I was drinking a beer at the bar when a guy stepped into the place with a rifle. I was frightened. That’s not common in Canada, and the last time I heard about a guy with a gun in Scandinavia, he had murdered more than 70 people.
The guy sat three tables away from me and ordered a beer and a burger. I was shocked but tried to remain open-minded. The crazy part came when the waitress slipped up into another customer and spilt the armed guy’s beer onto him. The wet beer customer believed that the armed guy was the one who did it on purpose and yelled at him. The waitress didn’t say anything and woke up from the floor unnoticed. The guys started to fight, and a few seconds later, the whole bar was battling like in American western films.
The crazy part, the armed guy put the riffle on the table, and no one dared to touch it. Not even him. They were fighting clean. A couple of minutes later, six husky security Inuit guys appear out of nowhere to try to handle the situation. Ten minutes later, police were there saying hello to the fighters (!?) and sending them home. The armed guy just finished his beer, left some cash, and took his rifle before go.
Twenty minutes later, the bar continued its flow as nothing would ever happen. A local Inuit younger guy saw me dumbfounded and open-mouthed and said, “Welcome to Greenland,” and ordered me a beer. Then I can remember a lot, but I ended up dancing to local and international pop songs with many people, and half of them had taken part in the fight.
I didn’t expect Nuuk nightlife to be as the Ibiza or Caribbean party levels, but I had a lot of fun. It was authentic, unexpected and magnificent. Later, I understood that it is common to wear a rifle because we are close to the wilderness, and animals can be wild (as humans in a bar). People won’t attack each other with fire guns even though they are in a fight. Riffles are for hunting or for protecting other people from the wild animals, not for revenge. Even a drunk guy can understand that in Greenland ver well. I felt amazed by it.
As most of the food is imported, many people rely on hunting and fishing. Beef meat could be high-priced in the supermarket, but reindeer meat is free a few kilometres outside Nuuk. There is no one to blame for hunting in Greenland, as the purpose is for alimentation. When I was a child, my grandpa’s dad had some chickens in the backyard. Every time we went there, he took one or two and slaughtered them for the family barbecue. This was super normal for everyone.
I cannot imagine this still happens in many cities of Canada, but still occurring in Nuuk. The difference is that those wild animals are free, are humans are just part of their circle of life.