Colleagues and Museums in Nuuk
Today I slept in a little bit and had breakfast at the hotel around 9:30 in the morning. Not long after that, three of my colleagues on the QGreenland-Net project arrived in Nuuk from the U.S.! We are all staying at the same hotel, so I waited in the lobby until they arrived. It was great to see everyone after mostly traveling solo the last week.
Once the new arrivals settled in, a few of us went out for a walk to downtown and grabbed some snacks/lunch. Today was the warmest day I’ve had in Greenland, with temperatures around 40F. It felt fairly warm compared to some of my days in Ilulissat and I ended up wearing my lighter coat. Much of the snow/ice covering the ground when I first arrived in Nuuk back on Nov. 2 has melted.
After lunch, we split ways and I went to the Nuuk Art Museum, which had some excellent pieces, including more from Emanuel A. Petersen. One of my favorite parts was a room that had examples of Tupilaks, which are monsterous figures carved from bone that shamans once made and imbued with power to fight their enemies. According to Greenlandic mythology, if a Tupliak is sent after someone more powerful than the creator, the Tupliak will return and destroy its creator.
Following the art museum, I headed directly to the Greenland National Museum and Archives. I received a fantastic guided tour of this museum when I visited back in 2023, and wanted to return to look at the exhibits myself. Unfortunately, I only had about an hour to wander through the museum because it was set to close, but I still had a great time! The museum also sits right next to the coastline, so I got plenty of additional views of the icy waters outside.
To wrap up the day, myself and a couple of my collaborators met up again and went out for dinner. I had a chicken sandwich - nothing too exciting, but it was tasty and fresh!
Now I’m winding down for the night and looking forward to attending a seminar on cryosphere research in Greenland tomorrow. This should be a nice opportunity to network and spread the word about our project to those who might find it beneficial for their research. And hopefully I’ll gain some new knowledge and connections to improve my own work!
The next several days are going to be full of such events, and I expect to stay pretty busy! I’ll plan to keep this blog updated with some notes on what I learn.