True North by Gavin Francis

Author:Gavin Francis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn Limited
Published: 2011-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

The attempt to settle the New World lasted less than three years. It would be another five centuries before European culture would return to overwhelm it with gunpowder and disease. For Europe, throughout that time, the furthest settled land across the ocean would be Greenland, and the furthest outpost the Western Settlement.

In a late-night bar themed like a cowboy saloon I met a modernday emigrant of the Western Settlement. He wore a casual leather jacket, a heavy gold chain, and the epicanthic folds of his eyes gave him an expression of perpetual merriment. His hair was styled to perfection and gleamed like a raven’s plumage. He told me he had once been a hairdresser. He had also been a policeman in Denmark. His name was Aqaluq, and now he had landed a high-ranking job in Nuuk he had come back to Greenland to stay.

It was after midnight. Outside, on the main street of the town, children played football in the dusky light.

‘I was ready to come back,’ he said, his eyes glinting in the half-light. ‘Denmark is a good country but Greenland is my home.’

His friend returned from the bar carrying three bottles of Danish lager. He too had lived overseas for many years, working the cod and shrimp ships that weathered the heavy seas of the North Atlantic. Together we took a mental stroll around the harbours of Lerwick, Oslo and Leith.

A young man staggered to our table. His eyes were slow and heavy, and he was very drunk. After looking at each of us he turned towards me, obviously the foreigner, and said in slurred English:

‘You like Greenland?’

‘Yes, very much.’

‘It is a great country. It is wonderful. Beautiful. And we are GREENLANDIC!’ he said, with pride. I nodded.

‘NOT Eskimos!’ he added.

‘I wouldn’t dream of calling you that,’ I said.

‘But some people do,’ he replied. He steadied himself by gripping the table with both hands. ‘I have worked in Europe and in America, and people there have called me that.’

‘Well I can tell you that to me you will always be a Greenlander,’ I said.

‘You can say “Inuit”, I’ll allow you! It is better than Eskimo, but still wrong.’ He struggled to balance himself. ‘There are Canadian Inuit too. THIS is MY country!’

Emotion overwhelmed him. He lurched away from the table. Aqaluq smiled apologetically. Across the dance-floor a fight broke out. Two men took a couple of swings at one another before being bundled out of a hidden exit onto the street by two bouncers that I had not noticed. They lay on the pavement outside, blinking in the midnight sunlight. It did feel like the Wild West.

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