The Dog Equator

Today we arrived in Sisimiut, the second largest city in Greenland after Nuuk. It has 5,350 residents and is immediately north of the Polar Circle, which is also called the dog equator.
Because of the importance of dog sledding and maintaining their local breed of Greenlandic Huskies, no other breeds of dogs can cross the dog equator or they will be shot.
I find that a bit brutal, but understand their need to preserve their time-honored tradition and respect their culture. These dogs are not considered pets and have to be leashed after the age of 6 months.
As puppies, they are as cute and playful as any but once they grow up they are referred to as “wild” and are not to be approached.
In some of the settlements we visited, there are more tethered sled dogs than human inhabitants.
In Sisimiut we took an optional “Hike back in time” and visited the ruins of winter homes and whale blubber storage huts from the 1700’s. The families who lived in these dugout houses crowded in to keep warm and in the summer folded up their wooden roofs and took them with them on fishing expeditions. There are no trees so wood is so scarce that they couldn’t afford to leave the roof on the winter house. At that time most of the wood was found when it washed up on the shore.

Much of our time of the Fram is spent at sea between ports of call and there’s nothing much to do except watch icebergs float by. There are two Jacuzzis on the observation deck along with a decent sized gym that aside from an elliptical machine, a treadmill, a stairstepper and a couple of bikes, it’s not very well equipped. I do miss my New York Yoga!

Reading is the primary form of entertainment, although a smattering of lectures are very interesting.
Last night the Filipino crew put on a show with karaoke and waiters in drag. It was kind of cute and reminded of my first cruises when glitzy Broadway style shows at sea didn’t exist. It was really kind of charming.
A couple of nights before, some local Inuit families from Ukkusissat came on board to sing and dance for us.