#Greenland

Tactile Topography

/ PK Read / 3 Comments
These maps, sold to Danish explorer Gustav Holm by Umvit native Kunit in the 1880s. Kuniit's wooden maps show the journey from Sermiligaaq to Kangertittivatsiaq, Greenland. Source: Visualising Data

These maps were sold to Danish explorer Gustav Holm by Umvit native Kuniit in the 1880s.
Kuniit’s wooden maps show the journey from Sermiligaaq to Kangertittivatsiaq, Greenland.
Source: Visualising Data

I came across some maps the other day and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them since.

Carved wood maps are well-known Inuit instruments of cartography, made to navigate the coastal waters and inland areas of Greenland. The maps are read by feeling along each ridge, and are legible up one side and down the other for a continuous journey.

The tools are hand-held guidance systems for specific journeys that would be almost illegible to those of us accustomed to paper.

These are maps made for specific journeys, to be read by those who had been there and passed on, or rather, taught, to those who were going. Experiential maps based on being there rather than description. An object that contains sight, sound, touch, all ready to fit into a mitten.

Less a visualization than a finger-felt stroll through a long path.

In English, the caption reads: "Kuniit's three wooden (tree) maps show the journey from Sermiligaaq to Kangertittivatsiaq. Map to the right shows the islands along the coast, while the map in the middle shows the mainland and is read from one side of the block around to the other. Map to the left shows the peninsula between the fjords Sermiligaaq and Kangertivartikajik." Source: Topografisk Atlas Grønland via Nuuk Marlak

In English, the caption reads: “Kuniit’s three wooden (tree) maps show the journey from Sermiligaaq to Kangertittivatsiaq. Map to the right shows the islands along the coast, while the map in the middle shows the mainland and is read from one side of the block around to the other. Map to the left shows the peninsula between the fjords Sermiligaaq and Kangertivartikajik.”
Source: Topografisk Atlas Grønland via Nuuk Marlak

Consider the knowledge of place that is required to craft a map of this kind.

How many places do most of us know as well, using our conventional maps and paths through life?

When I was a teenager, I spent some time living in the dense forests of coastal Marin County, California. We lived in cabins that were almost a mile from the main road, up a steep and rutted dirt road that twisted and turned between bay trees and ferns, no grading or gravel. No electricity, no street lights. No neighbors.

Every so often, walking back from the closest village of Inverness, I would arrive after sunset.

Being a forgetful teen, I rarely remembered to bring a flashlight. Read: Never. So I walked the road in the dark. Barefoot, so I could stay on the soft dirt of the road and not accidentally wander off into the soft fringes of moss and low plants on either side. Once the road was gone beneath my feet, it was gone for a panicky while.

That happened only once, the first time. After that, I got to know the curves and switchbacks, the ruts and the touchstone trees, well enough make my way up the hill without incident. Read: Safe arrival.

Seeing these wooden Inuit maps, I wonder if I would have been able to carve that road into a tool that I could have used, even without bare feet. I knew the road well – but how deeply had I made it a part of myself, as these maps must have been to their makers and users?

The Greenland coastline described in the coastal wooden map, seen from a modern paddling perspective. A description of the trip can be found at the credit link. Source: Jim Krawiecki/The Paddler eZine

The Greenland coastline described in the coastal wooden map, seen from a modern paddling perspective. A description of the trip can be found at the credit link.
Source: Jim Krawiecki/The Paddler eZine

Fountainhead Reflections

/ PK Read / 3 Comments

There are several old public fountains in the villages that surround mine, and I pass them on my runs. Our village dismantled its fountain many years ago for reasons unknown to me – I do know, however, that the former mayor uses the former stone fountain trough in his garden as decoration.photo 2

Be that as it may, all the fountains around here have a sign above them that says ‘Eau non potable’ – Non potable water.

I’ve often wondered why the water is labeled unsuitable for consumption, since we live along a river that is, in fact, used as the area’s main water source. The water here is excellent, for the most part, and tasty.

Photo: Olivier Le Queinec

Photo: Olivier Le Queinec

I found a French forum that discussed just this topic. I learned that there are a variety of reasons the water may be labeled non potable. It might be untreated, the village might not have the funds to have it regularly tested (I suspect this is the case in our area), or it might be polluted (sometimes the case further down the Rhône River).

Some fountains, rather than having a ‘Eau non potable’ sign, have instead a sign which reads ‘Eau non surveillé’ – unsupervised water. Which means, more or less, that nobody is saying the water is good or bad. Drink at your own risk.

One of the commenters on the French water forum said (loosely translated): “Our water should be alive, light, wild and untamed, impossible to have under surveillance and, on occasion, capricious. Thus, ‘unsupervised water’ is exactly what water should be.”

There is speculation that there are vast amounts of water in places hitherto unsuspected. A massive aquifer was recently discovered under an ice sheet in Greenland. There are untold oceans far beneath the earth’s surface. The water might not be fresh water, water that is potable. It floats our tectonic plates, it impacts volcanic activity. But it is, at least for now, more or less unsupervised.

An iceberg melts in Greenland. Photo: John McConnico/AP

An iceberg melts in Greenland.
Photo: John McConnico/AP

I like this idea of unsupervised water finding its own way.

But the fact is, only 2% amount of the water on the surface of the planet is fresh water, water we can drink. Even less is water we can access – and what we can access, we don’t seem to care for in the way we should, considering its intrinsic necessity to our survival.

Probably need to have this water under more supervision, or at least, more careful supervision, rather than less.

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Today is World Water Day. The theme for 2014 is the utilization of water to generate energy around the world.

Following Green

/ PK Read / 1 Comment

606x341_237086_groenland-sous-les-glaces-un-immensSome scientists are predicting that climate change will make Greenland, legendary for its otherworldly vistas, a place as green and verdant as Sweden or parts of Alaska. As species – both flora and fauna – migrate from their customary habitats, we will likely see the spread of more diversity, rather than less, into areas that were previously inhospitable or ice-covered.

There are very few species of tree  indigenous to Greenland, but commercial tree plantations have already been attempted in southern areas of the country, and I imagine given the value of commercial timber, this activity could increase.

If the ‘greening of Greenland’ process develops as predicted, it could offer a unique opportunity to see how plant and animal life colonize a region.

However, I could also envision a different kind of colonisation, the kind that didn’t take place earlier.

Ilulissat Icefjord, Greenland

Ilulissat Icefjord, Greenland

The ever-growing interest in land and mineral claims by surrounding countries to exploit resources exposed by retreating glaciers is well-known. As land becomes viable and interesting for increased habitation, might this expand to other land claims, coming up against the traditional shared land ownership of the various indigenous groups?

 

If climate change prompts plant migration away from the middle latitudes and towards the poles (especially the North Pole), might we not see more people wanting to follow the green?

Kuannersuit Glacier, Disko, Greenland Photo: Panoramio

Kuannersuit Glacier, Disko, Greenland
Photo: Panoramio

More:

The Guardian article – Climate change could turn Greenland green by 2100

AFP article (2008) – Stop stealing our land, Inuits say, as Arctic resources race heats up