UPDATED ON:
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
16:00 Mecca time, 13:00 GMT
 
Programmes 48
Greenland

Else, Amanda and Mikisoq
The second series of 48 returns by sending Amanda Palmer and the crew to the remote, very cold and very beautiful Greenland, where just 57,000  people live.

In this episode, we start in the capital Nuuk to join our Inuit guide Else and her father Vittus on their regular family weekend outing: a seal hunt.

For the Inuit, this is no sport. It is integral to their culture, family life and in feeding themselves and their neighbours when they host a home party, known as kaffemik.

Amanda and the 48 crew join guide Else and her father as they go seal hunting
Back on dry land, the 48 crew meet our second guide, Mikisoq – a local film producer - who is rallying Greenlanders to be loud and proud about their cultural identity. Mikisoq takes us to a local high school to meet the young Danish speaking Greenlanders who are learning their native tongue for the first time.

We also visit the set of Quapuk!, a new Greenlandic television programme, as it hosts one of today's most important and controversial national debates – what do Greenlanders call themselves?

We meet geological "rock star" Ole Christiansen to discuss Greenland's recent discovery of oil, and the precious minerals beneath the rapidly receding ice sheet. Could this natural wealth be Greenland's ticket to financial and political independence from Denmark, their colonial rulers? That depends on who you ask.

Kunnuunguaq leading the way on the Arctic Palerfik Dogsledding Expedition
On day two, the crew fly North to Ilulissat, a small city deep inside the arctic circle that is known for working dogs, calving glaciers and gargantuan icebergs. We meet Kunnuunguaq, the lead singer of Thornstone, an up-and-coming band who like to iceberg-hop in between writing about the challenges of growing up in an isolated arctic community.

Kunnuunguaq then shifts our Greenlandic adventure into top gear with a race against the setting sun on roaring snow mobiles to rendezvous with an annual dog sledding expedition across the sea ice called Arctic Palerfic. We meet 200 hunters and 1000 dogs to bid a fun and freezing farewell to the winter.

Watch Part 1



Part 2


Special thanks to Karsten Sommer at ULO music for their kind permission to use
extracts of Traditional Greenlandic Music -CD (ULOCD-75) for our Greenland 48 programme.

This episode of 48 aired from Saturday, 11 October, 2008.

More about the show

Amanda Palmer's biography

Watch Al Jazeera English programmes on YouTube

 Source: Al Jazeera
 
 
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