Anja goes to a Global Friend school called Atuarfik Jørgen Brønlund in Ilulissat, Greenland. Anja, who loves driving a dog sled and playing football, is worried about the melting ice.
   “If it gets warmer the dogs won’t be as important as they are now and things will be harder for the hunters and fishermen,' says Anja.

When Anja feeds the family’s 23 dogs, who are tied up outside, there is one dog who gets an extra cuddle.
   “Uiloq has been my favourite ever since he was a puppy,' says Anja.
   “I love driving a dog sled. My dad is Greenland’s champion sled driver, so I have a good instructor. I hitch six dogs to the sled when I drive. It’s hard to get the dogs to obey you. Dad drives a sled with 12–15 dogs.
   It’s unusual to see real polar bears here, but there are some in the far north of Greenland. Ilulissat is 250 km north of the Arctic Circle. It is home to 4500 people and 4000 dogs. The dogs are only used to pull sleds.
   Most of the families in Ilulissat live by fishing and hunting. The men travel by dog sled onto the ice to go fishing and hunting. They stay away for a couple of days and sleep in tents on the ice.

Melting ice
“Adults talk about climate change and global warming a lot. There is often news about the climate on TV. I’d like to know more, like how much of Greenland’s glaciers melt in, say, one week. I want to stay in Greenland when I grow up. The best thing about Greenland is the dog sleds and if the weather gets warmer it’ll be harder to drive a dog sled and hard for the hunters,' says Anja.
  All 18 students in Anja’s class have Greenlandic as their mother tongue. The school is on a hillside that is usually snow-clad. Lots of icicles hang off the school roof. In fourth grade, Greenlandic children begin learning English and Danish. Greenland used to be a Danish colony. The huge island is still partly governed by Denmark. Greenland has 56,000 inhabitants. One fifth of them are Danish.
   “My favourite subject is Maths. I also like painting dog sleds and scenes of how people used to live in Greenland. And I paint lots of icebergs, seals and whales.

Text: Sven Rosell
Photo: Kent Klich