Writer Nancy Campbell explores the Arctic from a remote refuge
Writer Nancy Campbell explores the majesty of the Arctic from her remote posting to an artists’ refuge in Greenland during winter
From Baffin Bay all that can be seen of the island is the museum built on the promontory, its timber frame painted blood red. It’s said to be the most northern museum in the world. On some days the building is almost completely buried under snow or obscured by mist. In winter, the whole island is surrounded by a moat of ice.
No ships can navigate such conditions, so my first sight of Upernavik is from the air. The propeller plane stops to refuel often as it flies up the west coast of Greenland. At Uummannaq Airport I descend the folding steps to stretch my legs. The pilot has parked in the middle of the runway and I meander over to the terminal to buy some mints. The sky is a dense indigo, broken only by stars. As we travel on, the weather worsens. By the time we reach 72 degrees north, and begin to make our descent to Upernavik, the storm has intensified and the plane struggles to alight on the short airstrip. But we can’t fly back, or onwards to a safer landing. I can just make out the spotlit airport sign through the blizzard – each capital letter cut from wood and painted pink. Upernavik means ‘springtime place’. The island was named by a nomadic people who once came here by boat when the winter ice broke up, to trade and to fish. Later inhabitants have learnt to adapt, to live here year-round and make use of the ice.
I’ve been travelling for three days to reach this island – the times, and sometimes the days, of the flights were uncertain, and I felt as powerless as a toy in the bedroom of a child who has abandoned its games and gone to tea. The final stage of the journey takes only a few minutes. As the taxi slaloms from the airport to my new house by the harbour, I pass the lit windows of homes scattered down the hillside. There’s an Arctic myth that tells how before the sun came into being, ice could burn. People used ice to fuel their lamps, because no one could go hunting in the dark. Tonight the sea ice is luminescent, and mysterious objects glow by the shoreline in the twilight, their shapes distorted and concealed under snow. It will be weeks until the spring thaw, and sunshine, reveal what they are.
When I received the email inviting me to work in the artist’s ‘refuge’ at the museum, I was offered a choice: summer or winter. ‘Contrary to the summertime,’ wrote the museum director, ‘the darkness of the winter to many southerners seems like a terrible and nasty time lying in wait. But whenever one gets accustomed to the darkness it proves to be a peaceful time that leaves the time for thought that one usually lacks.’
I certainly lacked time for thought. I worked during the day for a book and manuscript dealer in London, and pursued my own projects in the evenings. I liked my job. Authors would bring drafts of their poems and plays to the shop on Seven Dials and I sorted the disordered papers, removing rusting staples and paper clips, and listing the contents. After months of sensitive negotiations, the papers would be sold, either heading in a black cab to the British Library ten minutes away, or being shipped overseas to other august institutions. Drafts were more valuable than fine copies, because they showed the workings of the mind. The words a writer had crossed out, in retrospect, became more valuable than their best lines. I learnt the true value of uncertainty.
Sometimes as I sat among reams of paper and the legal pads with their scribbles, the perforated and punched continuous stationery spilling off my desk onto the floor, I felt as if forests of trees were passing through my hands. I wondered why, in a world that seemed pretty close to ruin, I was spending my days conserving all this paper rather than endangered species. The more archives I catalogued, the more concerned I became about their future readers. Humans had libraries to preserve their fragile records,
“Tonight the sea ice is luminescent, and mysterious objects glow by the shoreline in the twilight, their shapes distorted and concealed under snow”