Thoughts and views about writing, researching and creating. All the doubts and wonders I come across, all the surprises and discovery of new roads I am lucky to experience when working with my non-fiction texts. A big and warm welcome to you, I’m very happy to see you here. - Majken xx
I sometimes travel using Google Street View. Have you tried that? It has some apparent advantages like it’s cheap, very flexible, and you can go to most places in the world without leaving your desk. Of course, it is not the same as journeying in real life - as we have all been thoroughly reminded during the pandemic. But at least it’s a way to see places you dream of going to (and perhaps you will someday).
I got the idea when searching through articles about Greenland to use for the book I’m writing. I got curious about what different areas look like today, so I started street view travelling. One of the places I ended up was the small village of Qaanaaq.
Staring into the screen, I began imagining how it must have been like to live in this sparsely populated area back in time when only a few people from the outside world passed by.
The town is formerly known as Thule or New Thule, and it is one of the northernmost towns in the world. I took a street-view-walk through the neighbourhood and passed by the few wooden houses that are raised here and there on the rocky ground. There was a supermarket, a small hotel, and also I ran into a man driving a tractor - “hello there”. Some children were riding their bicycles, and a couple of sled dogs were lying calmly on the ground. But apart from this lovely handful, the place was relatively deserted. Which, I have a feeling, it is most of the time. Or perhaps the Google camera car had passed by on a particularly slow afternoon?
On one side of the village, I could see a range of smaller mountains, all brownish and bare. Opposite here was the sea with dots of white ice flakes floating in the cold water, and even further away across the water were more mountains, some partly covered in snow.
Staring into the screen, I began imagining how it must have been like to live in this sparsely populated area back in time when only a few people from the outside world passed by. Mostly no foreign people came this far north, and when they did, it only happened during the few months of summer since they travelled here by ship and therefore depended on the waters being free of ice.
Besides street view travelling in the North West of Greenland, I’ve also stopped by other places. Like the city of Oxford in England, for instance, just for fun.
Explorers from (especially) the western parts of the world were fascinated by the roughness of the area - and by the fact that this northern part of Greenland was more or less untouched by outsiders like themselves. Which made travelling here a bit of a prestigious project. At some point, a competition to be the first to reach the North Pole came into the picture, but also the explorers were looking for something of value - fur, walrus tusk, the local people themselves! - for them to bring back home.
There is a fascinating story to this place, and besides getting to know it from a historical view, I hope I, one day, not too far into the future, will be able to visit the Qaanaaq area myself.
Besides street view travelling in the North West of Greenland, I’ve also stopped by other places. Like the city of Oxford in England, for instance, just for fun. And because I at the time really missed real-life travelling. I was in Oxford years ago and enjoyed the place a lot. Now here I was again, city street viewing my way through Broad Street, which is one of the main passages in the centre of the city.
Back then, I had placed myself in the shade of the pillars of the Clarendon Building (just a stone’s throw from the famous Bodleian Library). It was a hot and sunny day and while sitting here I watched people walking by - tourists entering the pub on the corner, other tourists listening to a guide telling about the historical buildings, a small group of nicely dressed men and women on their way to a fancy reception, and a street musician who was playing lovely tunes on his guitar.
Broad Street is also where you find the Blackwell’s Bookshop. From the outside, it looks like a traditional cosy British bookstore - and not that big. But once you get inside and down the stairs to the basement, you are suddenly in “the largest single bookselling room in the world”. At least, that is what the tour guide says. Oh, how lovely to relive that travel memory.
Do you street view travel? Where have you been lately? And where are you going next?
So, where am I going next?
I’ll keep using street view travelling for my research - it’s amazing how many older buildings that are still around and how they can give you a pretty good idea of how certain areas looked like years ago.
But also, it’s fun to use as an inspiration for future travel destinations. I would love to see the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, for example, and also I’m curious about Finland, Shanghai and Japan. And, well, the list goes on.
How about you - do you street view travel? Where have you been lately? And where are you going next? Please feel free to drop me a line - follow this link. Thanks.
Majken xx
Street View Travelling in Qaanaaq.
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