The time for departure - Traditional skills in Greenland

This is the final part of the story series from our project in Greenland on August 2024. The writer, Annukka Pekkarinen, is a traditional sailor and member of our organisations and was working in our project "Traditional skills in Greenland".

You can read the previous parts of this story here. 

PART IV

The next morning, we cruise in front of the Apusiaajik glacier. Isley wants to interview Dines and Ivik on land, and the rest of us practice a little sailing ship rope works on the sunny deck. The 15-year-old twin boys Remee and Kevin fix our staysail preventer. We continue towards Kulusuk, as the departure date of Pamela and Francisco is coming too fast. In Kulusuk we play a little football in the local field and then visit the local museum, with beautiful East Greenlandic family artefacts of the parents of Justine, the headmaster of the school in Kulusuk. The seal skin boots, polar bear fur hunting pants, harpoons and traditional women's sealskin shorts with colorful ribbons are fascinating.

Justine and her husband met at the teacher's school and moved to Kulusuk 30 years ago, to be teachers. In the museum they tell stories of the artefacts and also sell small handicrafts for supporting the school. Frederik, the husband, also gives a tour for Pamela and Francisco in English.

We ask from Justine if we can visit the school the next day. Fransisco has finally received his luggage, with the Kawesqar treasures he brough – sea lion skin canoe models, baskets and harpoon heads and he would like to show them to the kids. We are welcomed to come the next day at 10am.

The boys must head back home to Tasiilaaq and Dines arranges a boat to pick them up. "When will the boat be here?" we ask. "They just caught a Minke whale, they come after they are done cutting her". Time has a different way of passing here compared to my home country. I do not know how long it takes to cut a minke whale, but that does not really matter much at this point. The boat arrives eventually, and we shake hands of the boys, Ivik tells me they are out of cigarettes and ready to go home, but otherwise happy with the experience. Dines gets a piece of Minke whale meat from the boat crew, that we prepare for dinner that night. In the Greenlandic culture, the hunt is traditionally shared in the community – the hunter him or herself does not necessarily own the catch, it belongs to the people.

The Kawesqar people traditionally also consumed marine mammals; sea lions and even whales, that were not necessarily hunted, but used if they were found stranded. Today, all marine mammals are protected in Chilean channels, with no exceptions for culture or tradition of indigenous people as here in Greenland, so this part of the culture is lost for the Kawesqar. For Pamela and Francisco, it is a particularly emotional moment to share this dinner of Minke whale in East Greenland with the local people.

The next morning Pamela, Francisco, Dines and Ivik, as well as me and Isley get to visit the school of Kulusuk. The grades 1-8 are locally in town, and the later grades in Tasiilaaq, where the kids live with relatives or in the school week shared home for small town kids. The school is absolutely beautiful, with a large library, cozy hall with tables, chairs and the kitchen, a woodcraft workshop, small gym and classrooms for the different age groups, with usually two classes together because there is only 35 children in the whole school. In the staircase we see life jackets and kayak paddles hanging from the ceiling – the teaching staff has applied the money from a private fund to get kayaking gear, skis and ice skates for the children, the headmaster explains. On the wall there are posters with rainbows and the Greenlandic words from the language board, describing rainbow people, the students have made them.

Pamela and Francisco tell their stories and Dines translates, all the 35 kids have gathered in the hall to hear the stories, they squirm quietly in their chairs and touch and handle the kayak artefacts and baskets from Patagonia with care, playing with the oars and pretending to harpoon themselves with the little harpoon artefacts. Francisco gives one of the baskets and the largest canoe model to the school. "If any Kawesqar comes here, they will see that now us and our culture, we exist here in Kulusuk with you" he says. We get to invite the sic 8-graders on board our boat to see how we arrived to Tasiilaaq, they roam around the ship and we show them how to pull up the mizzen sail that keeps our bow pointing towards the wind when we anchor.

Soon after we must say goodbye to Pamela and Francisco and Isley, as their flight is leaving. I can never tell if these sailing trips we do with the East Greelandic children and youth give more to them or us, but I think the scale is tipping towards us – this is their home, their familiar place with the only unfamiliar factor being us and our boat. But this is the only way we know how to give back to the community that gives us so much – invite them on board and try to show who we are, what we do and why we love sailing, the sea and their home in East Greenland. This year was made extra special with the participation of our Kawesqar guests, made possible by the Global Greengrants Fund and Tero Mustonen from Snowchange Cooperative, as well as our coordinating organization in Finland, the Traditional sailors of Helsinki and their chair Lotta Santala. We are humble and thankful, and full of ideas and inspiration for what more we could do next year, with small steps, small acts and big impact.

Annukka Pekkarinen,
Sailing ship Byr
East Greenland on 19th August 2024