To this day, Inuit in the Nuuk region of Western Greenland sing a song commemorating the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen expedition of 1888-89. The first ever to cross the Greenland ice cap, the Nansen expedition marked the planned initiation of Norway’s modern engagement in Arctic exploration but led to the expedition members’ unplanned overwintering in Nuuk. Much was written in the local periodical, Atuagagdliutit, about Nansen’s skiing expedition and its charismatic leader, whose great anthropological interest and sportsmanship caused him to soon master the art of kayaking as well as the West Greenlandic language. The local people of Nuuk seemed nonetheless more interested in the two Sámi accompanying Nansen, Samuel Johansen Balto (1861-1921) and Ole Nilsen Ravna (1841-1906) from Kárášjohka. Historical records communicate how a steady stream of local visitors trickled to the house where Balto and Ravna resided. Enthusiastically engaging in his new role as cultural translator and entertainer, Balto would capture visitors with talk of his native Sápmi and its customs, particularly the making of Sámi clothes and boots in which the locals took special interest. Ravna, on the other hand, liked to spend his days on long, quiet visits to local Inuit homes. During these cultural meetings, Balto and Ravna introduced the Inuit of Nuuk to the Sámi traditional form of singing, the luohti (yoik). The importance of the meetings is reflected in the song a local catechist, Christian Rosing, wrote upon the explorers’ departure from Nuuk in the spring of 1889. Noting the emotional scene taking place on the dock as the expedition members boarded the ship that would take them home, Rosing composed the lyrics below. The true impact of the cultural meeting is, however, reflected less in Rosing’s lyrics than in the fact that 135 years later, the song is still sung in Western Greenland. Moreover, it retains an orally transmitted luohti chorus either conveyed to the Inuit of Western Greenland by Balto and Ravna or created by them in honour of these representatives of another Arctic Indigenous culture and its music traditions.   

The big Lap 

said to Sofie 

Travel with me to Lapland – there, we two will marry 

  

The small Lap said 

to Johannes  

“Little Juaansi, slippikka 

‘ikke gra’, pitsaaqaatit” (you are great) 

  

Peter I’ll take with me home 

He will wear komager 

a starry hat 

and a long kofte on his body  

Essay by Axl Ingemann-Jeremiassen and Sigfrid Kjeldaas