to hear all about what
it was like in the days when I lived
there and questions were asked and
answered.
The passage of time
The weather gods were on their
best behaviour. The sun shone from
a cloudless sky every day. Spring is
welcome in a region where the
sun disappears for the three winter
months. I drew in the fresh air and
the impressions. I felt as if I had gone
back 25 years in my life. The years in
between shrank. It was as if I had
been here quite recently.
Many of my old pupils still live here
and most of them have 3-4 children.
Apart from a hint of grey in their hair,
friends and acquaintances hadn’t
changed. They have their grandchildren
around them. I visited the final
resting places of those elders who had
been taken by time in the new cemetery
by the small sound with the most
beautiful view you can imagine. I was
suddenly close to the passage of time
and the passing of generations.
An enterprising settlement
With its 280 inhabitants, Ikerasak is
one of the larger settlements in Greenland.
But the population varies somewhat,
as the settlement with its halibut
market attracts many outsiders
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