Row Club
@Aug/'93 Greenland
[Greenland] [Articles 2004] [Top]

Inland Ice,                Direction Board at Sonder Stroem Fjord airport

Tons of notes are handled as the air cargoes. This is Kloten Airport in Zurich, Switzerland where the gate for international block money laundered into good money. Four o'clock in the morning, it is still dark even in the mid of summer. Instruction was to wait at bus stop. I waited the bus at the bus stop in front of the airport Hotel Movinpick with little doubt in my mind. It should come in every 15 minutes. Three business man like gentlemen and a tourist like lady were also in the same spot. Are all passengers waiting the bus to the main terminal?

Only three hours passed since I had checked in the hotel late last night. But I had to depart paying 280 Swiss Franc. It is extremely expensive for three hours stay. The bus came as instructed in 15 minutes. For my daughter’s souvenir I bought a box of plane Swiss chocolate she found most of. I am leaving Switzerland heading for Greenland behind the bad weather I had experienced during whole my stay in there.

A fine blue sky there was unlike Zurich, when the plane flew into Copenhagen international airport. The airport is looked like Skippo in Holland, barely floating on mud in law land. A person of Swiss Air instructed me to go to SAS counter. Suddenly, a man asked me shake hand. He was Mr. Hansen, a local agent in Denmark. He was supposed to travel to Greenland from Copenhagen together with me. We got on board, and had a little shock that it was not a small plane but B-767, a big international long haul jet, in which more than 300 passengers can be on board. To my surprise, the plane was almost full seated. Where do they go? I knew that Greenland has very few human habitations. To my knowledge, only a few hundreds people are living in Sonder Stroem Fjord. This question was resolved when the plane arrived at Sondre Stroem Fjord airport.

Something was not quite in order in the plane. There were no usual cabin attendants, but only old retired men were on service. Finally, in the cabin announcement, they apologized that due to union’s strike, no cabin attendant was available at that time and veteran pilots and parsers were on board. The plane departed Copenhagen served by special elegancy of aged gentlemen.

Since there was 4 hours time different between Copenhagen and Sondre Stroem Fjord, we arrived at Sonder Stroem Fjord at about the same time we left Copenhagen. A huge airport was in this tiny ice cold remote village. I learned the reason soon why it was so large in scale. There were a dozen of helicopters parked in the air field. Almost at once, they roared their jet engines and departed Sondre Stroem Fjord heading to tiny villages scattered around coast area of the island. Most of the passenger came together with us by B767 had continued their journey further to deep into the island. Our group and only few other remained in this tiny village of Sondre Stroem Fjord. There would be only hundreds habitants in this village. People sometimes had to perform multiple functions in this village. When we got off the plane, a lady had taken care of our baggage claims. The only one hotel was annexed to the same airport building. We went to the hotel lobby to check in. The same lady was in the counter. And in the only bar available in the hotel, you would find again the same lady serving customers.

From the next morning, you would never hear the engine noise of airplane at all in the huge airfield. No flight came in nor went out. An airline counter and souvenir kiosk were closed. The calm, serene and cool time was in the short summer of northern island.

The airport was used as one of NATO's strategic air bases during the World War II. In this tiny village, you find almost anything, milk plant, bakery, glossary, snack bar, pool bar, church, golf course, hot water swimming pool, tennis court and etc. just like you are in one of the village in the suburbs of Seattle USA. During the World War II, United States sent tremendous amount of goods and soldiers to the western front. At that time, aircraft could not fly the distance between the US mainland and western front. So, Greenland was used as relay base of the air lift. This was one of the reasons of this huge airfield you can see today, and every conveniences of modern life you find today in Sonder Stroem Fjord. Enormous size fuel tank camouflaged under the sand-lock still exists. Three big sized engine generators, as big as few hundreds tons ship were abandoned. Each Generator was named as Lulu, Daisy and Kerry Special. From the name of these iron blocks, one could easily imagine how these were taken care of. A 400m tall short wave radio antenna tower that had been used for the radio communication between the mainland and the base is no more used. It has been replaced by satellite meteorological observation and fiber optical telecommunications line that laid around the world in multiple hold.

Boeing 737 from Copenhagen, Helicopter connecting to the local villages

Not like today, no meteorological satellite orbiting the earth, weather forecast would have been one of the major task in the military operation. Greenland was uniquely located, because the weather in Greenland would appear in Europe a week later. So, it is easily imagined that the weather observation and concealing this information to the enemy was so important in whole military operation in the western front. The meteorological observation activities have been continued till today. Today, the main job is the observation of higher layer of atmosphere so called stratosphere.

Amazingly to know the base was made to be sustained without single supply from the outside for 5 year period. Fuels, reserved foods and commodities were well and firmly stocked in the vast stores in the base. Living amenities described above satisfy at least partly people’s daily desire. You will find known atmosphere as you are living just outside Seattle.

Musk Oxen by the Fargason Lake Creeping Jeep on sharp assent on the way to inland ice

Even only two days short stay in Greenland, I met a man who came from the other side of the coast crossed the huge island by his own foot. He had just arrived to the village finishing his real long and hard walk. Well tanned face carrying small sled enough to put his body on and large sac on his back. He seemed still fit well after his long and lonely walk on ice. There were few aged German couples stayed in the airport hotel. Each day’s morning, they departed to the strip mountain behind the village. Few young people from Denmark main land were among the guests of the hotel. I could see something different spirit in them not like the ordinal sightseers.

We set out toward the in-land ice riding on two jeeps. There was no road. We went through the valley that glacier had made cutting deep the sand rock ranges. On our way to the in-land ice, one of our jeeps stuck in the mud. We hardly managed to dig out it by using the other jeep. But soon, the other one got into the same problem. After several attempt to continue our journey, we gave up to doing so. We had to confess that the power of human beings was so small in front of that power of the nature.

To my surprise, there is a camp site in this extreme cold environment. Even it seemed that it was used in winter season instead of summer season. No one was in that camp site at that time. Once Mr. Uemura was on his lone dog sled journey crossing the Greenland , he was invited to one of the base camp he passed by, but he did not take the offer. He was most afraid that his will to continue the journey would be destroyed, once he put himself in the easy and comfortable environs. Is this camp site has same purpose?

You would also surprise to find a bid wild animal living in this ice cold land. Musk Ox is one of the major resources for sightseeing industry in Greenland. This big wild animal is real big, twice size as ordinal ox, and run twice as fast as the ordinal ox. If you go out the village 5 km away, you would reach to the wet land where soil and rock were bought by glacier. This season in summer, this wet land is covered by moss and green grass. Now, you will find a dozen of Musk Oxen eating grass in this wet land. They are very awkward and difficult to reach to near them. I was wondering how they can survive the severe winter season all these green grass are varied deep in the thick snow.

From Leaflet of Greenland

In about 5 km distance from the airport, there was a Fargason Lake. This lake seemed most probably the water reservoir for Sondre Stroem Fjord. I walked up to the lake. Unexpectedly, there was a rest house by the lake, just a middle of great nature. It was written on the board, Row Club. The restaurant was open during the summer season. We successfully made our reservation on this restaurant.

Sean Connery like master, two young cookers in the kitchen, Liza Minneli like waitress, the restaurant was luxuriously staffed. Lake side window was wide open. You could enjoy full scene of the lake. Half of the room was made for sitting after dinner to have coffee or spirits. At seven, we started the dinner with peach flavored Italian champagne. Elaborate conversation heard in the room. Even in the small village in Greenland, there was an atmosphere of polished European elegance. The volume of the foods was not what I expected. I really could not understand where this much of the volume of foods settled in their stomach. It looked as if there were three times large volume of foods was on the dishes than I used to experience. The dessert was ice cream ensemble. In a large dish, five big ball of different kind of ice cream were assorted. After the big meal, we moved to the sitting room where we continued conversation for a while in front of chapel. No electric light in the room. Only light of candle and chapel cast its light in the warm dim room. I noticed other gusts were wearing tie with them. This was the place to enjoy elegant time with high fashion.

Satellite antenna for Telecommunications, Fargason Lake

29/Aug/'93 Rinzo @Greenland (Updated on 28/May/'05)

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