Greenland

Time Traveler | Cool Facts! | Technology

Time Traveler
  Greenland's national post-office Filatelia is located in Tasilaq, a town situated on the icy east coast of Greenland. Tasilaq was established as a trading hub for Greenland back in 1894, and now has a population 1,700-strong.

Cool Facts!
  One of the most interesting parts of the Greenland Post has to be weather-related. With Piteraqs (inland hurricanes) whipping the land at any moment, the delivery of mail has some great limitations. Here I introduce one of the most exciting journeys of mail across acres of ice to its final destination of Tasilaq.
Mail bound for Greenland is collected and sorted in Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, and then delivered to Kangerlussuaq, a town on the west coast. This leg of the journey is the safest as weather on the west coast is usually stable.

However, the second leg of the journey, which is the trans-country flight between Kangerlussuaq  and Tasilaq, is usually treacherous. Icy and snow-covered runways, worsened by blizzards and fog, are common hazards to this part of the journey.

Sometimes when mechanical equipment becomes unreliable, the good ol' huskies come in handy in the bitter cold.

Technology
  "The mail in Greenland is delivered by air or ship, and then the post is sorted into mailboxes. We only deliver post to people' houses one or two times a week. But generally the mail is distributed as all other countries. All mail from abroad is going thru Denmark. If it's by mail it takes one day and if it's by ship it takes one month from Denmark to Greenland. Some special things I can tell you aubout Greenland POST is that in wintertime the waters from Aassiat and further up north is frozen [for the whole] winter so delivery by ship is not possible. And sometimes the mail is delivered to the small towns by snowmobile or dogslede. "

Morten Kjær
POST Greenland
Po. box 9999
3900 Nuuk
Greenland