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Greenland 2.0 (2003)
After a terrific rock-collecting adventure at the famous Ilimaussaq Complex in Greenland in 2002, the last thing on my mind was a return trip. Nevertheless, as I talked about my experiences with friends and fellow collectors, and compared notes with the few others who had made the trip, my attitude began to change. Although my haul of rocks was amazing, the urge to pursue “the one’s that got away” began to resemble Ahab’s obsession with the white whale.
I resolved to return and began to plot a strategy designed to make collecting more efficient. Of course I knew the sites and minerals to target. I was sated on sodalite, but needed to improve my collection of tugtupite, chkalovite, and ussingite. I especially craved a return to the site of my find of a unique and highly prized soda/tug mix characterized by spectacular fluorescent and phosphorescent properties. Technical improvements would be necessary though. I needed better tools. An adequate backpack was a start. The kid at the camping store outfitted me with a strong but lightweight model, which distributed loads evenly over upper back, pelvis and shoulders. When he cautioned me not to carry over 80 lbs, I assured him that the back, not the pack, was the limiting factor. A longer handled crush hammer and a 20 lb. sledge were important improvements, but my Superbright lamp and Weber grill cover/portable-viewing tent were unsurpassable. My main innovation, however, was in bringing Mark Cole and Herb Yeates for their technical and mineralogical knowledge. Their ability to self-propel without special power sources (beyond hot dogs and PB&J sandwiches) was an additional advantage.
Travel was much easier this year, flights through Iceland rather than Copenhagen being available. I met Mark and Herb at Keflavik, Iceland’s International airport. We became well acquainted during the seven-hour holdover at Reykavik, Iceland’s boondock airport. The flight to Narsarsuaq, South Greenland’s airport, was exciting and scenic, with incredible vistas of the icepack and glaciers spilling into fjords. It was wonderful to reacquaint with Peter Lindberg, our local guide. He transported us by motorboat to our home base, Narsaq, a modern town of 1700 inhabitants. Observing that no life jackets were available led me to two related deductions. First, the fjord is so cold as to be unendurable even with life jackets. In addition, the Greenlandic people have nowhere to learn how to swim.
Much thought was given to gifts for Peter and his family. Mark chose a bottle of Jack Daniels, while I opted for two pounds each of cherries, plums and peaches. The gifts were gone immediately, the fruit being devoured and Mark claiming to have left the bourbon on the plane.
2- The Ilimaussaq complex has several main collecting sites. Taseq and Kvanefjeld are mountains on either side of a valley north of Narsaq. Kangerluarssuk and the Agtakorfia are on the shore of fjords, and are accessible by boat.
Collecting began an hour after arrival, with the Taseq slopes as the destination. Elation and disappointment resulted right away. I found major tugtupite in chkalovite “eyes”, and the most massive and brightest sorensenite I’ve encountered. Chkalovite fluoresces greenish-white, and surrounds blood-red fluorescing tugtupite. Sorensenite is usually in the form of blades fluorescing beige. Unfortunately our strategy of rapid-movement UV-guided night collecting was thwarted by the absence of adequate darkness, it being early July. Herb was temporarily disappointed at the inefficiency of his first Greenland collecting experience, while I was amazed at how my skills had improved with a winter of conscious and subconscious rehearsal.
A year of anticipation led to the following morning’s trip to the historic Tugtup Agtakorfia, along the Tunulliarfik fjord (named after the first European settler, Eric the Red, Leif’s father). I was able to find the tug/soda mix site, and we collected almost all there was. This material is white in natural light, and fluoresces intensely peach SW, white MW, and orange LW. It also has very long and bright white phosphorescence. We then proceeded up the side of a steep cliff where gem quality, lilac ussingite, associated tugtupite, and gray and green sodalite are abundant. I was frustrated to realize that my day’s cache consisted of predominantly aquarium gravel, a fact that Herb delights in reminding me. When Mark and Herb left the next day for an overnight camping trip to a site at the Kangerluarssuk fjord where I had collected well the previous year, I snuck back to Tunulliarfik with Peter.
Peter’s wife, Judithe, and her friend Eva, a Danish nurse spending the summer working in Narsaq’s hospital, accompanied us. The ladies spent the day searching for plants, especially a particularly bitter form of Greenlandic rhubarb. My decision (obsession) with returning was rewarded with my best day of rock collecting ever, enabling me to tolerate the eternal aquarium gravel jibes. I returned with boulder-sized tugtupite, chkalovite, ussingite and intensely tenebrescent sodalite combos. The tug was white in natural light, but deeply blood red SW and salmon LW. My best finds were 2-3” wide, 6” long strips going straight through the boulder and emerging on the other side outlined by green fluorescing chkalovite. After SW and even LW exposure, the incredibly tenebrescent gray sodalite (hackmanite) remains deep grape purple in sunlight for many minutes. The most aesthetically pleasing and intensely tenebrescent hackmanite was a two inch wide gray vein outlined by non-tenebrescent white matrix rock. Fortunately the ladies’ light vegetable load enabled them to help me transport my load down the slope to the boat. The rest of the evening was spent with Peter’s family for dinner and in marveling at my new mineral finds. I skipped the rhubarb.
3- The next day Peter dropped me off at the same site for solo collecting while he continued on to the airport to pick up our two new colleagues, Kathy and John. Mark and Herb used this time to sleep off their overnight. I suspect that Herb kept sneaking into my room to gaze at my haul, thus fueling his own obsession for 2004. Meanwhile, I collected more of the same although less abundantly. My prize for the day was a basketball-sized mix of three inch in diameter eyes of tug embedded in chkalovite all embedded is tenebrescnt orange fluorescing sodalite studded with green fluorescing ussingite and yellow fluorescing polylithionite. This huge five color boulder is regarded as the current “king” of Ilimaussaq in America. A funny thing occurred while I was alone along the shore with my back turned to the fjord. Of course it’s absolutely quiet in this remote place, but an iceberg snuck up behind me and chose that moment to break apart. The sound was thunderous, and I wish that I could’ve harnessed the vibrational energy of my spontaneous leap for use in future climbs. The iceberg remnant rolled in the fjord for several minutes mimicking playful polar bears until it reached its new floating equilibrium. The fjord water is salty, but the inland streams of newly melted glacier water yield ice cold and surprisingly tasty hard water. Herb thinks it’s the beryllium dissolved therein. Giardia, a sheep-hosted parasite, is a theoretical problem. (Local industry consists of sheep farming and shrimp processing. Surprisingly inept arctic mosquitoes constitute the remainder of the land fauna. We honorary Norsemen offer condolences to all Arizona fluorescent collectors, but there are no fluorescent scorpions or lizards or snakes here.)
Mark, Herb and I were staying at a bicycle shop turned motel while John and Kathy had accommodations at a bed and breakfast run by “the old lady” (her actual name, I believe.) Narsaq’s modern stores supplied all our needs, while a bakery and a hot dog stand supplied all our wants. A local rock store and mineral museum is a favorite stop for us in no small part because of the graciousness of its owner, Borge. I enjoyed becoming reacquainted with the local “characters”, especially ageless Harry, a Norwegian plumber/ fisherman/hunter/motorcycler/raconteur. I also arranged with the medical staff at the Narsaq Hospital to lead a seminar discussing Seasonal Affective Disorder (winter depression) and bright light treatment. (The IRS has yet to offer an opinion on some of my expense receipts.) The overwhelming impression given by the Greenlandic people is of fierce pride in their way of life and in their land, but also in the cultural and religious influences of a millennium of European input.
As on my previous trip, the weather was generally excellent and we lost collecting time only to the lack of darkness, not inclement weather. Temperatures were consistently in the 60s, although cooler before sunrise. Climate is a serious variable, as summer fog can prevent air travel, and as the “fohn” brings winds up to 100 mph. The Ilimaussaq segment of the Canadian collecting expedition of 2001 was basically was “winded out” by the fohn. Apparently Mark’s Miami phenotype has modified his New England genotype, leading to his discovery that turning on all the stove burners was not an efficient way to heat our motel. The fuses held out for only a few minutes, much like at Sing-Sing on execution days.
4- The famous Kvanefjeld site was the destination the next day. This begins with a 5 km. drive on the only road out of Narsaq, through the valley between Taseq on the southeast and Kvanefjeld on the northwest, and straight towards Ilimausaq, the majestic glacier-topped peak that gives the region its name. Sheep, sheepdogs and wild ponies share the road, completing the trip’s best photo op. A 1 km. walk up a road impassable even to 4-wheel drive vehicles leads to an abandoned uranium mine and is followed by a nearly vertical climb to the peak. John and Kathy were particularly interested in the uranium mine and tailings, but for me it’s fluorescents only. A plateau atop Kvanefjeld is the main collecting site. The local’s quest is dark red tugtupite, which is then cut en cab for jewelry. White albite veins are drilled and if any pink smoke is seen, that vein is developed. The matrix syenite is so hard that the developmental method is TNT. Apparently an attempt previous to our arrival was a bit too ambitious because Peter looked expectantly for tug blown clear across the lake opposite the blasting site. My strategy was to look for white albite bordering on blasted syenite, deducing that this would be ignored in the search for gemmy tug. I did quite well with this approach, finding abundant white tug. Nice chkalovite eyes were also prevalent. This Kvanefjeld tug is the most spectacularly fluorescent, the familiar blood red color highlighted by pale green fluorescing chkalovite and bright green fluorescing beryllite. Tugtupite offset with brightly fluorescing sorensenite needles is rare, as is the gemmy red tug itself.
The collecting site in the complex with the greatest diversity of minerals is the Taseq slope. The approach is by truck, then by foot across a bridge spanning a shallow stream. Walking through fairly dense bushes leads to a moderate climb up the slope for collecting, the trek taking about ninety minutes. We were able to drive fairly close to the vertical slope but couldn’t cross the stream due to the freezing water temperature. I was the guinea pig, but in the time it took for me to put my second foot in the water, my first foot was achingly and unbearably frozen. On this trip we did manage a shortcut farther downstream by traversing a fairly treacherous path of rocks in the stream. On the way back Herb decided to run an experiment on the human tolerance for immersion in freezing water, and found that his clothing protected him for a brief period of time longer than my bare feet were able to stand. Fortunately for me, my feet dried much more quickly than his clothes. Not surprisingly, his second trial of this experiment later in the week yielded a similar result. Although I haven’t checked, I’m sure the data can be found on his website. We did very well with abundant yellow soda and with white and some red tug, all fluorescing as usual. Nice surprises were blue-white fluorescing analcime, incredible silver polylithionite, and some green, violet and lilac fluorescing unknowns. I also found a nice amount of extremely bright chkalovite, and “fire-tug” so brightly fluorescent that the visible red light emitted is sufficient to illuminate one’s entire hand. Mark and Herb did very well at a vein of tugtupite admixed with analcime and a uranyl-activated green fluorescing unknown, constituting extremely beautiful and large specimens. Non-fluorescent species found here include eudialite, najaukasite, epistolite, and aegerine. As most readers already know, spectacular pix of all of these minerals are available at Mark’s website, www.minershop.com and at Herb’s website, www.simplethinking.com . We developed an interesting superstition during this trip. To desist from the tendency to stuff one’s pockets without UV guidance on the way down
5- the mountain, we made a rule that if any daily yield was insignificant, the practice would end. The practice persists!
Protecting each specimen in bubble wrap for the trip back to America was tedious but worth the work. I felt jealous at leaving the others behind but enthusiastic about their finds during the remainder of their stay. As parting gifts, I bought a huge tub of jelly and genuine Jif chunky for Mark and Herb, and gave Peter some rich Sterling Hill “green and red” that I’d brought along. Little did I know my most suspenseful and adventurous time was about to begin. I was scheduled for a stop overnight in Reykavik, and then for an hour drive to Keflavik International en route to JFK. Well, the plane originating in the Faroe Islands got to Greenland a day late, promising to get me to Iceland right on time, but to the wrong airport. With no flights the following day, my return would be several days behind schedule. As luck would have it, when landing in Iceland, I was overjoyed to see that we were at Keflavik. Apparently they don’t move customs to Reykavik for just one arrival. A half-mile run (go, OJ, go) to transfer rocks from incoming to outgoing, and I was on IcelandAir for JFK. My wife was pleasantly surprised to get my call, as I hadn’t had the time to reach her to reinstate the cancelled original schedule.
This winter has been a continual joy; sorting, cataloguing, comparing, bragging, but mostly sharing new wonders and old stories. Nice experiences have been a talk about the entire experience given at Ultraviolation 2003, and a discussion of the tenebrescence of hackmanite at the FMS northeast regional meeting. We compared samples of hackmanite from Greenland, Afganistan, the Kola Peninsula, Mont Saint-Hilaire and Bancroft. My winter highlight was a get together in Florida with Mark and his daughters, Herb and his wife, my wife, plenty of pizza, and plenty of rocks.
This trip and this experience have been so invigorating for me that I plan to return in 2004. Mark and Herb will return too, and I hope we’ll get a nice additional contingent. Franklin collectors can put down their silver picks and grab their backpacks! The availability, abundance, and quality of the minerals make this the fluorescent collector’s paradise. Write for more details to Royal53@worldnet.att.net.
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