The campground was about half a kilometre up a muddy road – just beyond the outskirts of Ilulissat. On the way, the road passed the village husky kennels, skirting to the left of the painted plywood dog-houses. For eight months of the year huskies are used by Inuit for hunting, pulling their sleds across the ice and snow of Arctic Greenland; for the other four, when the summer thaw makes sled-travel impossible, the dogs are chained, restless, to their kennels. Howling at passers-by and feeding on chunks of seal-blubber thrown to them by their owners.
Seal-blubber and dog shit: the husky kennels stank. Pretty quickly, I learnt to navigate that section of the road while not breathing through my nose.
