Francesc Bailón, who appears on my computer screen surrounded by the background of his dense library, a space of limited knowledge that contrasts with the infinite horizon of learning and wisdom which for this anthropologist and polar traveler has been the Arctic since the first trip he made there in 2002, to find or perhaps, to meet again, with his beloved and admired Inuit.
With more than 30 expeditions to the Arctic behind him, this cultural anthropologist is dedicated to the study, research, and dissemination of Arctic people and pre-Columbian cultures. He has traveled to more than 60 countries. He has traveled through part of the Sahara and Gobi deserts, as well as the Altai and Andes mountain ranges. He has climbed some of the highest mountains in Europe and Asia and has penetrated the jungles of Borneo, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Vietnam.
Author of numerous articles on Arctic cultures and of the books: The Poets of the Arctic, Stories of Greenland (2012), The Inuit, and Hunters of the Great North (2015). He was also a cultural advisor for the film "Nobody Wants the Night" (2015) by Isabel Coixet which narrates the life of Arctic explorer Josephine Peary.
Who is Francesc Bailón?
I am a person who constantly wants to seek new experiences and I consider that life is about continuous learning. To travel, to know, to read, and to share. I have that restlessness that human beings sometimes share to never settle for what I have, always to seek to improve as a person and one of the best ways is learning from others.
Who are your travelers and explorers' references?
One would certainly be Knud Rasmussen because he opened me to this wonderful world of the Inuit. Reading his books, I started to learn about this culture. I keep with me his extraordinary legacy and how he integrated into this people despite being Greenlandic.
Peter Freuchen, was a Danish explorer who was the first white man to marry an Inuit woman from northern Greenland. From him, I remember the literary and romantic parts of his books. These two are the ones that have marked me the most in my career as an anthropologist specializing in Arctic cultures.
I would add Fridtjof Nansen who understood that exploring the Arctic was not simply a journey or a challenge, but a way to bring these regions closer and to make this culture known to others. For me, he is the most complete polar explorer in the history of mankind.
And, finally, also, Jette Bang, a Danish explorer, photographer, and cinematographer who managed to integrate herself as a woman in a patriarchal world such as that of the Inuit and leave a legacy of photographs and images that show her coexistence with them. She had the ability, in a natural and spontaneous way, to leave images of close-ups of the Inuit that had never been made before and that, for me, are a sample of universal values.
On your website you state that: "It all began in 1997, when I discovered that the Inuit people resolved their conflicts through improvised songs and poems".
I had just finished my anthropology degree and a book entitled "Poetry and primitive song" by Cécil Bowra fell into my hands. I started reading it and discovered that the Inuit resolved their internal conflicts through songs and poems.
That is how I fell in love with these people who resorted to linguistic rather than physical violence to resolve their conflicts through what are called "sung duels". The Inuit say that "language is the only instrument that is sharpened by its use."
I found it so fascinating that I knew I had to go and meet those people. I made my first trip in 1999 to Canada and saw the Inuit for the first time in Quebec but the first real contact was in 2002 in Greenland.
How was that first trip?
One of my first images in Greenland was seeing an Inuit driving a dogsled and talking on a cell phone when even I didn't have a cell phone. They had plasma TVs in their homes. It was a great contrast to what I had read about them in the books of the great explorers of the late 19th century. Rather than being disappointed, I was excited to see that balance between two worlds in an area as extreme as the Arctic.
What are the Inuit like?
The Inuit are human beings in their purest state. They are one of the last breaths of humanity left on the planet. They are hospitable, kind, honest, and transparent, honest, they do not even know how to lie. Contrastingly, the opposite of what the Western world is. The Inuit teach you where we have come from and what we have become in the West.
Mythology and magic still play an important role in their daily life...
They have reached a religious syncretism. They have adapted their traditional religion based on animistic beliefs and shamanistic rituals to the introduction of Christianity. But, for example, when they see an aurora borealis they keep whistling for it to come closer because they believe they are the lights of their dead ancestors and want to communicate with them.
In an Inuit cemetery next to the cross, there are candles or lanterns that are the light that, according to them, the dead need to ascend to heaven.
They are also potential ecologists. They respect the environment, know when they have to hunt some animals and others and detect and interpret the traces of nature. They live in total alignment with the cycles of nature.
All this has been maintained thanks to a very powerful oral tradition but let's also keep in mind that the Inuit people were the first to eradicate illiteracy in the history of mankind. In Greenland, for example, everyone has been able to read and write for 150 years.
What have you learned from the Inuit?
To be a better person. To respect nature in one of the most extreme conditions on the planet. To value what is really important. To experience relationships between people in their purest state. One of the things I have learned is that the Inuit, in the face of adversity, smile to externalize the accumulated tensions. So I, here in the West, in the face of adversity I always try to smile.
As a scientist, what is your opinion of what some famous explorers did in their time like Peary bringing a group of Inuit to New York or Amundsen who also adopted two Eskimo girls and took them home to Norway?
I would differentiate in this case Amundsen who learned from the Inuit and, thanks to these learnings managed to reach the South Pole as he always acknowledged himself. The case of Peary and others is another story. Peary enslaved, manipulated, and humiliated them just to achieve his goals. There are many stories where the Inuit have been greatly affected by this type of explorer. Peary for example is persona non grata among the Inuit because he did barbarities and even took some Inuit to New York to be exhibited.
In 2015 you were the cultural advisor for Isabel Coixet's film "Nobody Wants the Night" based on the life of Josephine Peary, the first woman to travel to the Arctic. In her travel books, Peary describes a kind of "madness" or disorder affecting Inuit women called Pibloktoq, apart from the conditions of physical violence and machismo they suffered. Has this now evolved in any way?
Gender violence still exists, as in all societies but, in the case of the Inuit, it is motivated by an external element which is alcohol that they do not metabolize because they lack an enzyme. Alcohol, which was introduced by the white man, has had a devastating effect on the life of the Inuit.
In addition, in the north of Greenland, they have 4 months of pure night every year which is something terrifying and very hard to live. In the past this generated physical and psychological disorders in the form of depression, the so-called Pibloktoq, which often ended in suicide.
Now they have comforts such as television that can make this period of darkness a little more bearable.
You who have traveled to more than 60 countries, what is it about the Arctic that grabs you?
For me, there is the Arctic and the rest of the world. Apart from ingredients like the northern lights, the icebergs, the ice, and the frozen sea... for me, the Arctic is one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet but, at the same time, one of the most lively and changing places there is. When you take a picture of an iceberg in the Arctic five minutes later that iceberg is no longer there.
What do you feel in the Arctic?
There you feel the loneliness even if you are accompanied. Silence has its own sound. It is the place where I have felt most fragile, defenseless, and small in the face of overwhelming nature. I felt fear when the sea ice opened and fell into the water, or when a polar bear appeared.
The Arctic allows you to be in a place like, for example, a glacier that is three times the Perito Moreno and be there alone and without having paid an entrance fee.
Does it create dependence?
In fact, when I am returning from each trip to the Arctic I am already thinking about going back. I would not stay there because I love traveling but I am passionate about teaching. I need to always come back home to spread everything I have learned in my travels.
Have you studied other tribes, cultures, and countries... What destinations would you never get tired of?
Based on the fact that, at least, the only destination I usually repeat is the Arctic, I always try to get to know new destinations, new cultures, and new tribes. After the Arctic, my favorite destinations would be Mongolia, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Do you have any pending destinations?
My oldest pending destination is Mali, the territory of the Dogon, and another one that really catches my attention would be New Zealand.
What does luxury mean to you related to the world of travel?
For me, luxury is being in the place where I would like to be at any given moment.
I was recently with a group in Ecuador living with the Huaorani in the Amazon. We were with three tribes and one of them had never seen a white man. For me that was also a luxury, to be there with them at that time.
What will be your next trip?
I'm going back in a few weeks to Siberia to live with the Nenets and then I'm leading a group with which I'm going to be with Inuit hunters in Greenland.
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