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625 points zdw | 9 comments | | HN request time: 0.289s | source | bottom
1. JohnLocke4 ◴[] No.45398438[source]
I happen to be one of the Danes who partially grew up in Greenland that he talks about in the article. I even recognize the places from the article.

Some of my cordial childhood memories are from there and it is a place I will forever love. One of the most visceral memories I have is looking across the ice fjord listening to the thunderous breaking of the ice bergs - you can hear the sounds on videos, but combined with the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there.

I can see that the author was initially worried that Greenland would be devoid of anything to do, which is of course not true, as is written in the article. Especially the people are one of a kind in what I can only describe as directness or pragmatism.

One time a local from the place I lived was driving his car as it broke down and - rather than having it regularly towed to the mechanic - actually decided to tow it with a group of sled dogs. We just watched him sticking his head out the window shouting commands to the dogs while driving by. The dogs there can distinguish left and right, so it was surprisingly trivial to get the car to the mechanic. The Greenlanders see nothing extraordinary about this.

In other words, it is really valuable to have local connections if you want a great vacation in Greenland. I can also recommend the small, mini village settlements that are spread across the coast of the grand county. Some of them have hotels also.

I became nostalgic so I wrote a little blog post with some pictures for you people: https://lucasblog.dk/post/Greenland

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2. vintagedave ◴[] No.45398778[source]
Thanks for sharing. Can you tell us where the “if you know where this is” photo is, please?

And how would you make local connections before visiting?

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3. mkl ◴[] No.45399317[source]
Thanks! A typo: "Wood is by far a ubiquitous material" → "Wood is far from a ubiquitous material".
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4. JohnLocke4 ◴[] No.45399404[source]
Fixed!
5. JohnLocke4 ◴[] No.45399434[source]
I feel like telling you where the picture is taken would spoil a potentially fun experience, so I will not disclose that :)

Anyway, making connections is hard, though not impossible. I would recommend the local pubs (which are surprisingly busy given how small settlements are) and finding friends through e.g. work settings.

6. skybrian ◴[] No.45399945[source]
Can you explain the cars described in the article?
7. lucb1e ◴[] No.45400230[source]
> the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there.

I have a video of the coolest moment of my life and it looks like maybe the magnitude of a firefly on film. An asteroid impact was predicted and I heard of it in time, so I went to observe it. No sound (or body feel) in my case, but knowing how crazy big and distant the fireball that you're observing is, lighting up the sky from the far side of France...

People whom I showed didn't really have a big reaction. I didn't really understand that, but by now I have enough distance to the event to look back at the video more objectively and realize that, indeed, it's cool but it's just another video. This, too, seems like it can only be experienced in real life

Eleven have been predicted ever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Lis...), none yet in 2025. If you see the notice and you're within, say, 750 km, share the news with a friend and go see it! Of course, it objectively really is just what it is: bigger version of a shooting star. Idk if everyone would have my reaction, but I did ^^

Thank you for sharing iceberg cracking. I love 'cold vacations' anyway (two months in Finland were some of the best months), so this is a new entry on my bucket list :)

8. petre ◴[] No.45401838[source]
What does one feed sled dogs in Greenland?
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9. skrebbel ◴[] No.45402299[source]
Fish, as described in the article. And when they freeze to death to toss them down a cliff.