The Green Land of Greenland

As I walk on a path beside a dusty road, the colours of the landscape are astonishing. Greenland. Green it is. Spread out in front of me are purple carpets of wild mountain thyme, sapphire blossoms of calendula. This is a place of colour, unexpected floral scents.

My view to the west was once occupied by Eric the red. A Viking of note. As history has recorded, the first to settle here, and to name this green land.

Of those who travelled with him, not many men and women survived the journey. A few of their animals did. Animals to provide food – meat and milk. Wool for clothing. The origins of a herd that would last four centuries until their masters returned to the land from which they came.

A small ship brought me here – along with a dozen or so friendly souls. A ship not much larger than which Eric sailed in. Our ship, however, has the benefit of a modern engine, a steel hull that can withstand ice and a crew to care for us.

Our morning smells of garlic and steamed rice. Philippine scents. We fish, catch cod for lunch and pass by rich farmland full of sheep and dairy where, in the north, we saw only tundra and fireweed. Evidence of reindeer and musk ox. Little more. Of the people that were here before the Norsemen came, more later. To be brief about the first settlers would be disrespectful. Their lives demand libraries, not blogs. And yet, I will write of them in time. Their world – centuries of adapting to a world where ice is the norm.