Land of Vikings
A Viking named ‘Erik the Red’ moved to Iceland as a child after his father had been exiled from Norway for murder. Not one to fall short of his father’s expectations, Erik was then also exiled from Iceland as a result of murdering people in his village, so he set sail for the very large island to the west, where he intended to settle. He arrived and quite liked the place, and began the best false advertising campaign in history by naming the place ‘Greenland’ in the hopes it would attract other settlers to his newfound frozen, barren land. By 985 AD, he’d successfully convinced more than 400 people to join him in colonizing the country.
Over one thousand years later, the check-in attendant at Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport was looking at me with some concern. “Skiing? In Greenland?” She repeated, somewhere between horror and disbelief. Even the Icelandics seemed to think of Greenland as a remote outpost rather than a ski destination. A few (very) bumpy hours later, I touched down in Kulusuk, mere inches from the ice flotsam I’d spied from above. I checked that my teeth hadn’t worked themselves loose and stepped off to meet our guides, Matt Edwards and Angela Bueckert in the single room that was the Kulusuk Airport.
Expedition Engineering
Matt and Angela have a passion for adventure etched onto their faces in the form of a permanent grin and a wicked sunglasses tan. Their adventurous spirits and positive outlook on life would rub off on even the most hardened and contented city slicker – maybe that’s why their business is so successful. That and their knack for managing the ever-evolving logistics of operating an expedition business in Greenland.
I’d been looking at photographs of Greenland for a few years and was finally taking the plunge on skiing this bucket list destination. I signed up for an 8-day ski touring adventure with Expedition Engineering that included skiing glacier runs and steep couloirs in very remote areas of East Greenland and staying in a mountain hut.
Kummuit Guest House
Our accommodation was basic but extremely comfortable. This kind of trip didn’t lend to luxury lodging, anyway. It featured a real bed, electricity, and hot water on demand… sort of. The shower – in true international style – went from warm for 30 seconds to deathly freezing for 45 seconds, and then back again. I saw it as a forced cold water immersion therapy. The washroom was a strategically placed toilet seat on top of a bucket. Twice per week, two local men arrived on the ‘honey wagon’ and replaced it with an empty one. For the first couple of days, we played what can only be described as ‘poop chicken’ – nobody wanted to taint the bucket first.
Greenland has winters where the sun does not appear for more than three months. In April, however, it is light for 19 hours of the day. When it was time for bed, I was happy I’d remembered my eye mask, and hung my base layers from a climbing rope to block out the window.
Ski Touring in Greenland
Our days were spent climbing over three thousand feet in elevation before enjoying perfect spring corn skiing down to the ocean’s edge. The snowpack was stable and vast, the blister tape and sunscreen free-flowing. Greenland boasts epic sunshine and plenty of perfect corn turns every spring. Warmer temperatures meant we were always working with the shifting sea ice, using dogsleds or boats depending on the day’s conditions. We were always guided by local Greenlanders who knew the environment best to access our routes.
In the media, Greenland’s backcountry ski terrain looks vast, desolate, and spectacular. In person, it’s all of that and more. The sea ice was a vast white desert, which gave no true indication of how far the peaks on the horizon lay. The sheets were speckled with deep blue cracks, in which fishing paraphernalia could be seen eerily frozen below the surface.
Dinner Time and Story Time
Each evening, we enjoyed the best-dehydrated dinners I’ve ever had – Angela was an expert backcountry chef. Matt recounted tales of Greenland’s history and I couldn’t get enough of their stories about the adventures they’d lived so far. The one and only store in Kummiut sold Tuborg — a tasty Danish pilsner, of which we enjoyed more than a few whilst exchanging anecdotes from this trip and others gone by. Many homes had feral sled dogs chained outside that howled all night to the moon.
In Greenland, approximately 88 percent of the population are Greenlandic Inuit, whose culture consists of hunting, fishing, and symbiosis with the environment. Historically, houses were painted based on the traditional roles of their occupants: red buildings signified churches, yellow for doctors, and blue for fishermen.
Polar Bears and Narwhals
The land is not conducive to agriculture so seals are an important food source for much of the population in this area. Fishermen were always coming and going from the harbor in melodic rhythm past my window. The towns of Kummiut and Kulusuk have a healthy polar bear population, and the locals regularly fill their annual hunting quota. Their thick, white hides can be seen stretched out drying in the Arctic sun, waiting to be turned into trousers or coats. When skiing, Matt and Angela always wore a rifle for protection in case we ran into one of them. We heard stories of the Narwhal traveling through the fjord, and the village descending on the ice edge in a frenzy. Narwhals are a prized catch and are still hunted traditionally using kayaks and harpoons exclusively by local licensed hunters.
Goodbye Greenland
At the end of the trip, a heavy sadness washed over me and lingered. In the last seven days, I’d seen no tourists other than at the airport, where I’d seen seven. Greenland seems utterly untainted by materialism, and this energy was like a drug to me. As we walked through the arrivals gate in Reykjavik, waiting in the ‘odd luggage’ area, I saw my travel companions craning their necks down over their phones, their screens lighting up with hundreds of emails. I felt grateful that my SIM card didn’t work in Iceland. I could hang on to that feeling for just a little while longer, stave off reality a few days more. Little did I know I’d be clinging to the memories of this trip for months on end. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be back next year.
Source: Powder News
