The Tundra and its Tiny Plants

No trees grow in Greenland! In some areas there are scrubby bushes that are members of the willow or the birch family, but I don't think anyone like me, with my midwest US background, would call them trees. In most of the areas where we walked, the permafrost that is just below the surface causes vegetation to grow in a strange, spongy form, with deep water holes and streams criss-crossing the bumpy surface. It's hard to walk on, and for 4000 years, it's been hard for people to live on, though they did so. They knew which berries to eat, which lichens had to be cooked to avoid poisoning, and how to hunt the few game birds and animals that were present.

Without trees, there is no locally-produced wood for construction -- only imported lumber. Special methods have been devised for creating structures on the permafrost. Modern industrial buildings in this climate often have strange-looking pipes surrounding them, that are meant to prevent the permafrost underneath from melting and making the buildings collapse. Earlier inhabitants located cabins or turf houses on rocky outcroppings to have a stable foundation. The Vikings built sod huts or stone churches with some structures balanced on the uneven ground. (Viking settlements were not on the most extreme tundra, but further south, though still treeless). The Inuit managed in a variety of ways, using skins, sod, animal bones, and the occasional lucky driftwood find for small, often temporary houses.

An abandoned cabin on a rocky outcropping.
The wood planks would have been imported to Greenland.

         The Kangerlussuaq airport was built on the tundra by American
troops in 1941, and was an American base until 1992.

Tundra vegetation is extremely beautiful, and well worth a close look, as many plants have colorful flowers that are the size of a fingertip or smaller. Lichens, mushrooms, and other unfamiliar life forms also grow on the spongy surface. Unfortunately, so do mosquitos and flies. We enjoyed a number of walks and hikes in this extremely strange environment, which is vividly colorful and beautiful, especially in sunshine.

Looking across the tundra and lichen-covered rocks, back towards the ship.

Eduardo, one of the naturalists, led us on a very beautiful tundra walk.
On one of the distant hillsides we could see a flock of Canada geese.

Dennis, another of the naturalists, loves the flora of the tundra.
Dennis knows the names of all these tiny flowers and lichens.

Amazing green colors create great beauty in the moss and lichens on the tundra.

A fox’s jaw. We often saw bones on the tundra.

Lake Ferguson is near the Kangerlussuaq Airport from which we left Greenland.
We had lunch at the Rowing Club, which offers these canoes (not kayaks!)
 Kangerlussuaq is above the Arctic Circle, and you can see the scrubby "trees" that grow in the area.

More glimpses of life on the tundra

These delicate flowers are extremely small.

Hundreds of thousands of insects swarmed us when we were hiking.
A windy day meant we had a wet crossing on the small zodiac boats,
but wind was welcome because it also meant the insects would not be so pesky.

We saw a wide variety of fungus and lichens.

Next to the little flowers: an old bone.

Two musk ox in the standing water above the permafrost, among the dwarfed trees.

A reindeer in the tundra -- one of the favorite game animals.

All photos © 2022 mae sander