"Le Chant du Pluvier" - A french Comic that takes place in Greenland

In Greenland, a father and his son recover from painful memories of recent tragic family events. A story that holds mainly on landscape and simple things of life.

The sounds and views of nature impose silence and things left unspoken .

"Le moteur tourne bien rond, il est juste ponctué par les chocs des blocs de glace sur la coque... "


“The boat’s engine turns, punctuated by the crash of ice blocks against the hull...”


Le Chant du Pluvier, by Laprun (author), Behe (text) and Surcouf (drawings)
Ed. DELCOURT (Dec 25 2009)
ISBN: 978-2756010830

The Little Diomede Island : remote and hostile

Remote but definitely not a paradise: located in the Bering Strait, between Alaska and Siberia, Little Diomede Island is an ice-covered flat-topped rock with steep cliffed coast and only one small permanently inhabitated settlement: Diomede (Inalik) , population ~160 hab.

At approximately 65.75° N, -168.95° W , Little Diomede is very isolated, by rough seas and by the persistent fog that shrouds the island during the warmer months. No regular flights link to the mainland Alaska: just the weekly helicopter mail delivery and a summer small charter from Nome. Ski planes do occasionally land on an ice runway during the winter months, and whenever the sea calms down passengers from ships can go to land in small boats.

Thousands of sea birds, seals, whales, walrus and two (!) arctic foxes frequent the coast and the surrounding water and sea ice; now and then, through frozen sea, a polar bear is an welcome visit.

The location of the village is a small area, the only which does not have near-vertical cliffs to the water. Behind, rocky slopes rise at about 40° up to the flattened top.

Little Diomede Inuit natives live a subsistence lifestyle, harvesting fish and crab, hunting beluga whales, walrus, seals and any polar bears coming from Alaska in winter, when Bering sea is frozen.

Facilities are spartan: an heliport for weekly mail delivery, a breakwater and small boat harbour, a school, one ice cream machine, a clinic and washeteria, and a small shop where inuit handicraft is sold. No bank, no gym, no hotel, no café or restaurant, no shopping, no cars, no streets - only rows of wooden stairways granting access to the cabins where locals live.

The Diomede people are excellent ivory carvers, their art being recognized by art dealers and collectionners.
The two close Diomede Islands (Big and Little) are separated by the International Date Line which is approximately 1 km from each island.
They are sometimes called Tomorrow Island (Big Diomede) and Yesterday Isle (Little Diomede) because the big island is 21 hours ahead of the small one. From the smaller island you can look into "tomorrow", in Russia’s Big Diomede - presently uninhabitated.

Another North - Arctic Russia

Wonderful video showing northern regions of Russia like Hibines, Shorya mountain, Taimyr, Kolyma, Ural, White Sea, Ladoga, Kuznetsk Alatau, Enisey river. I must quest those Thules from the East...




Music:

Georgy Sviridov- "Our North "
State Capella of Saint-Petersburg, Vladislav Tchernushenko conducts.

Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg), a northern beauty

Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg) , the second largest city of Greenland, is elegant, colourful and rich in heritage.

With about 6000 inhabitants, it’s the most northern ice-free town in the island´s west coast.

The town center is characterized by its colonial age buildings with the old blue church, the old shop, colonial residences, an old forge.

Sisimiut was founded in 1756 as a mission and trading station, based on whaling.

The old town is now a museum.

The Bethel blue church is Greenland’s second oldest church dating back to 1775


Sisimiut is situated between hillsides, and the small houses are built on hills.

It is also the northernmost limit of winter navigation by sea, and the southernmost limit of winter dog sledding.

The Sisimiut Museum of history, as well as a special museum of trade, shipping and industry, is situated in an old 18th century building.
  


The Sod House museum next to the churches, is a house with hick walls built of piled up sod gathered on the tundra.


The harbour is opened all year. A major factory, the Royal Greenland fish and shrimp plant in Sisimiut, is an important source of revenue for Greenlandic product.

Las Lajas Cathedral: at the end of the world

Las Lajas Cathedral, built in 1916, is located in remote southwest Colombia, deep down in a gorge of the Guaitara River (close to Columbia’s border with Ecuador) .

This must be one the most fairy tale beautiful pilgrimage sites in the world. A scene of magic splendor, the cathedral clings precariously to the side of a sheer cliff, above a swiftly running river in a mountain gorge.


Lingering mists hide the church in the rain season. In concert with the rumbling of flowing waters church bells echo across the mountain valleys.

Las Lajas was named after a type of flat sedimentary rock called Laja which is similar to the floor tiles found in the Andes Mountains.