Trivia

I finally got to go to the mecca of Greenlandic tourism: Ilulissat.  This town is everything you imagine Greenland to be – dog sleds (6000 of them!)  and icebergs. But it truly is stunning.  Trivia is this: Ilulissat is home to Ilulissat Kangerlua, the northern hemispheres’ most prolific tidewater glacier.  The Icefjord here produces 20 million tons of ice per day – that’s equal to the volume of water used by NYC in an entire year (thanks Lonely Planet, but I did double check that stat).

Why are the houses in Greenland all different colors? I recently found out.  In the past, different trades had their own colors – and they owned houses for their employees, and so by association their houses were that color too. For example, the hospital was yellow and so were the houses of doctors and nurses, the shops were blue as were the shopkeepers houses, the utlities (water, gas etc) were green and the administration houses were red.  Although this isn’t the rule anymore, most hospitals are still yellow (except for Ilulissat – only red hospital in the country), shops are still blue etc.  I live in a blue house.

My post on planes sometime back prompted my cool Aunt Sarah to write me about her experience in ridiculously named planes – and the Canadian connection to Twin Otters and Dash-7s.  If you have ever wondered why it is called a Twin Otter, for example, that is because the company, de Havilland (Canada) named all their planes after Canadian animals (Otter, Twin Otter, Caribou, Buffalo, Beaver, Chipmunk etc).  Apparently, the Otter was actually supposed to be name King Beaver (could you seriously fly in something called a King Beaver?)

This particular company enjoyed animal names, witness (my Aunt’s favorite) the Grumman Goose – used in Long Island.

The company was eventually bought by Bombardier, but that is the company that makes the famous Dash-8s!

People always seem surprised when I tell them that Greenland is only one hour ahead of DC.  That is because Greenland seems way farther away than it actually is.  In fact, it’s only a two hour flight to Halifax (that flight doesn’t exist, but hypothetically,) and the now dead route to Baltimore took only 4 hours.  But because demand is low, if you are living in North America, you have to go through Copenhagen to get here.

My parents, who are in Argentina, are actually in the same time zone as me.

Normally, everything from the ground up of a country’s territory to infinity belongs to that country.  But because the human resources in Greenland are so sparse, they have outsourced their airspace above 19,500 ft to two countries: Iceland and Canada (in the South). Greenland Airports Authority still control everything below 19,500 feet and they get royalties from planes flying over the island, but if you aren’t landing in Greenland – you don’t get to talk to any cool Greenlandic airport guys, like Christian who gave me this great piece of trivia. 

There are 56,000 people in Greenland and about 35,000 in the Workforce.  A staggering 12,000 work in the public sector.  That’s about 34% of the labor force.  Compartively, about 9% of the Canadian labor force works for the public sector and 12% in the US.

Narwhal means “Corpse Whale,” in old Norse. The creatures got their names from their pallid, corpse-like appearance.  Which is funny because I don’t really think they look like ghosts.  Unicorns of the Sea might have been a cool name too.  So – the Narwhal is a medium sized, toothed whale found in Arctic waters, mostly around Northern Canada and Greenland.  People still hunt them today for meat and the ivory from their tusks.

Prior to 2005, there was no quota on fishing Narwhals.  In 2008, there was a limit of 300 in West Greenland, but no limit in the East (average catch is around 95).   Hunters are required to provide a hunting report that details the number and the sex of the Narwhals killed as well as details about the hunter (type of vessel, address etc).  More info here (NDF Report) and here (CITES)

There are over 20,000 Sled dogs in Greenland.  In the winter, they are the  main means of transport in the North.  But they are not allowed South of the Arctic circle, to ensure that the breed stays pure.

Also, here people call them Sledge Dogs, which I just learnt is the British word for Sled.

Greenland is BIG.  It is the world’s largest island (Australia is considered a continent), although 85% of it is covered in ice. The municipality of Nuuk is three times the size of Belgium.  Greenland has the world’s lowest population density (0.026 humans per square kilometer).  Even sparsely inhabited Australia is 100 times more crowded; Macau 700,000 times more so.

The word Arctic comes from the Greek word Arktikos.  The Greeks had no knowledge of polar bears but the land was located under the Ursa Major constellation: Great bear.