Frustrations at the museum

My experience at the Ilulissat Museum has been fairly discouraging this year, especially when compared to last year. We had basically three objectives this time around: to give another talk at the school, to set up a time-lapse camera with the school children (to get them involved with our research), and to put together a short DVD containing photos and videos of our field work.

I spent two days preparing a presentation for the school, only to have the teacher cancel on me since I had already talked to her class (she didn’t know this beforehand). Of course, I was planning on talking about something different, but that didn’t seem to matter.

The camera has also been something of headache. First, we talked to some teachers who thought the project was a great idea – but not for their class. According to Naja, my colleague at the museum, that is a typical response from the teachers here. Regardless of their response, we’d still like to put out a camera. As I’ve told several people in town, I’m happy to share the time-lapse video with anybody who can make use of it: educators, tour companies, etc, and we’d like to have the imagery for our own work. The problem is that we’re having trouble finding a good, secure spot for the camera with a good view of the fjord. I had first thought that a roof of a building would be ideal, but finding an ideal roof is far from easy. At this point I think the best alternative would be to mount it on the radio tower, which is up on the hill behind town. It seems that there is some hope for this, but it will require quite a bit of bureaucracy. We’ll give it a shot anyway.

We haven’t worked on the DVD yet. It should be pretty straightforward, except that the computer I need to use is currently in Kangerlussuaq.

On the other hand, the trip here hasn’t been a complete waste. I’ve gotten to experience Ilulissat in “winter” and have already gone dogsledding a couple of times and also gone to watch a dogsledding race. (It was the type of race where the objective is to not come in last place.) And, I’ve just purchased tickets to fly to Uummannaq, a town about an hour’s flight north of here. I’ll spend 5 days and about a month’s salary… I’m really excited to go to Uummannaq, even if it is going to be really expensive. It is much more removed from the standard tourist route and will be my new farthest north (over 70 deg).

Side note: travelling in Greenland is incredibly expensive. I’m paying over $50 a night for a bed in a hostel (a hostel!), a taxi from the airport to the hostel (5 km) costs $25, a burger at the greasy dinner costs $20, beer costs $10 a bottle if its served to you and $4 if you buy it at the store (and its not particularly special beer), and dinner at one of the nicer restaurants costs $50. The flight to Uummannaq will cost me $700, and a hotel room there costs $200 a night (actually fairly reasonable by Greelandic standards). I might end up camping outside of town or staying in a hut, but first I need to find out if Isbjorn lives nearby.