Eyewitness: Greenland
a similar piece appeared in Traveller magazine, Winter 2002/3

Just 100 years ago a Danish search party stumbled across Ammassalik Island, a mere speck on the map of Greenland, the largest island on earth. Ammassalik Island, 'the land of small fish', is the size of Britain, although only 3000 people live here. Unreachable for up to nine months of the year due to the pack ice, the first Inuit people reached its shores in Summer by kayak, a boat they invented. But I arrived by helicopter - the only way to reach the island in winter.

Seal was the main means of survival here through the bitter arctic winters before the gallunaat, 'the ones with the bushy eyebrows' arrived. But it wasn't until the construction of the airport in tiny Kulusuk, and the introduction of houses and electricity 50 years ago that western culture made its presence felt.

With 20 staff, Greenland's philately is the biggest employer in Ammassilik town or Tasiilaq (the land of lakes) to the locals. Tourism arrived just 25 years ago and sealskin is coming into fashion. Witnessing the first fashion show, reindeer bone necklaces and narwhal horn earrings set off sealskin bags and minis, but an Inuit toddler in a sealskin babygrow stole the scene.

A small boy played peek-a-boo with me from behind the supermarket door, just like children the world over. With mint green rimmed sunglasses and outfit straight out of the latest ski catalogue, it was hard to appreciate that in such a short space of time, Eastern Greenlanders have had to move from the Stone Age into the 21st century.

'Leave me the winter and the dogs, you can keep the rest,' said Danish anthropologist Knud Rasmussen, who documented Inuit culture. Although North Face jackets have largely replaced sealskin, and few men now wear polar bear trousers, hunting is still as important as ever here, and ice fishing of increasing importance.

'Narwhal meat is very good, and the bone used for carving,' Ole, the curator of the local museum told me. 'Men can still make a better living from hunting than tourism.'

Nicknamed 'Chariots of the Arctic', the main roads out of town are made by dog sleds travelling across the ever-shifting ice. Boys learn to hunt as soon as they can walk, and as a tourist it's not unusual to find yourself sharing your sled with a dead seal. Whale and seal are now too expensive for locals, although most have a relative or friend who is a hunter. Greenlanders now feed their dogs 'Husky Sled Dog Food', imported from Denmark.

People still watch for polar bear from the hilltops, the first one to spot one, gets the trousers. I urged my musher, Tobias, to tell me hunting stories as we travelled across a large glacier. 'Hunting stories are for after dark,' he said evasively. 'But have you killed a polar bear?' I persisted. 'Yes ­ good meat,' he said, spat, and went back to smoking. The Inuit don't talk much. They believe it disturbs the spirits in the mountains and have a reverence for nature, so central to their existence. But moments later, after successfully navigating a snow drift, Tobias checked for messages on his mobile phone.

The bright blue, yellow and red wooden kit houses from Denmark clustered on the hillside above the frozen bay may look pretty, but the mothers of young people like Tupaarnaq, a beautiful, green-eyed Inuit-Danish teacher, lived in turf houses in winter when they were young, and sealskin tents near the hunting grounds in Summer. Although you're more likely to meet an Erik, Gideon or Anna these days, Greenlandic soul names are still given. Taken from a relative or great person that died, they allow the child to imbue some of their qualities.

Tupaarnaq's name translates as thyme, and her mother and 15 brothers and sisters lived in a remote settlement of around 10 families. Her surname, Maqe, means 'kayak on the head', because the settlement was away from the water. Several families lived in each house with whale skin windows, heated by burning seal blubber. Sepia pictures of Inuit women scantily clad in sealskin hotpants, thigh length boots and see through blouses made out of whale stomach, adorn the walls of the local museum.

Tupaarnaq's parents were together for a year and her three brothers are all from different partners. It's not important to marry in Inuit society and in winter, people used to turn off the lamp and play sex games. In the past, Nordic whale hunters or men from other settlements passing through were encouraged to sleep with wives to avoid interbreeding. 'A man could have three wives if he was a good hunter,' Tupaarnaq told me. 'If he went away from the settlement on a long trip, he would rent out his wife to someone else.' It is perhaps this open mindedness that has allowed them to accept the gallunaat, including a Danish transexual, found in the ice cream shop, as their town judge.

Tupaarnaq's relative, Georg Qupersiman, was a well known shaman. Shamanic traditions were unique in Eastern Greenland, until the Christians told them not to. Shamans used to perform drum dances to call up the spirits and make tupilak ­ grotesque carvings from narwhal tusk and reindeer bone, even containing human remains, made to kill an enemy.

'I like to hear stories about our traditions, but I wouldn't want to be a hunter's wife,' laughs Tupaarnaq, who has a Danish boyfriend. 'A lot of people say we are losing our traditions but I don't think so. We are doing a lot to keep our language, and we're still telling our stories, of shamans in the old days with no noses and hunters who came across the blood from a seal, and no one there.'

Although people are now Christian, the drum dance is still taught to young children and performed on National Day and 'stinky food', such as rotten seal heads and flippers, and specialities such as berries dipped in seal oil are still eaten at festivals. Almost all Greenlandic people still believe in ghosts or rividoc. These are people who disappeared or left the family, got imbued with evil spirit, grew lots of hair, and came back to terrorise the community.

'This winter there was a rumour going round that rividoc were now making babies and pinching baby clothes from people's washing lines,' explained Tupaarnaq.

Most people don't know if they're pure Greenlandic or not, as it's hard to keep track of ancestors. But family is still a big deal here and everyone still lives under one roof partly from choice. Many young people who go away to study come back early, because they can't live without their family nearby, although of those that stay, many don't return. Family honour is important and it was believed that a soul wouldn't rest until the family has taken revenge for a killing. Nowadays, fights after drinking are more common and a man's sisters will go round and shout abuse at the other family.

The Danes are probably the best colonists you could ask for, supporting a place which gives them little return for their money, but western culture has had a strong effect.

'In the past 50 years,' says local Danish doctor, Kristjan Fridriksson in Ammassalik: A Jewel in the Arctic Crown, 'European influence has done irreversible damage to the culture.' Foreigners married to Inuit women have felt the damage more personally. One now has sole charge of two children, his beautiful 24 year old Inuit wife in a rehab clinic in Copenhagen.

Inuit people don't talk much, but as a reaction to a changing world, some have become silent. They no longer know the whole community as they did before and Danish or English are needed to get what is considered a good job. Children at school are taught in West Greenlandic, very different from their own language. But there is no going back. The first Internet café opened in the local school this year and teenagers ski and play football in Summer. The sound of skidoos pierces the pristine air, and Pepsi and Carlsberg is evident by cans cast in the snow.

'Life in Ammassalik is easier now,' Tobias tell me. 'We have more festivals, and shops.' Although people no longer starve in winter, and fewer die hunting, some drink themselves to an early grave, or take their own lives. At 127 per 100,000 a year, Greenland has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, particularly in men.

'Sometimes children at school smell and have nothing to eat, because their parents are drinking the money away,' said Tupaarnaq. A recent newspaper report showed a long waiting list for places at orphanages all over the country, including the orphanage here.

I met an ice fishermen in the locals bar on my last night here. Tupaarnaq had told me that people were sometimes named after striking physical characteristics and secretly, I wondered if his name was 'eyestooclosetogether', but was too polite to ask. His father had been a fisherman too, he told me, but had drowned in the ice when he was three. As he sang a East Greenlandic song with the voice of an angel, this one with bushy eyebrows couldn't help but feel great respect for these nomadic hunters, just for the remarkable fact that they had survived in this wildly beautiful place.

Publication: Traveller magazine.