Kalaallit Nunaat

or even Grønland as it is in fact a Danish province with home rule over a 2,166,000 km² territory of mostly ice.

But not Greenland as it is anything but green.

At the southern tip of the world’s largest island, some 60,000 hardy people have settled along the coast.

The weather was clear when Air France’s inaugural Heathrow-to-LAX flight cruised at 36,000 feet over this magnificent ice cube where glaciers ooze around high peaks. Where the land meets the ocean, it levels out to an impeccable ice sheet, fissured here and there into floes.

No scheduled stop for any airline but Air Greenland, the only outfit to fly into Kangerlussuaq (which you may know as Søndre Strømfjord) and you have to pick up the flight in Copenhagen. Familiarize yourself with the carrier's baggage policy: Nassatat annerpaamik 20 kiilut nassarneqarsinnaapput (ingerlaqqinnermili akisunermiittussat annerpaamik 30 kiilut nassarsinnaavaat). Taakku avataatigut timmisartup iluanut tigummiaannakkamik ataatsimik nassartoqarsinnaavoq Annerpaamik 8 kiilunik oqimaassusilimmik imalu anginerpaaffilimmik: 50 x 40 x 23 cm. Nassarsinnaasat sinnerlugit oqimaassusilinnik nassartoqaruniakit atuuttut naapertorlugit akileeqqittoqassaaq.

!!!

I have read that access is also sometimes possible from Québec. It would be one hell of a trip to check that country out.

The Davis Straits separate Kalaallit Nunaat from Baffin Island. On this last day of March, the sea was frozen and one could trek due west into Canada’s province of Nunavut. The remote island of infinite dimensions is almost as large as France. Iqaluit, the provincial capital, sits on the coast far from my gaze.
Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” encapsulates me in a suspended state. Its surprising arrangements carry me back to London. My first trip by plane, my first trip abroad. I am 12.

I marvel at the sunny skies once the plane clears the impenetrable clouds that keep Paris and London under a winter grey from November through March. Showing impeccable logic, I reason all we have to do is lift the city several thousands of feet and hello sunshine!

This early visit to London would change everything. The events and sights of this trip 34 years ago still inhabit my mind, sustained by a music that I did not discover until my return to France. Of course I knew “Money,” which the French pronounced more like the painter Monet. The album had been released in January of the previous year and the few radio stations permitted at the time (over) played that title.

“The Dark Side of the Moon” might well be the first album I have purchased. Its evocative music has been the soundtrack to my life, and not just because it was a revolutionary composition. As loud as I can play them from 3A, Roger Waters’ lyrics add an expressive dimension to the landscape that unfurls below me.

Clare Torry’s painful shouts and hesitant murmurs envelop me in a parallel universe. No longer grounded, I float away from a transitory realm into infinite space.

“Breathe, breathe in the air
Don’t be afraid to care
Leave but don’t leave me
Look around and chose your own ground.
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.”
“And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same but in a relative way you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.” “And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

You lock the door
And throw away the key
There’s something in my head but it’s not me

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.” “All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
Everyone you meet
All that you slight
Everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.”