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Satellite Images, Meteorology, Weather, Space, Planets, Moons, Arctic Arctic
Some like it hot. Some don't.... I happen to reside in the second category and have lost my soul to the Arctic. I have made several expeditions and regular visits to various locations in the Arctic by dog sledge, snow mobile, on foot and by boat. The following is a compilation of impressions from Greenland, Canadian Arctic and the Svalbard Archipelago. 1991: Trip with the Thule Inuit through Avanersuaq The first trip to the Thule area in North Western Greenland where the Inuit are still living largely in the traditional way of life. Although present day luxury is commonly available, many of the original Inuit still go out for extended periods on hunting by dog sledge and not by modern means of transportation. I have had the pleasure to join them on one of those hunting trips in which I have experienced them as one of the kindest and positive people I know. An impression of this wonderful occasion to have a close-by look into the life and traditional ways of the Inuit is provided in this image gallery. Picture Gallery 1991 Greenland: Click here.
1992: Expedition by dog sledge from Qaanaaq (Thule) to Canada In the late winter, early spring of 1992 an Italian friend (Emanuele Peluffo) and myself undertook an adventurous expedition into the Arctic. We Traveled by military aircraft to the Thule airbase in North Western Greenland, from where we were transported by helicopter to Qaanaaq, the capital of the North . There we had previously reached agreement with two seasoned Inuit, Ajako and Naimangitsoq, who were willing to make their sledge and dogs available to us and serve as guides in the vast and empty expanse of the North. With them we crossed the glaciers, plains and sea ice towards Canadian Ellesmere, where we wanted to visit the place where some hundred years ago a ship with Arctic explorers had frozen in. The crew had to spend two long years in isolation before they were finally rescued. By the time of the rescue though all but two people had perished and those two had become insane. It is irony to realize that at that time, just across the Strait at less than a hundred km. distance there was a thriving Inuit community that could have saved them all. We had chosen the early time of the year in order to have the maximum thickness of the sea ice, as the very strong currents through the Kane Basin and Baffin Strait manage from time to time to break sea ice of a meter and a half thick. We lived during a period of some six weeks from hunting seal and walrus, with the occasional rabbit, ptarmigan or fish as a change of diet. We had some quite stressful moments when on the way back from Canada to Greenland the Baffin Strait started to break open at an incredible speed, barely allowing us to get sledges and dogs lifted up onto ice foot attached to the shore of Greenland. Had this happened halfway the 70 km sea ice crossing, we would not have been here to tell. Another moment of anxiety occurred when I stepped on a patch of frozen snow that happened to be covering a 100 meter deep crevasse in a glacier. I could barely escape a certain end by catching on to the shoulder of the crevasse and work myself out to safety. But all in all the expedition was successful and overly exciting. The following image gallery aims at giving an impression of traditional life in the high north as well as an impression of the conditions on the route. Picture Gallery 1992 Greenland and Canada: Click here. Please direct comments to: fvalk @ fvalk dot com
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