Narsasuq 61:09N 45:26W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Sun 17 Aug 2008 12:39
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Bluie West One as the Americans called it, when
they built the runway here. The legend is on the web.
It was used as a link to get short range
aeroplanes across to Europe for WW2. There is a photo from 1953
showing about 50 fighters on the runway. Coming back from Germany to fight in Korea? But clearly still in
use.
The legend about it being used for servicemen, too
badly injured to be taken back to the US, may not be true; but the Americans
still use bases such Guantanamo Bay for things that are illegal inside the
USA.
 We went over the hills next to the base (on
the way from the harbour to the bar). There was thick scrub, for
Greenland, on some of them and a sense of peace and quiet you seldom
get. Total silence at the top of a hill, I
remember from the desert in Saudi Arabia. In England or
Scotland there is always wind, water, sheep or vehicles to
give background noise. The effect was heightened by a sound
refraction trick that then allowed us to
hear first voices and footsteps half a mile away: We could just
see the people down at the harbour.
As usual I went in the museum and not being shy to
comment, offered my bird books (we have both European & USA East Coast)
as the bird section had English names with question marks.
As usual all Viking text referred to them reaching
Greenland and the USA first:
 The English text version says:
"Excuse me, can I
see Columbus?
Sorry old boy, he's not discovered us
yet!"
I pointed out that the sagas said there were Irish
monks in Iceland when the Vikings arrived. The St Brendan
texts and Tim Severin's voyage in a leather boat indicated
that they reached America 500 years
before the Vikings. I was referred to the museum curator, who is an
archeologist and artist.
I went in to see him the following day and we spent
half an hour looking at the bird books. Greenland naturally has some birds
from one book, some from the other and some in both.
We then got on to the Irish and far from arguing,
he had maps in a book he has written showing early buildings
excavated just across the fjord. They had round ends and
probably were of turf construction. The round ends can be seen in the
Hebridees on the oldest huts. If I remember correctly the round
"beehive" huts on the islands off Ireland are early hermit
dwellings. Since the Vikings brought Irish
slaves with them, they could have been contemporary with the Viking remains, but
could also have been earlier from Irish settlers.
He told me of an Indian tribe in America who built
similar houses and had other distinctive traditions. He thought they were
discovered too soon after the Vikings, for them to have become so Indian in
their ways. If they had been Irish settlers or seafarers, that
would have given them another 500 years to become Indianised.
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