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Shetland native Shona Main is following in ‘Arctic Jenny’s’ footsteps. In 2018, the journalist turned filmmaker returned to Grise Fiord to revisit some of those documented by Gilbertson.

Situated some 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the Greenland community still survives largely on seal hunting and fishing.

Shona, who grew up in Shetland and now splits her time between the islands and Dundee, describes Gilbertson as a “phenomenal” woman and filmmaker who worked outside the system, funding, producing, and distributing her own projects.

Shona says: “I filmed their life 40 years on. Things have changed quite dramatically there over time, so I was walking into a different Grise Fiord that Jenny walked into.”

While the people of Grise Fiord have experienced fundamental political and environmental changes since Gilbertson visited the Arctic, Shona says some things remained the same.

She says: “A supply ship comes once a year in September before winter really sets in, but large amounts of seal and whale are still eaten, which I, of course, fully embraced.

“They have one month of summer and by mid-November, the days pass in total darkness.”

Shona also examined the impact of climate change on the Grise Fiord community, with health, food security, livelihoods and culture of the Inuit considered to be at serious risk from global warming.

Sadly, a planned return visit, to screen her film to her new friends, has been delayed by the global Covid crisis.

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