Free Sixty Degrees North by Malachy Tallack Page A

of abuse and ill-health, passed down between generations, cannot be broken without intervention. And key to that intervention, Bolethe believes, must be education, for both children and adults. Currently, many youngsters struggle in school. They struggle because their parents may be unable to help them, or unwilling to encourage them. They may have a Danish teacher, but may not have the necessary skills in that language to carry them along. There is, too, a shortage of positive role models among the adult population. These factors can easily lead to a lack of interest in education, and a failure to connect with the learning process. But if they are to find a meaningful place for themselves within society, as it exists today, they must make that connection.
    There is a paradox here, though, as there is in many traditional societies. For Greenlandic culture is deeply woven together with the idea of place, and the community is central within people’s lives. Yet with each step in the education process, and with each successful progression, children are likely to find themselves drawn further and further away from their place and their community. At fifteen, they must leave home to complete high school elsewhere. Then, if they wish to go further, to college or university, they must go to Nuuk or to Copenhagen. These students must travel far from home, and that distance will not just be geographical. Almost as soon as they enter the education system, children are already leaving behind the traditional knowledge of their grandparents, and the higher they climb the greater that distance will become. Education promises choice and opportunities, but in return it asks for aspirations and ambition. These aspirations are rarely compatible with a small Greenlandic community; they are rarely compatible with a life that maintains a real connection to culture and tradition. There is much to be lost here – much that has already been lost elsewhere – andwhile education represents an opportunity, it also potentially poses a threat.
    When I put this to Bolethe, though, she disagreed. There is no contradiction, she told me. ‘We need to improve education and quality of life, but also retain our culture as hunting people.’ So how is that possible, I asked. How do you retain a culture that is, at its heart, at odds with the education system and with the economic system that education underpins? Bolethe smiled and looked out of the window. She lifted her hand and gestured out towards the harbour, the ice and the mountains across the fjord. The answer was simple, she said. ‘We have the nature; we have the landscape and the sea. There is our culture. It is with us.’
    I looked out and tried to muster the same confidence. I tried to persuade myself that Bolethe was correct. Here in Greenland, as elsewhere on the parallel, the landscape and climate continue to bring the same challenges they always have. The place continues to make demands upon the people. And while individuals might struggle to reshape themselves as society changed, perhaps the culture would still yield to those demands. I hoped it was so. I hoped that she was right.

CANADA
    beside the rapids
    No other nation has worked as hard to understand, define and come to terms with the north as Canada. And no other nation, surely, has such an inconsistent relationship with that place, which it both contains and embodies. Canada is a northern country and sees itself as such, particularly in relation to the United States. Around forty percent of its landmass lies north of sixty degrees – a vast area, comparable in size to the entire European Union. And yet the country’s centre of balance is firmly in the south. The population – around 33 million in total – is concentrated along the southern border, and the most northerly city of more than half a million people is Edmonton, just above fifty-three degrees, the same latitude as Dublin. Only about