Five things I Found Out About Greenland: Thing 2. Stealing A Car In Greenland Is The Stupidest Crime You Could Choose To Commit

Do not steal (unless you are thick)

I read this somewhere:

“There are only 90 miles of road in Greenland and of those only 45 of those are paved”

Now it was on the internet so, of course, it may be complete bollocks but after a week in Greenland I can confirm that general jist of that statement is true: there’s really not much in the way of roads over there.

Life exists across the island in small pockets that aren’t particularly well connected to each other. For example we were staying in Greeland’s 3rd largst town (Ilulissat) and that had a minute population of 5,000 people. (Nuuk is the biggest town with 15,000 people which makes it the capital city with the smallest population in the world) Just like all of Greenland’s towns no roads connect it to any other and the only ways in or out is via air, sea or dog sled.

In fact sea access isn’t at all consistent throughout the year. West of the harbour exit the IIlulissat Icefjord dumps Icebergs into Disko Bay all year long. The fjord is pretty deep until is gets near the exit where it shallows quickly to around 200m. The bigger bergs floating towards the sea slow and bump along the bottom and it’s it not unusual for them to break up choking the harbour with ice. Also during the colder winter months the sea freezes over and renders the harbour useless.

Ilulissat Harbour

Harbour access is pretty important as just about every family owns a boat and a good proportion of the town’s livelihood depend on fishing of the local halibut. Global warming has made winter harbour freezes less lengthy and frequent over the years and gone are the times when the locals could dog sled out onto the sea ice. The upside though is with the harbour free of ice for more of the year the locals can sea fish more. In Ilulissat this seems to be seen as a positive aspect of climate change.

Given the dependence on fishing boat ownership is near universal for the families of Ilulissat while car ownership is relatively rare. The small amount of roads in the town are far from empty but the vehicles are either company owned or are taxis.

With no roads leading out of town it’s a bit like being in The Truman Show. And it’s the smallness of the community coupled with the lack of places to drive to makes Greenlandic car theft the stupidest theft you could commit.

The locals seem aware of this as it’s common to see empty cars on the roadside engines running while the driver has nipped into a shop. Give the bitter cold (-10c for most of the time we were there) it’s also a a good way of avoiding the risk you take every time you have to restart your car in arctic weather.

Social housing with halibut drying

So yeah, a strange and unique place. The town is fairly urban and apart from the stunning scenery provided by ice fjord is pretty recognisable as an everyday small town. What is different is a a good porportion of the families that live here still have a dependency on fishing and hunting as has been the case for centuries. Seeing seal skins and fish hung to dry from the blocks of social housing brought this home.

I also felt a real disonnance between the feeling of freedom and expansiveness from the amazing scenery just out of town versus a claustrophobia from just knowing that if I wanted to take off to the open road the only place you could go was round and round in circles. A weird mix.

This is the Second Thing of the Five Things I Found Out About Greenland. Next time in Part The Third I will tell you why The Worst Smelling Shit Is Sled Dog Shit. You can find pictures from our holiday right here on Flickr.