Sissimiut

 

Another foggy morning!  

Here's a sample of our daily schedule, which sometimes seems....less than relaxing. Having the ship announcements start at 0700 is not Sheila's preferred mode of waking up.


 We had signed up for the hike to Tele Island, which has been inhabited on and off for 4,000 years, to see some turf houses used by the Dorset (500 BCE to 1000-1500 CE) and Thule (1200-1650 CE) cultures. The Thule were the ancestors of the modern Inuit peoples across the polar region. You can read more here.

To our surprise, we got off the ship via a stairway onto an actual dock for the first time since we left Iceland. You can see a wee bit of it here, near where the person is.



Can you find the Resolution?





The only trail markers were occasional cairns



And it was more rugged than we had bargained for.
This was definitely not an easy hike!

But it WAS pretty!




Some fuzzy plants--bistort??

There are several low mounds indicating single-family turf houses from the Dorset culture.

This is a much larger, multi-family Thule turf house.
It was still in use into the 1950s!

Our local guide, trying to figure out which direction she needs to be speaking for everyone to hear!

An old friend from Colorado--Field mouse-ear Chickweed

This is apparently the perfect place to haul a whale up on land, which is why the turf houses are here.


It's pretty, but the hiking was quite difficult, so we opted to wait here while the rest went on to the gravesite.



Retired fishing boats

Then we walked up into town and the open-air museum.
More art carved into rock walls

A White-tailed Sea Eagle above, and a seal below


A more modern turf house on the left

The interior of the turf house, intended for 2 families




Retired fishing boat

Fishing nets and floats

After lunch, Sheila walked back into town with a fellow knitter, Kate, while Lars stayed on the ship. Sheila and Kate were hoping to find some qiviut, or musk-ox yarn, but it seems to be tied to hunting season and every shop was out. Probably just as well, as it's extremely expensive!  It's also 8x warmer than wool, and would probably be too warm to actually wear.

Lars spent the time on photographing the port from Deck 8:











Here  you see how the water gets to houses.  
The large pipes are double-insulated, and apparently rarely leak.  
If they do, they are easy to reach and repair!




Comments

  1. SusanAugust 20, 2025 at 1:34 PM

    I visited a musk ox farm in Alaska, and like you, was really tempted by the skeins of heroically warm wool fiber, but the $$ made me pause!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ColoHarpareAugust 20, 2025 at 2:04 PM

      I never even got to see a price! There were a very few finished items in a couple of shops (a hat, wrist warmers, a scarf, a shawl), but not a single skein of actual yarn. The ONLY yarn I found was made in Denmark--there wasn't even any Greenland sheep yarn.

      Delete

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