THE ICEFJORD CENTRE

PAGE BY PAGE GUIDE – THE BOOK CREATOR BOOK

 “LIFE IN THE SETTLEMENTS”

The students meet the Icefjord Centre in two pictures, showing summer and winter respectively.

In class you can talk about:

• What the Icefjord Centre is.
• What the surroundings around the Centre look like.
• The difference between summer and winter.
• How summer and winter differ where you live.

Have a look at the map and talk about where Ilulissat is situated. Talk about how many people live in Ilulissat. Also talk about how many people live in the town or settlement where you live.

The students see part of a world map.

The task now is to move the red marker down into the map in order to show where each student lives.

The marker is found in the white box and can be drawn into the map.

In class you can talk about:

• Differences and similarities between Ilulissat and your own town or settlement.

The students see a map of Greenland again.

Which other towns and settlements in Greenland do you know of?

Place a red marker and write the name of the town/settlement.

On page 14 the students see a small part of a map of the Disko Bay with two markings. The settlement of Oqaatsut and the town Ilulissat.

They read the text:

Oqaatsut is a small settlement situated 18 km north of  Ilulissat. 

Oqaatsut means the cormorants. It is named after the many cormorant mountains that surround the settlement. 

Through many hundreds of years the settlement was the home of Dutch whalers, they called the place ”Rode Bay”.

Today Oqaatsut is a favourite place for tourists. A number of the old colonial houses are restaurants and holiday homes today. 

50 years ago at least 200 people lived in the settlement, now only 30 people live there. In the past they lived as hunters and fishermen, today they mostly live off tourism.

In class you can talk about:

• • How you can get from Ilulissat to Oqaatsut.
  • What a cormorant looks like.
  • The development of the society from hunter/fisherman society to a service society.

Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast Life in the Settlements. They find the podcast by clicking on the picture on page 16.

Before the students listen to the podcast, you can give a short introduction to the contents of the podcast.

The contents of the podcast

Katrine tells:

• that for thousands of years people have met by the Disko Bay to hunt, trade and exchange culture and knowledge.
• that people went into the fjords to summer settlements to hunt and fish (reindeer, trout and halibut).
• about the winter settlement, Sermermiut, of which you can see the ruins just south of the Icefjord Centre.
• that even though many people have moved to Ilulissat, several of them still have a hut in the settlement they come from.

Ole tells:

• that almost every Greenlander has his or her roots in a settlement and that this is the reason why the settlements have a special status.
• that the state up through the 50s and 60s closed down many settlements, but that this does not happen any more..
• that he grew up in the settlement of Oqaatsut, but as a 9 year old moved to Ilulissat because of better schools and better prospects for the future. At that time, 50 years ago, approximately 200 people lived in Oqaatsut, but now only 30 people live there
• that it is hard work to live in the settlement. Everything is done by manpower. The wheelbarrow is the most important means of transportation. Here there are no cars.
• that in the settlement there is a power plant – a waterworks – a municipal office – a small wash house – a small health centre – a small church that also functions as a school.
• that you are dependent on having a boat, sled dogs or a snow scooter to get around.
• that he runs a hotel in the settlement, the place where he has his roots.
• that he enjoys the special settlement atmosphere, the view of the Icefjord. This is where he relaxes.

It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups.

Let the students spend a few minutes discussing what they have heard in the podcast.

On page 17 the students are to record small audio files where they tell about the podcast. The pictures on the page will help them remember what they have heard.

Sound recording see instruction 1 here.

The recording will now be represented by a small sound icon. This icon can be placed wherever you wish on the page. You can listen to the recording over and over again.

Review in class

We recommend that you have a joint discussion in class when the work with pages 16-17 is finished.

In class you could talk about:

• The picture(s) they have chosen for their audio story and the reason why they have chosen it/them.
• Concepts and keywords the students have heard about in the podcast.

Below you can find inspiration for the class discussion.

For some of the concepts there are pages with tasks in the Book Creator book.

If you wish, you can add more pages for other topics, concepts and keywords that you discuss.

Concepts and keywords

• Disco Bay – is today one of the most popular tourist destinations in Greenland. It is an unbelievably beautiful area with the enormous floating icebergs, the rich wildlife and especially the many whales. This is also where you can experience the hunter life of the small settlements.

Even though hunting and fishing still are the main livelihood in the Disko Bay, the service professions are growing with the expanding tourism.

The Disko Island is called Qeqertarsuaq in Greenlandic. This means the big island. Why do you think it is called “Disko”?

• Settlement – a settlement is a smaller habitation than a town. In Denmark it is called a village. In order to get to a Greenlandic settlement, you must either use a boat, a dog sledge or a helicopter.

In Greenland there are over 60 settlements. A number of these are not inhabited. In the inhabited settlements between 30 to 250 people live.

If you do not walk, how do you get around in a settlement?

Which means of transportation are there where you live?

• Settlements – The first Stone Age people settled by the Icefjord 4400 years ago. They lived off hunting and fishing. Hunting and fishing are still the foundation of life around the Icefjord. Today fishing and the fishing industry are the most important occupations in Ilulissat, the third largest town in Greenland.

What do you think a settlement looked like?

From what did people live off 4400 years ago?

• Roots – Nearly all Greenlanders have grown up in a settlement themselves or have older family members that have. This is where they come from, this is where they have their roots.

Where does your family come from?

Are you especially attached to the place where you were born?

On page 18 the students read the text:

Ole grew up in Oqaatsut, but when he was 9 years old, the family moved to Ilulissat.

They did this because in Ilulissat there were better schools and better prospects for the future.

Even though he moved many years ago, he often returns to the settlement.

This is where he and his family can relax, this is where he has his roots.

On page 19 there are four empty boxes where the students are to write texts, draw drawings and/or insert pictures of:

• the place they were born
• their school
• the place their closest family comes from
• the place they dream of living or other things they figure out by themselves

Insertion of text, picture or drawing: see instruction 2, 3 og 4 here.

On page 20 the students read the text:

Oqaatsut is a complete society with a power plant, a waterworks, a municipal office, a small washhouse, a health centre and a church that also holds the school.

A small state within the state.

On page 21 there is a picture of the settlement. The students are to imagine in which houses the power plant, the waterworks, the municipal office, the wash house, the health centre and the church/school are placed. Then they draw the words in red over into the picture on page 20 and place them on the houses they have chosen.

In small groups or in pairs the students can talk about why the houses they have chosen, fit especially well for the different purposes.

The students read the text on page 22:

Ole runs a small hotel in Oqaatsut in the summertime.

In the settlement there are a number of places where you can spend the night.

One of them is Hotel Nordlys.

On page 23 the students are to write about their stay at Hotel Nordlys. They illustrate their text with pictures.

Sound recording, insertion of text and insertion of pictures: see instruction 1, 2 and 3 here.

On these pages the students write sentences or small stories using the keywords and concepts that you have been through. They can write them, record them as an audio file or make a drawing and insert the picture.

Sound recording and insertion of pictures: see instruction 2 and 3 here.

As a conclusion of their tasks, the students now make a story about the special atmosphere in the settlement that Ole tells us about.

On page 26 they read the text:

Ole tells about the quite special settlement atmosphere…

How does he describe it?

Where do you feel at home and totally relaxed?

Insert pictures from your place.

They insert their answers in the empty boxes on page 27.

The students show their products to the class. 

Make sure that the framework for feedback is positive criticism.The students should be supported in assessing what is good – and what might be done better. Find more inspiration  here.

Not specifically with a view to making new products, but foremost to let the students discover and work with this kind of constructive and positive criticism.

If you intend to work with some of the other podcasts from the Icefjord Centre, it might make sense to save the students’ Book Creator book, so the work they have done with it can be used again.

If you wish to let the students make use of the feedback they have received from the class, you could reserve time for them to continue their work with their products. So that they can use the feedback they have received from each other and change things in their product.

The podcast Life in the Settlements has been created by the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat.

The teaching material for the podcast Life in the Settlements has been developed by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted with feedback from Leg med IT.

The student’s book in Book Creator has been developed by Rikke Falkenberg Kofoed from Leg med IT.

The teaching material Life in the Settlements is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY.

The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “Life in the Settlements by The Icefjord Centre Ilulissat” is credited as the source.