A WHALE OF A TIME IN GREENLAND

PRINT EDITION CONTENTS past issues

PAST GALLERIES

Greenland's summer solstice was momentous. Not only did the Arctic island throw off the yoke of colonialism, but also locals feasted on the flesh of rare whales, writes a news editor for The Economist ...

From ECONOMIST.COM

Given the choice of subsisting on seal or whale I would plump for the former, without enthusiasm. A mouthful of seal flesh has little to recommend it, unless you are drawn to a slippery, dark, lamb-like meat that tastes as if it had been left to stew in a dirty aquarium. But neither is whale tempting: chewing its skin is like gnawing a strip of leather soaked in cod-liver oil. In either case, at least on the first encounter, a diner is likely to experience a faint sense of nausea. If you must have whale, cetacean biltong (whale jerky) is more palatable than the fresh stuff.

Most Greenlanders, however, relish both meats when the chance arises. A recent weekend in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, saw a triple excuse to indulge. The summer solstice, which serves as the national day, coincided both with the replacement after 30 years of a much-disliked government and with celebrations for throwing off (sort of) three centuries of Denmark’s colonial yoke. As a result, Nuuk was in a festive mood. The pretty red-and-white Greenlandic flag fluttered from every bus, official building and school-child’s hand. The town was criss-crossed by processions of men in white anoraks and jovial women in coloured beads and embroidered seal-skin outfits. Visiting dignitaries enthusiastically ripped veils from new pieces of public art: in one square revealing a statue of seals at play, while above the town beach appeared three slabs of concrete holding aloft a ball of stone.

Over a breakfast of herring and salmon in the town’s main hotel one could bump into a visiting bishop from Copenhagen bedecked in medallions; Iceland’s affable president; or one of a wide array of Danish royals. We outsiders then took turns trooping through the town’s fish market, gawping at mounds of halibut and at the bloody work of a sealmonger who obligingly butchered a carcass. On the streets the mood was restrained and good-natured, only rising to a murmur of excitement when the official distribution of whale-meat began.

boat The local government had claimed special dispensation to harpoon two rare Greenlandic whales. One of the pair, it was widely said, had turned out to be 200 years old, although I do not understand just how one determines such a fact. Perhaps it is like counting the rings of a felled tree. Officials then handed out two tonnes of the flesh to the 56,000 or so residents of this massive territory. In Nuuk that was a simple matter: whale munchers crowded a sports hall for lunch, then strolled home with meat in bulging plastic bags. But the rest of Greenland is sparsely populated. There are tiny settlements (the smallest has a single inhabitant, a middle-aged man who refuses to move to the nearest town) and small towns spread far north of the Arctic circle and along Greenland’s remote and icy eastern coast. Delivering whale, on time, to the scattered masses looked like an immense bureaucratic task. Local television news reported it was only possible thanks to the many small, red propeller-planes of Air Greenland.

The survival of so many small settlements across the vast country is made possible by the largesse of the Greenland state, which in turn relies on billions of kroner doled out by distant Denmark. That Denmark spends the equivalent of more than $11,000 per Greenlander, each year, might explain why the locals, though delighted to be claiming more powers of self-government, are not yet rushing for complete independence. One afternoon in Nuuk, at a kaffemik, a sort of family party that involves drinking coffee, wine and beer—in this case to celebrate the school graduation of a daughter—guests said that they were thrilled by their new government. But they were also adamant that Greenland could not yet afford full independence. “Not now, it’s good as it is for now,” explained one woman. A visiting Danish journalist said wryly, while sipping a bâja pilluarit (celebration beer), “psychologically, the state is my father, you know?”

And yet people feel great pride at Greenland’s taking on more control: over police and the courts, over local government and the schools and dozens more things. Greenlandic is to become an official language, and the nation feels it is making itself noticed on the world stage. “It’s our land, our language. We have to do it ourselves, not rely on others doing it,” explains a woman in national dress wearing white seal boots and trousers. Despite their love of traditions, Greenlanders are under no illusion that they will return to a past of surviving on what they hunt. The celebrations and the food of old will come and go, but nobody will be asked to subsist on seal or whale.

Picture credit: Daquella manera, kriskaer (both via Flickr)

(This is part of a correspondent's diary about Greenland, published on Economist.com.)