In July 2010 Stefan Erdmann („Nusi”) and I went on a two weeks trip to Greenland. The first week we were going to hike the Arctic Circle Trail, a 150 km trail between the settlement of Kangerlussuaq where the main airport in Greenland is located, and Sisimiut on the west coast. The second week we were going to take a boat to Qeqertarsuaq (Disko Island) and from there to Ilulissat at the Ice Fjord.

Greenland is hot

I stood up at 4 AM on Friday, 23^rd of July, to catch my plane from Oslo to Copenhagen, where I met Nusi at the airport. Our flight left from Copenhagen at 9 AM and arrived in Kangerlussuaq at 9.40 (with four hours time difference). Temperature at arrival: 17 degrees Celsius!

We took a taxi to Kellyville where the actual trail starts. The first stage went to Katiffik hut – 22 km along many lakes and across one river. It was a quite easy stage, but a long one. And I realized: When you take the 21 kg backpack off your back and walk your first steps, you feel like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. We met five people along the trail, but had the hut for ourselves for the night. I took a refreshing bath in the lake and had a delicious reindeer casserole for dinner. We had to carry all our food with us, so we went for light-weight dry-frozen dinners which turned out to be surprisingly tasty.

Canoe Day

We woke up Saturday morning, surprised that we both had got a sunburn. Luckily, one American couple we met the day before walking in the opposite direction, had left a canoe by the hut, so that we could start the second stage without the heavy rucksacks on our backs. When we started paddling after a long breakfast it had just stopped raining. It was cloudy and foggy though the whole day. In the beginning we were full of energy and paddled around five kilometers the first hour. We had head wind though the whole time, and it became stronger and stronger. When one of our paddles broke we had to go ashore (after 8 km) and walk the remaining 13 km. At 7 we arrived, exhausted, at the canoe center, where we met a German lady, Cordula – she was actually the first person we saw all day. Cordula had planned to walk back to the starting point, but being able to join us, she decided to continue anyway.

The Royal Stage

We woke up finding the canoe center much more crowded than when we went to bed in the evening. A group of Greenlanders had arrived during the night – one adult and six boys who had walked 30 km that day.

Not so nice weather on our third day

 We “only” had 21 km to walk today, but since it was a lot uphill we expected this to be the most challenging stage of the trail. Nusi and I started after a good breakfast at 11.30. Cordula had left earlier, so we walked all day alone. We went from the Amitsorsuaq lake to the Tasersuaq lake where we had lunch in the middle of a blueberry field – quite convenient dessert-wise. From there we started the ascent to the plateau from which we had a great view over the lake. During the day we saw our first reindeer and met seven Greenlanders walking into the other direction. We spent the night in a small hut together with Cordula and Andreas, another German guy with great humor and a pillow which is a green dragon named Bello.

Oles Lakseelv

On the fourth day we had the shortest stage with 10 km only, but we had to cross the notorious salmon river (Oles lakseelv) which is supposedly the deepest and most difficult river to cross on the trail. We started at 11 o’clock with a one hour ascent, rewarding us with a great view over the valley and the river. We then descended on the other side where we first had to cross a mosquito-rich marshland area in order to get to the actual river. I was the test rabbit who had to cross the river first. Fortunately, it was only knee-deep and despite a strong current easy to cross. We arrived already at 4 at our new hut, which had a great view over the Maligiaq fjord. After three foggy and cloudy days, the clouds finally disappeared this evening and we were hoping to have sunshine the next day. Maybe we would also meet another person again – this day we hadn’t seen a soul.

Luxury home

After the traditional long breakfast Nusi and I started the fifth stage at 10.30 – one and a half hours after Cordula. It was a half sunny, half cloudy day, and our bodies soon came into working temperature since the stage started with a 40 minutes climb to a plateau.

We got rewarded with a fantastic view over yesterday’s fjord behind us and a valley with several lakes lying in front of us. We continued to walk on the plateau for one hour and then descended to one of the lakes and had lunch there. After crossing a wet grass area with myriads of mosquitoes we reached the hut for the night which was the most luxurious on the trail, located directly at a lake with a scenic view. Four Americans were already there. They were going to get up “sixish” the next day. I decided to read a bit of Jack London and definitely get up much later.

Sunny day in a beautiful valley

The Americans interrupted my sleep only very briefly when they left. When I woke up at 8.30 I found a clear blue sky and Nusi’s bed empty. So I got up and checked where he was and discovered him swimming in the lake. We left two hours later for an easy, flat 17 km hike. We first had to cross a little river right next to our hut, jumping from stone to stone to the other side – not so easy with 20 kg on your back!

Then we walked almost all day through a beautiful, wide green valley with mountains on both sides. We reached our little hut around 5 and shared it with Eric from France. Two reindeers watched us when we had dinner in the sun. My feet were hurting, but I kept my motivation by telling me we were only two day marches away from a delicious dinner and a cold beer in Sisimiut.

Reindeer photo session

On the second last day of our hike, we first had to cross the little river right beside our hut.

The trail then led us through a jungle of man-high bushes (picture time!) into a valley in which we had to cross the river two more times. We had lunch break in a soft moss spot from which we saw another hiker. He never got any closer though because he apparently got lost in the canyon… The rest of the stage went along the sandy shore of a lake and a few hundred meters up a hill where the last hut was located with a terrific view over a fjord. Another couple passed by the hut in the evening, but the continued, so Cordula, Nusi and I had the hut for ourselves. Our highlight of the day was a very curious young reindeer which came very close (only 5 m away), so we could take some nice photos.

Arrival party in Sisimiut

We had a pretty heavy storm during the night. When we woke up it was still rainy and chilly, but OK to walk. The last stage started with a long climb.

After 5 km the way flattened out and the last 15 km were easy flat or downhill walking. Sisimiut came into view one hour before arrival, and we reached our goal at 3.30. After checking in at the hostel we took a looooong hot shower and went to dinner: A three-course menu with musk ox as main course. From there we entered the indescribable Sisimiut nightlife, which we started at Billiardklubben and Starlight disco, where we met two Germans, one Austrian and two Icelanders who showed us the live music bars Raaja and Kukkukooq, where we received a very warm welcome by the locals. I was especially impressed by the singing DJ behind the glass wall at Kukkukooq – amazing!

Boat trips to Aasiaat and Disko Island

Sisimiut is the second biggest town on Greenland with a bit more than 5000 inhabitants and has a strange mixture of Ukraine-inspired house blocks and nice, colourful Scandinavian tree houses. We spent the Saturday here relaxing and doing the best thing you can do on a Saturday afternoon: watching football. You can follow the dramatic last minute of the game with a penalty for the home team here:

At 9 PM we took an Arctic Umiaq Line ship to the little settlement Aasiaat – arrival at 8 AM the next day. In Aasiaat on a Sunday, there is not much to see. Actually, we saw more dogs than people.

At 3 PM our ferry to Qeqertarsuaq (Disko Island) came, which was a ridiculously small boat. We stayed at a youth hostel a bit outside the village and could see the icebergs drifting by from our windows. We met two very nice German girls here – Yasmin and Anika – who shared tea and cookies with us. We had three real bad-weather days in Qeqertarsuaq, so we spent a lot of time sitting inside, reading, drinking tea and cooking dinner. On the second day, after a long England-style breakfast, we suddenly saw from the kitchen window half a dozen small boats right off the shore and saw two whales blowing. So we put our rain jackets on and went outside, but came a bit too late for these two whales. We continued to walk to Qaqqaliaq or Udkiggen, which is a whale watching point. On our way there I played with some puppies and for the rest of the day I tried to get rid of the nasty wet-dog-smell on my hands and my clothes. We also saw some nice whales that day.

Beautiful boat trip to Ilulissat, the “coolest place on earth”

We had originally planned to hike up to Lyngmark Glacier on our last day on Disko Island, but since the weather up there was lousy, we only went for a small walk and spent the rest of the day in cafés and restaurants in Qeqertarsuaq. At 6 PM we took the Disko Line boat to Ilulissat. We made two longer stops when we spotted humback whales. We got really close and could take some great photos and videos. The closer we got to Ilulissat the more icebergs we passed – some of the gigantic, others smaller, but very nicely sculptured like swimming cathedrals.

We arrived at 11 PM in Ilulissat, a nice colourful town with 4500 inhabitants.Our first day in Ilulissat was fabulous. We first enjoyed breakfast outside the youth hostel in the sun. Here we met for the first time our hostel host Uli Ungethüm (!) who could recommend some good restaurants and pubs for the evening. Then we went for a walk to and along the ice fjord (there are several hiking trails, we took the blue and yellow routes).

The view of the fjord with the massive icebergs was simply breathtaking. In the evening we went on a 2.5 hours’ boat trip on the ice fjord, together with a German Nordwind travel group that had haunted us for a week already. The trip was very nice though with some whale sightings and a lot of beautiful icebergs. On our last day we took a boat to Rodebay, a small settlement, and walked back to Ilulissat. In the evening we first enjoyed a fantastic dinner with Musk ragout, reindeer filet and a delicious dessert at Hotel Arctic. Later we met Annika again and went out together with her and Uli to some pubs and had a very nice last night of this amazing trip to Greenland – definitely one of the coolest places on earth.