Ikateq: Debris and Discovery


Ikateq Airbase

Ikateq Fjord

East Greenland

August 28, 2015


If I had had a vote I would have voted “no.”

Since I didn’t have a vote, and without any discussion, our tour proceeds up Ikateq Fjord to visit an abandoned United States Airbase built during World War II.

On this occasion, dictatorship trumps democracy.

But why would we want to spend any time at an obsolete gravel airstrip and the adjacent forlorn remains of construction equipment and the rubble of overturned oil drums, discarded and left to rust and decay?

The scenery surrounding the airbase is as dramatic and pristine as any I have seen here in East Greenland.  Yet, is there something moving and compelling and even attractive about this detritus of the not so distant past?

The Story of Icebergs





The Iceberg Story

A Poetic Story:

“The Migration of Icebergs” by Daniel Anet*

“It’s a naïve iceberg, pure ethereal sculpture, a floating mountain that rolled over one day and plunged into the sea.  But it’s also the wide open sea, an infinite constellation if icebergs, like a migration of swans; or perhaps it might be the reflection of the Milky Way slipping across the dark blue sea, through the drifting fog.

The fjords thrust into granite lands for hundreds of kilometers, like inland seas; and their waves will eventually lap against short beaches of grey and black pebbles, onto which slump the pleated fronts of age-old glaciers polished by waterfalls. 

Last Days

East Greenland

September 1, 2015

Hello my friends,

The ice sheet on Greenland is second only to the ice sheet at the Antarctic.

Here in late summer, wildflowers abound.  Yet, I have seen little or no agriculture.  The mountains are black or covered with ice and snow.  The fjords are filled with icebergs that have broken free of the ancient glaciers.

My next adventure is in Iceland.  There I anticipate sheep and horses grazing in lush pastures.

So here's the question: "Why is the continental-country of ice called Greenland?

Why is the more temperate locale called Iceland?

 I wish you safe and colorful travels,