Arctic Adventures

While the ephemeral nature of Greenland’s environment is a living reality in Ilulissat, to experience the full vigour of this island’s stark and beautiful offerings one must fledge the nest. You must venture beyond the roads and step into the uncomfortably deep snow of adventure. Greenland, more than anywhere I had ever experienced, represented and embodied a last vestige of true wilderness, only dotted with small settlements where geography permitted. This meant that adventure was on every doorstep. While my lack of winter hiking experience limited the depth of wilderness I felt safe accessing alone, I was living with Ivan (an adventure guide). So, when he could be wrestled away from his endless projects we went further into the wilderness than I could’ve attempted by myself.

The Recce

After a day of acclimatisation to my new physical and social environment in Greenland, Carl suggested we go for a short walk out of town to see the icebergs and to get a view of our snowy home. I was of course keen to go.

We got up and out of the house by 10am, walking first along empty streets to the outskirts of town. We passed the jail which was the size of a big house and then to the base of some wooden steps. Despite being the late morning, we were walking in a blue tinged twilight and then, at the top of the steps, all signs of humanity ceased for a while. We began crossing the mountain’s slopes, following the shoreline at a height towards the enormous icebergs that crested the hills’ horizon in front of us. We walked steadily, unsure of the depth of the snow or the extent of the deceptively slippery frozen lakes beneath us. As we climbed higher I got my first good view of the largest icebergs. Caught against an underwater moraine (a rise in the seafloor where glacial debris has been stacked to form a long rising landform like a ridge) these floating mountains weren’t going anywhere. Stoic and calm against a dark sky and even darker waters, their only weaknesses were the snaking cracks that cut through them, some carving cavernous holes and others producing jagged teeth of ice. Where snow had settled their surfaces they were pure white but, where the slopes were too steep or the wind too incessant, their blue ice cores were exposed. At their wide bases, tiny fishing boats illuminated sections of their surfaces with their lights, highlighting the colours ever more vividly, but also showing the otherwise unseen number of seagulls swarming the boats. The vicious, screaming and hungry white masses of feathers were not only hindering the sailors but also the light’s advance outwards to the inky half-light.

Climbing higher, up near the top of the mountain we passed our gaze over a different horizon. Towards the south and the town of Ilimanaq, the far off mountains were topped with the narrowest slither of orange sky, giving us hope that somewhere out there, but beyond our reach, was the sun. From there we slid down the side of the mountain to reach Sermermiut, an ancient Inuit settlement which was inhabited from the earliest settlers of Greenland (between 2500 BC and 800 BC), however the last inhabitant moved to Ilulissat in 1850. Now, nothing remains and the deep parallel sided bay is almost completely wild again. We wandered about taking little notice of the signs warning of tsunamis from calving icebergs and instead focussed on the strange spectacle of the snow and ice of the mountain reaching below the dark frigid surface of the sea, making the bay’s fringes a brilliant turquoise blue. 

Then we headed back up, past a cemetery which, like all cemeteries in Greenland, must have a good view and to the radio tower overlooking the town. From there the colourful houses of Ilulissat seemed to nestle into a black and white landscape, a landscape of hues rather than colour. It was stark, desolate but heart-warming to see all the lights on in the homes below. Humanity clinging onto comfort on the harsh snowy frontier.

The Blue Trail 

Before Carl left us to return back to Denmark, we decided to do a full day’s hike on the Blue Trail (a circular marked route along the famous ice fjord and then back to town). The ice fjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the few places in Greenland where the inland ice cap reaches the sea. The glacier is one of the fastest in the world and produces more icebergs than any other glacier outside Antarctica which then feeds the ice fjord, it’s truly a marvel of the natural world. 

From the centre of town we passed the sports hall and then skirted one of the many husky fields before getting to the unfinished spaceship that will be the ice fjord centre. Walking over its roof we saw Sermermiut Bay and headed to it along a wooden walkway. From there we turned left to some hidden wooden stairs, the beginning of a new adventure. As soon as we had climbed the stairs, cresting the ridge the ice fjord opened up before us. The large icebergs Carl and I had seen before were now right in front of us, dominating the centre of the fjord. Some had smooth slopes sliding gracefully into the glassy water at their bases, while others were more like sheer cliffs of ice, craggy and characterful, whose topsides were contrastingly reminiscent of rolling Wiltshire hills. While the view was incredible and I marvelled in every jagged protrusion, knife edge ridge or textural inconsistency on these floating islands, it was -16 degrees (not counting the howling wind buffeting us on top of our viewpoint) so standing still to admire the view for too long wasn’t an option.

As we continued to walk, hopping between exposed lichen covered rocks or using tufts of reindeer grass to find the thinner snow, we occasionally saw Arctic fox prints and ravens patrolling the hillside. In the gullies or slopes where we couldn’t rock hop, we would search out the icier snow where sometimes the top would hold our weight but most of the time we would suddenly be plunged thigh deep into the snow below. One of the greatest challenges of the environment for me was taking photos because not only did taking my hands out of Ivan’s insanely warm mittens cause pain within seconds of contact with the air but also my camera’s battery lost interest in working under those conditions and turned off for the rest of the day. As we kept moving, the warm glow of morning lit up more of the sky but the sun was still an absent companion to our adventure. The wind continued to blow and the moisture from our breath was forming impressive moustache icicles on both myself and Ivan. Unfortunately, I had to melt mine by putting on my buff due to part of my nose becoming numb and white, the first sign of frostbite. Laughing about the idea of me returning home with half of my nose missing, we were in good spirits when we found a large boulder to rest behind and have lunch. Some hot tea and a frozen sandwich was just what I needed and as I ate I watched the wind scour the snow from the ground. In some places the wind produced elongated pointing forms in the snow or as the snow rose, whirling and swaying in the air, it looked as though the boulders around us were steaming.

After lunch we went to check out the beach, which in summer is an idyllic spot. It has a stream running down from a lake, through the beach and into the fjord. However, in midwinter it was somewhat less inviting. The shore was an uneven conglomeration of ice whose edges were a luminescent turquoise blue. The beach itself was a sheet of pure grey ice which extended up the valley all the way to the lake. We walked up this valley, trying to stick to the patches of snow that had survived the abrading winds and off of the polished surface of ice which was exceptionally slippery. At the top we discovered a use for this otherwise obstructive slippery slope. 

We then emerged onto the frozen lake. The abundant snow on the lake and the surrounding hills seemed to dampen all sound, it was an anechoic chamber of utmost serenity. At the edge of the lake we found a gap in the snow where a section of the thick cobalt blue ice could be seen. Beneath the glassy surface, air bubbles were caught frozen in their natural motion upwards looking like tiny disco balls atop delicate needles of air. From some angles the bubbles seemed to line up or were obscured by one of the deep fissures in the ice. We stared through sections of the ice, faces almost pressed to its surface, absolutely mesmerised.

From the lake we started up a rocky gully where we deviated briefly to one side to get a view of the town and the wild expanse that borders it to the north before descending. As we crested the final rolling mass of untrodden snow, the dogs came into sight and civilisation followed not far beyond them. 

My First Glimpse of the Sun 

I woke up one morning, three weeks into my Greenlandic adventure and I had a spring in my step so I set out for the start of the Blue Trail alone. I just wanted to watch over the icebergs and to marvel at the serenity of the fjord despite the -21°C temperatures. 

From the top of the previously mentioned ice fjord centre I saw the sun for the first time in three weeks, it instantly elevated every sweeping curve of the snowdrifts and imbued the rocks with an inner warmth. Down in Sermermiut the huge icebergs seemed even closer, almost within touching distance of the southern rocky peninsula. So, when I reached the top of the stairs and stood on the top of the ridge, I was blown away. In contrast to my first visit with Ivan and Carl, the fjord was blocked up with an interlocking array of ice flows, the only gaps between the icy shards were lit up as rivers of molten metal leading out to the open water. There the icebergs were mountains, cliffs, towers, arches, hills and sculptures rising from the sea. Canyons bisected some, while others pushed against one another. The sunlight illuminated the sea’s surface, that delicate patina of hammered copper, each ripple, upwelling and breath of wind on its surface a new precisely hammered divot. The sun also played on chosen surfaces of icebergs while the unilluminated sections sulked behind ridges of pressed and striated ice. In the skies, the clouds were either dark but stained with orange misty veils that seemed to fall from above or they were clear and only occasionally graced by diaphanous wisps of golf leaf. Birds dived and soared, whirling haphazardly in the gusts, but no doubt revelling in the delight of the sun.  

The Fishing Huts

Everyone knows that the most thrilling adventures always have at least a hint of danger in their recipe. What would Indiana Jones be without the rolling boulder? Basically a jungle-bound pedestrian is the answer. And so, like all aforementioned danger-tinged adventures Ivan and I set off unaware of what the day had in store. 

Carl had gone home and Ivan was keen to show me some fishing huts on a faraway fjord which was completely frozen during the winter. Ivan would be riding one of his three snowmobiles while I would be snow dogging. No, no, nothing like that. I would be using the Snowdog. Something like a lawnmower on tracks which pulled me along on a large plastic sled. While at first I was a little disappointed not to be trusted with one of Ivan’s snowmobiles, I came to the conclusion that riding the Snowdog to the far off fishing huts and back would be an interesting challenge. Ivan wasn’t even sure it would be possible. 

Having had a lot of experience using the Snowdog behind Ivan’s house (to compact the snow allowing the snowmobile to move around and get up the hill), I was confident in my ability to manoeuvre the heavy, unstable and often stubborn beast. 

We took the machines to the edge of town where we had finished the Blue Trail and there Ivan spent hours faffing around with things, so the early start we had wanted slowly and agonisingly disappeared. Eventually though we got going, only for the snow dog to falter at the first hurdle. A short steep hill led upwards towards the rocky gully and after a tow from Ivan I was away under my own steam, bouncing along the winding track, feeling every small change in the surface and learning how to adjust the throttle to compensate for altering pitch, incline, turns and even types of snow and ice beneath me. We came down to the same lake as we had walked on three weeks earlier but now much of the snow had gone. Instead of rare portholes into the blue, there were vast swathes of cobalt ice to either side of us as we set off for the mountains beyond. 

With me at the throttle and Ivan alongside we measured how fast the Snowdog could do on the flat lakes that we found adjoining the first one (35kph). Then, as we began climbing, the ice and snow melded into giant dunes and strange formations that were reminiscent of the sandblasted sandstone of Wadi Rum. Upon reaching the top of the first few major climbs we pulled to one side of the track. I looked downwards towards the ice fjord where I could see the icebergs, pure and undisturbed by protruding rocks or lichens, and Ivan set about talking to the group of Danes who were snowmobiling too. They all seemed baffled and fascinated by the sight of the Snowdog, an American machine made for basic hauling in the snow, not for wilderness adventure touring in Greenland.

We crossed a few large snowy plains which were all devoid of features save for one small red hut sitting in the centre of the landscape. It was being persistently battered from the right by the increasingly strong winds. The gusts wanted to break down and erase humanity’s polluting presence on the land and it was clear it was getting its way, the door was gone and the inside filled with a sloping snowdrift. The increasing wind, the light mist of snow in the air and the lack of any direct sunlight meant that we were soon in a whiteout. When this occurs, the sky seems to become one with the snow on the ground, and with nothing casting a shadow your sense of perspective becomes completely lost. I couldn’t tell if I was driving towards an incline or decline and following Ivan’s tracks in the snow became almost impossible, having to use the feel of the steering as much as my obscured vision as we cruised ever deeper into the wild. Often one of the Snowdog’s tracks would creep into deep snow and as soon as that happened I was in a battle to make sure the heavy box of a machine wouldn’t roll onto its side. A battle I often lost. In these moments, frustration was inevitable and the Snow Dog seemed like a burden but as soon as it got going again and I felt it rumble its way obediently over terrain, it was back in my good books, a faithful rumbling companion.

Leaving the snowy plains behind we were entering more imposing mountain passes. To my right, snow was being forced off the mountain top and it fell down a dark rocky face like cloud pouring into a valley from a high plateau. As it fell, it obscured the slopes through a gauze of frozen moisture. Eventually, we got to a very steep downhill section, Ivan told me to wait at the top while he tried to figure out where the track was to get down. Half way down the mountainside he got stuck, the snowmobile rolling badly into very deep snow. I didn’t know this though, I was sat, toes numb in my wool-lined snow boots and fingers going the same way, waiting for a sign to follow Ivan down. But the sign didn’t come and I was alone in the now twilight, fighting the howling wind probing at my layers. With full darkness approaching I saw Ivan’s headtorch moving right to left through the snow storm, grateful he was still there but with no clue what to do I waited. Starting to get nervous of what was going on, Ivan finally appeared in front of me to tell me what had happened and that we would have to dig out the snowmobile then make a flat compacted snow track across the mountain to stop it getting stuck again. We got to work on our hands and knees using a foldable shovel between us (the snow was too deep and uncompacted to stand up, every time we tried a whole leg would disappear into the snow). By this point it was pitch black and the blizzard was deafening, I was very grateful for the warmth and protection of my snowmobile helmet against the blinding airborne snow. It was hard work, digging and pulling that huge machine out of the snow and then creating the pathway across the mountainside. But the task kept my mind busy, it was a task that needed doing so I was going to get on with it. 

Once the snowmobile was out and back across the slope on the previously unseen track, I went to get the Snowdog. Visibility was around ten metres and the lights from our vehicles were failing to cut through the veil of snow whistling through the valley. Once we were together again, we knew staying in the fisherman’s huts overnight was our only option, this one day excursion had just turned into an overnight trip. As the wind continued to rip through the air around us, we cruised steadily towards the huts. My feet were incredibly cold and I was being led blindly through icy foreign mountains in a howling storm focussed on the silhouette of Ivan against his snowmobile’s yellow headlight but I was enjoying myself thoroughly. After the digging which was a little frantic we were back on our machines and were adventuring again. 

Eventually we made it to the fishing hut, the red exterior a foreign sight among the monochrome of impenetrable gloom. At the building’s front, dog sleds lay around in the gathering drifts while somewhere off to the left, dogs’ howls were carried off by the ferocious wind. The building itself was dark and foreboding but stood resolutely against everything nature was throwing at it. After parking our machines in the lee side of the building, we fought back against the gale to enter the wooden door to the hut. First, there was a small room maybe ten foot long and six foot wide which smelt strongly of fish. The floor was dotted with saturated cardboard, boxes of frozen fish and then at the back was a nook for assorted hunting equipment. To the left was an adjoining door which took us into the square main room. To the immediate left was a well-used petroleum barrel stove next to a sink and to the right was a table and bench seats. The ceiling was a lattice of makeshift clothes lines and once we had the stove really kicking out some heat they came in very handy for drying our previously frozen but now sodden clothes. At the far end of the room was a waist height raised area, where single mattresses had been arranged next to each other and sleeping bags lay strewn over them. This was our sleeping quarters. The cabin was a mess full of shotgun ammo, half eaten food and dirty pots but it was warm and 10x better than sleeping outside. 

After finishing our snacks that we had brought with us, we rifled through the mess to see what food we could use for dinner that night. Ivan went to another cabin not far away to see what they had and on the way back collected snow and ice from the frozen sea to melt for cooking. All the while I had time to reflect on where I was. These huts are not permitted to be used by tourists, they are only for local fishermen or for emergencies and so I felt privileged to be there. When Ivan left it felt especially isolated. I was sat in silence, the only sounds were the metronomic ticking of the clock and the thunderous wind which had only intensified as the hours passed. The cabin was lit only by the frail light of an old camping lantern and the smell of fish had seemed to creep into the main room, perhaps under the door or sticking to my clothes. 

We ate a dinner of brown spaghetti, tinned frankfurters and sriracha sauce, which was more than edible to my hungry mind at the start but as the necessary calorie intake was met, I struggled to eat more. Ivan and I chatted for the rest of the evening, while tucking into some biscuits I had found. The rest of the melted snow would be used for tea in the morning but for now we decided to try and sleep. 

Try as I might I couldn’t sleep, the wind had died down around 11pm but, due to the haunting cries of the dogs outside the window and Ivan’s violent snoring, I was still awake. To make matters worse the heat from the stove had awoken the dormant flies in the cabin and they buzzed incessantly all night. I watched the dogs’ behaviours from the window as the night slowly receded and at 8:45am some people appeared on the sea ice next to more dogs who had been too far away to hear. After some time, the dogs suddenly flew into motion, racing off across the frozen sea pulling their sled and owner behind them. The lone dog sled with the long iconic whip (used mainly for turning the dogs) twirling through the air, moved at impressive speed towards the constant sunrise, the sun seemingly frozen in its upward motion. The whole sight was spectacular to behold.

We got out of the cabin and the clear day was a welcome change to the scenes of our arrival. The views from the cabin were stunning across the frozen fjord, captured icebergs stood out among between the otherwise flat sea ice. We took the Snowdog and snowmobile down and onto the ice, parking them up so we could hike across the sea and explore the icebergs trapped there. The snow was deep and rarely icy or compacted enough to walk on top of so we expended a lot of energy heaving our boots out of the snow with every step. Every time we would stop the silence and beauty were overwhelming. The scattered icebergs were all around us and presented themselves in all shapes and sizes.  Some looked like carved figures in mid-motion, while others appeared as static waves of blue ice and some wallowed in vivid pools of slushy turquoise blue water. We were heading for the biggest icebergs in sight, the blue ice towers. When we got close we were careful to cross onto their solid ice flanks with caution because the fringes, where the sea ice meets the iceberg, are the weakest parts. Nevertheless, we would often pull out our boots wet from where we had been walking in weak slush beneath the snowy surface. 

Before climbing on more of the icebergs, we decided to first have a cup of tea on top of the nearest one. Bringing a slice of British sensibility to this desolate tealess landscape. Close by were the blue ice towers that had been our target and they were even more impressive up close. Less like towers, they were more like two licks of blue flame, curving and snarling upwards into the sky. Too sheer to support snow, they were bare and brilliant. We clambered and climbed around even more, looking at ice caves in some icebergs, spinning around at the sound of a large crack splitting a huge slab-shaped iceberg behind us or just watching across the silent and mystical dreamscape around us. On the way back we expended far less energy by following in our deep footprints and then hopped back on our waiting machines. Half of the way back to Ilulissat Ivan let me ride his snowmobile, while he rode the Snowdog (which he fell off within five minutes of riding. Yes, I am the master Snowdogger now). Riding the enormous and powerful snowmobile was insanely fun and vastly different to the chugging, ponderous experience on the Snowdog. I didn’t have the same time to look at my surroundings because I was too busy flooring it across the snowy plains and frozen lakes, managing to get up to 80kph. I was grinning wildly all the way back to town, a grin I reserve for the true exhalation of speed. 

The Yellow Trail 

On my final day in Ilulissat, as well as saying goodbye to the people in my favourite café, I did the short but beautiful Yellow Trail. It was much the same route that I had done with Carl on my second day in Greenland but now the sun was visible and the cold weather had not relented for weeks, so naturally, things had changed. 

As I climbed the first hill onto the mountainside, the town receded behind me. Unlike the last time, the houses’ colours were shown in all their vibrant greatness and the sight of the large chimney nearby soon diminished under the brightly lit grandeur of the mountains. Humanity’s attempts at greatness once again humbled by the wild. 

Next to the cliffs was a narrow strip of ice free ocean, where the freezing winds lashed the water’s surface incessantly, but past that a barrier of pallid grey ice extended out towards the horizon. I was following a clear trail of footprints which hadn’t been there in the sunless twilight of January, but a few steps to the side where the snow was undisturbed it appeared like dunes of glitter softly wrapping around hidden buried boulders. As I climbed higher still, it was clear that the last week of storms had helped to dislodge the largest of the icebergs from the submarine moraines. They had looked to me, immovable and omnipresent like mountains rising from the sea, but now they were further out to sea, with new icebergs replacing them in the ice fjord. The movement of these bigger icebergs had opened a channel in the fjord, a rare ice free space to manoeuvre. So, I climbed up onto a suitable rocky perch and watched in silence as growling fishing vessels and faster speedboats exploited the opportunity to ply the smoking, ice free channels before they closed once again.

Inland Ice 

After a final goodbye to Ivan and Ilulissat, I hopped back on a plane to Kangerlussuaq where I had booked a tour to the otherwise inaccessible inland ice. The plane took off and banked quickly to head out over the sea. The surface was almost totally frozen except for narrow channels or jagged holes where the huge sheets hadn’t met yet, and the differences in the thickness of the different sheets could be told by their hues of grey. We passed Ilulissat which was almost insignificant surrounded by untouched wilderness, then as we continued southwards the mountains towards Kangerlussuaq seemed softer than those around Ilulissat, their edges covered with deep snow unaffected by the winds of the more distant ocean.

Kangerlussuaq sits at the inland end of an 120 mile long fjord and is the main transport hub of Greenland, the airport being practically the sole employer for the town of 500 people. I had booked two nights in the hostel in town so that I could explore the inland ice the next day. So, after disembarking and shopping I walked to the town in the -28°C midday temperatures. There aren’t many hostels in the world where the entrance is a blood smeared mosaic of flattened cardboard boxes with a sign on the door telling you to take the bolt out of your rifle before entry but this was one of them. I later found out that there wasn’t a rogue gunman on the loose, in fact, at this time of the year Musk Oxen hunters use the hostel as a base between hunts. I had the hostel almost to myself and spent time listening to podcasts and napping, getting enough rest in to feel ready for the journey onto the inland ice the next day.

The bus/truck thing that picked us up from the airport was enormous and we started the tour with it one third full. Everyone was Danish apart from a German couple and myself but that gave the tour guides a chance to show off their broad knowledge and in different languages. We started the tour by turning onto a snowy track that wound through the mountains and was bounded by low lying bushes of Arctic Willow and the occasional Norwegian Pine, the first trees I had seen in six weeks. When we crossed the frozen river only the Arctic willow persisted further into the mountains. Soon we caught a glimpse of the hulking beast that is a Musk Ox, it looked like part of mountain before moving out of sight. Reindeer were a common sight and their prancing movements, with their heads held high, were either strangely regal or laughably dramatic. I couldn’t decide which. 

At a loose ridge of glacial rock, we saw an Arctic fox scamper to the top where it sat and looked at us, happy with the safety of its new found height and distance. Behind the fox was the glacier itself which was so large it looked like a mountain range made of ice. Vast slopes, buttresses, ridges and peaks swept further and further into the distance the higher we got. This was just the first of many glaciers we saw though, further along we saw the thickest (but now dead) glacier in Greenland, its front deeply fissured producing sharp pinnacles of blue serrated ice.

At the edge of the inland ice we all got off the bus and began walking. I was wearing seven layers (a long sleeve sports top, sports fleece, walking fleece, two thin down jackets, a big wool lined coat and a ski fleece) plus a hat, a buff, a scarf, ski gloves, five pairs of socks and snow boots. And yet, I was still absolutely freezing in no time. Thirty below is no joke, folks. After reaching the inland ice itself we stood and took in the landscape while the guide explained it. We were surrounded by frozen waves of ice, like a stormy sea had suddenly frozen solid. Both parallel wave fronts with rolling crests and sharp choppy prismatic waves rose and fell around us. Encircling the sea of ice were the rising slopes of two huge glaciers, they appeared as jagged rising masses of electric blue ice where the incessant winds had stripped the rare snow from their slopes. Where we stood the ice was an incomprehensible 200 metres thick but hundreds of kilometres out towards the centre of the island the desolate desert of the ice sheet, where no life exists, is up to 4km thick. That means that the ice is as thick as our oceans are deep (excluding deep sea trenches).

We headed back during sunset and watched the orange glow over the mountains and glaciers with a hot chocolate which was actually really good. Not just because it was hot and I was cold, the actual hot chocolate was amazing, they didn’t need to do that. That’s the sort of thing I appreciate. Also the views were stunning, but god damn that hot chocolate was on another level.

Final Thoughts

I can safely say I have never been so enchanted by a place as I was in Greenland. There is some intangible hypnotic splendour to an Arctic winter. From the long sunrises and sunsets to the wild and silent snowscape, humans have yet to mount a successful campaign over the untouched land. No roads run between settlements and planes only fly when the temperamental skies allow it. Access to the wild is easy then, but survival is not. I now have a thirst to return to the Arctic, a hankering for the pure but prohibitive cold which turns exposed skin to useless numb slabs of meat within seconds, for the opportunity to push my way deeper into the wild and to sit once again in another world.

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