00:20
[Narrator] Qaanaaq is one
00:22
of the most northerly settlements on earth.
00:25
And after months of darkness and Arctic storms,
00:28
the ocean turns from ice to water almost
00:37
just before our President tried to buy Greenland,
00:43
and I was thinking about
00:45
how far away that trip now seems,
00:48
like a dream and how being frozen in place,
00:51
I keep returning to Qaanaaq in my mind.
01:04
The hunters of Qaanaaq still hunting Narwhal,
01:07
small whales with tusks by hand in kayaks with harpoons.
01:14
It’s a way of life passed through millennia.
01:20
Now I keep thinking of that moment
01:22
when the Narwhal appeared as a flicker of light
01:27
I watched it all from a cliff nearby.
01:31
It seemed a little insane actually,
01:34
the hugeness of the world,
01:45
The Narwhal came as an offering
01:58
Today, there might be 50 hunters left on earth
02:02
who hunt whale like this.
02:17
They share their meat,
02:19
feeding the young and old.
02:22
The narwhal’s skin called mucduc is an essential source
02:26
of vitamin C and is eaten as communion,
02:30
especially during celebrations.
02:32
[people chattering]
02:45
Greenlanders believe in communion
02:48
with each other and nature.
02:54
Arctic winter drives them into their own quarantine
03:01
For nearly four months in Qaanaaq there’s no sun at all.
03:05
Temperatures reach minus 20.
03:26
Rituals become ever important.
03:28
The making and sharing of food.
03:30
The mending of clothes,
03:32
the feeding of the dogs.
04:12
It’s rare in American life
04:14
to be as still as we’ve been and
04:16
to now face a reckoning.
04:20
Even as we begin to unfreeze ourselves,
04:24
even in great upheaval
04:25
I wonder what will surface,
04:28
what lesson waits to be learned.
04:35
Maybe it’s what the hunters of Qaanaaq already know.
04:40
There’s still a way to be humble.
04:42
There’s still a way to be open,
04:44
to hold one another in mind,
04:49
to un-divide ourselves.
