COVER N. 288 - GREENLAND

Postmark: 3980 Ittoqqortoormiit 30.06.2023

Posted on the 30th June; Received on the 26h July 2023

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Now this was a great surprise.  A cover as full of interesting stamps, postmark, cachets, signatures as  can only be expected from a letter coming from a truly fascinating place.

Thank you so much, Roland. What a nice addition to the collection.

According to its website the Karupplev Valley Project is a long term German-French scientific project, running under the auspices of the University of Freiburg and the Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Artique, initiated in 1988, with the aim of providing new insights into the processes that govern cyclic fluctuations of lemming populations in high-arctic ecosystems.

Scientific research usually does not come cheap, the more so when carried out in remote and not easy accessible locations, so funding of such long term ventures sometimes calls on the creativity and resilience of those in charge so as to ensure that the future of the project is not compromised.

Well aware of this reality, the Karulev project managers came up with the idea of securing some funding by selling the Project's own covers, adorned with the cachets of the project itself and the year's campaign and the signatures of the project leaders. The covers are then dispatched from Greenland, the place where the field work takes place.

Stamps:

- Between 2018 and 2022, Tusass Greenland issued yearly souvenir sheets with a two stamp set dedicated to "Fish in Nordic Waters".

The 11.50 Krone stamp is part of the 2022 and last issue of this sets and is illustrated with the image of  one of the most famous nordic fishes, the Atlantic Herring (Clupea harengus).  The companion stamp to this set, with a face value of 16.00 Krone, was the equally abundant and well known Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus).

- As far as I understand, from 1927 to 1967 Greenlanders had access to a savings scheme that entailed the acquisition of coupons (stamps) to be collected on a savings book that once completed could be redeemed. The System would later include a School savings programme that run from 1957 to 1976.

As a matter of curiosity, I have a faint, (very) idea that there was one such programme here in Portugal too, but I'm not sure at all.

Tusass Greenland  has been issuing  on a yearly basis stamps set with reproductions of these savings stamps. 

The 11.50 Krone stamp was issued on 28FEV2022 as part of a set that comprised another  14.50 Krone stamp, illustrated with reproductions of the 1957 School savings stamps.

The envelope features on the top left corner the cachet of the Karuplev Valley project, the cachet of the 2023 expedition being placed under it.