2013.07.27 - Nuuk to Reykjavik

On Saturday - July 27th - we departed Greenland for a short layover in Reykjavik.  We decided to include a night in Reykjavik in our schedule to visit the city.  As we sat in the Nuuk airport awaiting our flight on Saturday morning we sat patiently as the flight was delayed by 30 minutes.  As 30 minutes became 50 minutes we began to speculate (we had been told getting in and out of Greenland could be an adventure).  After a few minutes of wondering what could be going on ... the fog that sat in earlier in the morning had finally cleared ... we heard an announcement in Greenlandic, then Danish, and finally in English.  Our flight to Reykjavik had been cancelled and we would not be departing for Reykjavik until the following day, at the earliest.  The airplane required maintenance - and Air Greenland simply doesn't have a large fleet of aircraft.

It was easy to complain immediately after hearing this news - after all, our flights were all booked as one-way.  Missing our flight from Reykjavik on Sunday afternoon would have likely meant we would have to book another flight to Copenhagen.  Looking back, Air Greenland was quite good to us - putting us up for a night in the best hotel in Nuuk and paying for both lunch and dinner at the hotel restaurants.  In the afternoon, we received a call to inform us that our flight would depart to Reykjavik the following morning - and if on time, we would easily make our connection to Copenhagen.  The extra day allowed us to shoot more video in Nuuk (we made our connecting flight).  Reykjavik will have to happen some other time.

2013.07.26 - Godthabsfjord

On Friday, July 26th, after conducting 10 interviews in Nuuk - we decided to take the day to see a bit of the natural environment.  At 8:00am we boarded a small boat along with 4 Danes to travel up the fjord to the mouth of the glacier.  There is nothing quite like hearing the first crunch of an iceberg against the hull of a small boat - in water this cold, one has between 5-10 minutes on the clock... Before too long, the anxiety had subsided and we had full faith in our Greenlandic guides.  Upon arriving at the mouth of the glacier (and with limited visibility) the guide stopped the boat and we sat in a field of icebergs, a surreal experience.  On our way back to Nuuk, we stopped by an old settlement.

Nuuk in Motion: Unedited Video Clips

2013.07.25 - Relying on our Network

To this point, we had arranged all of our interviews prior to departing on our travels.  We knew building a strong network of interested parties would be critical to our success in speaking other stakeholders.  Our last day of interviews in Nuuk was constructed of stakeholders built entirely upon the interest we had generated in our prior conversations... and it was by far our busiest day (four interviews and a tour of the Greenlandic Parliament).

On Thursday - July 27th - we spoke with Palle Christiansen, Frans Berthelsen, Peter Barfoed, Bilo Stigsen and Niels Bennetzen.  Palle Christiansen is a member of the Greenlandic Parliament and former Minister of Education, Science, and Nordic Cooperation.  In our conversation, Palle described the need for higher standards of education and the tensions between development and preservation in Greenland.

Frans Berthelsen is a local architect and photographer as well as an outspoken critic of the current development patterns of housing in Greenland.  Frans is a native Greenlander and has spent most of his life working directly within the specific social, cultural, and environmental milieu of Greenland.

Peter Barfoed is a principle at Tegnestuen Nuuk, which participated in the 2012 Venice Biennale in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group.  Peter's work has long speculated on the infrastructural imperatives necessary for Greenland to deploy in order to sponsor and promote an economy of resource extraction and environmental tourism.

Bilo Stigsen and Niels Bennetzen work together at Kommuneqarfik Semmersooq - the planning department responsible for Urban and Housing development in the municipality of Sermmersooq.  Niels and Bilo also worked to coordinate the efforts of the local and foreign design teams for the 2012 Venice Biennale.

2013.07.24 - Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum and the Ministry of Industry and Minerals

On Wednesday - July 24th - we spoke with Jorgen Hammeken-Holm at the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum and Martin Christensen with the Ministry of Industry and Minerals.  The Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP) was established in 1998 in collaboration with the Danish government.  Since 2009, the BMP has been taken under Home-Rule and operates independently from it's Danish counterpart.  The BMP is responsible for the review and approval of all mineral licensing in Greenland and acts to ensure the regulatory, legal, and political framework for mineral exploitation is reliable and environmentally sound.

The efforts of the Ministry of Industry and Minerals is focused on securing employment for native Greenlanders, exploring new avenues for a stable economy, creating and enforcing regulations for new business, and establishing royalties and taxes from the mining corporations.  The Home-Rule Government recognize that if Greenland is to gain further autonomy from the Kingdom of Denmark (and eliminate the government subsidies from Denmark), they must expand and diversify their economy.  An economy constructed around the extraction and refinement of mineral resources would afford Greenland this opportunity.  The question then becomes, how might Greenland develop an expanded economy while simultaneously preserving its culture and way of life?