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A trip report by Olle Persson, shared by Långholmen Kajak – the Swedish part of Northkayak. Six paddlers and two Greenlandic guides on a sea kayak expedition from Kangaatsiaq on Greenland's west coast, ending among the icebergs of Ilulissat.
Greenland is the world's largest island, yet fewer than 60,000 people live here. Most of the country is covered by an ice sheet up to 3,000 metres thick. Around 18% of the land, mainly along the west and south coasts, is a barren but magnificent landscape cut through by long fjords that can reach all the way to the ice sheet. In places the ice meets the sea, usually as glaciers. This is where the kayak was born – it was by kayak that hunters went out to hunt at sea.
We paddle in the lee of a chain of islands that marks the boundary westwards towards Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait, which separate Greenland from northern Canada. It is raining and the wind is fresh. Beyond the low rocky islands, huge icebergs drift slowly south. We – six keen paddlers from Brunnsviken canoe club in Stockholm and our two Greenlandic guides, Ti and Hans – set off a few days ago from the small settlement of Kangaatsiaq, roughly halfway up Greenland's west coast. It is early September and autumn has come further than back home. We are at about the same latitude as Treriksröset, the point where Sweden, Norway and Finland meet.
On the very first day we get a taste of the forces of nature. The incoming tide means we barely make headway through a strait, despite frantic paddling. Close to the shore it is a little easier. Our Inuit friends advise us that if we meet a walrus, we should paddle close together and look fierce – then it will back off. We never get to test the theory. During a break I put down my paddle and, not used to the rented kayak, I capsize and suddenly find myself hanging upside down under the surface. Luckily we have practised for exactly this. With a so-called T-rescue – my nearest companion places their kayak at a right angle to mine, I grab their bow and heave myself up – I am quickly upright again, completely dry. A drysuit is a must here.
We camp in tents, often next to abandoned settlements where the odd dilapidated house still stands as a shelter for hunters. The first night is less cold than we feared, but by then we have put on all the warm clothes we brought and crawled into warm sleeping bags on proper sleeping mats. The temperature drops several degrees below zero and there is ice on the puddles by the tents. But the morning is fantastic: dead calm, with a low sun casting a warm, yellow light over fjords and bare mountains. The silence and solitude are overwhelming. The low shrubs in the rock crevices glow in autumn colours. Most nights large parts of the sky are filled with flickering northern lights.
We do not spend all our time in the wilderness. Along the way we pass a couple of settlements, each with around a hundred inhabitants. Greenland has long encouraged people to move into settlements so they can have schools, healthcare and shops close by, and families can live more comfortably while the men are out hunting and fishing. The standard of living is relatively high, and people live in simple but well-built houses. The water and power pipes run on posts half a metre above the ground. Around the houses, rows of Greenland dogs are tied up – surprisingly quiet, except at feeding time. The dogs are not pets; they pull sledges in winter, and the sledges stand at every house corner waiting for the snow.
After the long paddle we take a passenger ship north to Greenland's third-largest town, Ilulissat, on Disko Bay by the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through the fjord, the ice sheet calves enormous icebergs which, after getting stuck for a while at the mouth of the fjord, drift out into Disko Bay and on towards the Atlantic. We borrow kayaks and paddle in the area – at a safe distance from the fjord mouth, so we are not at risk from icebergs that roll over or calve.
Paddling in Arctic waters calls for a seaworthy sea kayak, a drysuit and practised rescue techniques. And if you want to paddle the way the kayak was first paddled, try a Greenland paddle.
Text: Olle Persson
