My Geographical World

1. My Geographical World By J. B.

2. Me • I live in Qaanaaq. • I am an Inuit, my people have lived here for thousands of years. • My clothes are made from seal skin, whale skin and fur to keep me warm. • I am taught everything by my parents because we do not have a good school. • I like going out onto the ice to hunt seals, kayaking in the sea and going up the cliffs to hunt birds in my free time. This is me on the ice waiting by a seal hole for a seal to come out to breathe. I am holding a harpoon.

3. My Family • I live with my father, mother, uncle, brother and two sisters in one house in Qaanaaq. • My father, uncle and I all hunt for meat to eat and often make long trips out onto the ice. We need the meat to survive as we have no other way of getting food. • My mother stays at home and looks after my brother and sisters. • We live in a brightly painted wooden house with a steeply sloped iron roof. This helps to keep the snow off. The houses are built on stilts to prevent the house’s warmth melting the permafrost and letting the house sink. My Family Houses in Qaanaaq

4. My Community Sloped iron roof • Qaanaaq is one of the most northerly settlements in the world. It is in north Greenland. • It is the worlds most northerly palindrome. • All of the houses are built like ours and most are brightly painted. We find this gives a bit of colour to an otherwise white landscape. • Qaanaaq has the world’s most northerly restaurant, The Polar Grill. • Everyone in Qaanaaq follows much the same lifestyle as I do. We have to hunt animals such as seals, narwhals, auks, walruses e.t.c. to eat. • Some people come to live here to find solitude from the rest of the world. There is one Japanese man who has lived here for many years who lives away from the rest of the village near the cliffs where the auks nest. House raised off ground An auk

5. My Nation • Greenland is an island country northeast of Canada. • The capital is Nuuk. • It has a population of 56’000, that is 1.9% of the population of Wales. • It is semi-autonomous from Denmark which it was ruled by until 1979. it has its own government and is entitled to send two representatives to the Danish parliament but Denmark remains in charge of foreign and defence policy. • It was first conquered by Denmark in 1721. • Qaanaaq is in the extreme northwest of Greenland. • Greenland is a popular destination for arctic explorers as the land extends almost to the North Pole • Siorpaluk is its most northerly settlement and is also the most northerly in the world. Nuuk A polar explorer

6. My Continent • Greenland is part of Europe but is not a member of the European union. However as Denmark still has some say in the ruling of the country this means that all the recognised international laws apply and certain standards of welfare are set. • Many people in Greenland are Danish or descended from Danish people. This means that two languages are spoken, Danish and Inuit. • One of Greenland’s links to the USA is the family of Matthew Henson. He was the first man to reach the North Pole and today the only surviving members of his family live in Qaanaaq. The flag of Greenland Matthew Henson

7. My Global View • Greenland is in the extreme northern hemisphere, northeast of Canada and west of Iceland in the Atlantic Ocean. • One of our main concerns in Greenland is the melting of the sea ice. This is being caused by pollution from the richer countries of the world. If the ice continues to melt it will destroy the habitats of and possibly make extinct many of the animals we depend on for food like seals, walruses and narwhals. Polar bears are already endangered. • Tourism is a growing industry in Greenland but mostly in the south. In the North the only visitors are occasional explorers and television crews filming documentaries or films. Greenland Campers near a glacier