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MIKE KEEN
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South to north – Greenland solo 3 – The finale
In April 2023, I set off from Qaqortoq in the south of Greenland, intending to paddle solo over 3000km up the west coast to Qaanaaq in the far north – ‘Qajaq from Qaqortoq to Qaanaaq’ (the number of ‘Q’s in that catchy title having kicked off the whole idea the previous year). All under the umbrella of climate change and connecting to our evolutionary roots, I was also eating purely ancestral Inuit food to measure the effects such an ‘evolutionary’ diet had on my body (essentially sea mammals, fish and seabirds) – either raw, fermented or cooked).
Ironically, I had to cut it short in Upernavik, 2200km into the expedition, due to unseasonably solid sea ice in Melville Bay. Melville would always be the trickiest section: 320km between Kullorsuaq and Savissivik, the two settlements that bookmark the Bay. The weather and ice can be, and often are treacherous, with the added spice of it being prime polar bear territory.
I left you at the last update having finished the expedition, not particularly intending to return and smash that final leg – at the time, I felt like I’d had a good stab at it, and circumstances beyond my control had stepped in – perhaps I was content with passing it off to fate.
But. Way back at the start, I’d been given a bundle of letters from mostly elderly Inuit to deliver to their families way up in the north. At the time, I knew that letters and parcels had been delivered using a qajaq and dog sled relay system all up the west coast but had no concept of what these old traditions still meant to people here. Greenland is a country with one foot firmly rooted in ancestral traditions, and its connection with its environment is very solid. And it was that small bundle of letters that started to weigh on my mind.
The people of Greenland had supported me unconditionally throughout the expedition, and that increasingly vocal little voice in my head was telling me to deliver the bloody letters. Not that they contained anything particularly important or, perish the thought, anything time-sensitive (paddling isn’t the fastest mode of transport, after all).
In April 2023, I set off from Qaqortoq in the south of Greenland, intending to paddle solo over 3000km up the west coast to Qaanaaq in the far north – ‘Qajaq from Qaqortoq to Qaanaaq’ (the number of ‘Q’s in that catchy title having kicked off the whole idea the previous year). All under the umbrella of climate change and connecting to our evolutionary roots, I was also eating purely ancestral Inuit food to measure the effects such an ‘evolutionary’ diet had on my body (essentially sea mammals, fish and seabirds) – either raw, fermented or cooked).
Ironically, I had to cut it short in Upernavik, 2200km into the expedition, due to unseasonably solid sea ice in Melville Bay. Melville would always be the trickiest section: 320km between Kullorsuaq and Savissivik, the two settlements that bookmark the Bay. The weather and ice can be, and often are treacherous, with the added spice of it being prime polar bear territory.
I left you at the last update having finished the expedition, not particularly intending to return and smash that final leg – at the time, I felt like I’d had a good stab at it, and circumstances beyond my control had stepped in – perhaps I was content with passing it off to fate.
But. Way back at the start, I’d been given a bundle of letters from mostly elderly Inuit to deliver to their families way up in the north. At the time, I knew that letters and parcels had been delivered using a qajaq and dog sled relay system all up the west coast but had no concept of what these old traditions still meant to people here.
Greenland is a country with one foot firmly rooted in ancestral traditions, and its connection with its environment is very solid. And it was that small bundle of letters that started to weigh on my mind. The people of Greenland had supported me unconditionally throughout the expedition, and that increasingly vocal little voice in my head was telling me to deliver the bloody letters. Not that they contained anything particularly important or, perish the thought, anything time-sensitive (paddling isn’t the fastest mode of transport, after all).
Trying to dodge the ice again
And so I found myself in Upernavik again in late July this year – about three weeks later than in 2023 to try to dodge the ice. This time, I had a support boat on standby. Laasi is a hunter up in Kullorsuaq and his wife, Birgitta, a teacher there. They were going to do some narwhal and seal hunting in Melville Bay and were happy to go super slow and hang around in VHF radio contact – or satphone contact in case I needed assistance, advice, or just to know what the ice conditions were like.
It turns out the ice was just as bad as the previous year, if not slightly worse and was causing problems for hunters accessing close to the coast in Melville and with the traditional narwhal hunting. And so it turned out that, yet again, the ice was more of a worry than anticipated, but there was nothing for it but to give it a go. There was no way I could afford to leave it and come back again next year.
And so, on a cold and rainy day at the end of July, I paddled out of Upernavik Harbour, winding my way through the Upernavik Archipelago, a whole series of islands and headlands, fairly well sprinkled with tiny settlements that continued up to Kullorsuaq – the last settlement before Melville and where I would meet up with Laasi and Birgitta.
The 900km before me was split into three equal sections – Upernavik archipelago, Melville Bay and the last third from Savissivik to Qaanaaq. That first section was glorious – beautiful weather (after the first day anyway), mirror calm waters, incredible scenery and icebergs and the icing on the cake – mostly settlements to stay in where I could stay in an actual bed. The settlements are close enough to each other for it to be an excellent paddling holiday. The islands are a great shelter from the force of any weather systems out in Baffin Bay, and there are numerous opportunities for easy landing and camping. And there’s a great place in Upernavik that has all the kit for group paddling trips.
GPS glitches
I’d had a couple of glitches last year with my GPS – where it just refused to find a satellite, and the folks back home thought I was in trouble when checking out the location map on my website, but I thought these wrinkles had been ironed out for this year. Not so, though – I seem to have an ongoing hate/hate relationship with tech. The GPS packed up about 200km into this expedition and didn’t work again for the remainder. Despite being a well-known, marine-specific, qajaq-mounted piece of kit, it did the same again.
Satellites couldn’t be found. So I used a combination of Google Maps on my phone – which always gives you your real-time position and a tourist map that gives a better layout of possible landing sites and topography. I had as backup ‘Russian Topo Maps’ – a great app that you can plot courses on, and SIKU – an indigenous-specific app for the Arctic that, as well as a map, has ice conditions and a bunch of other info. Of course, the problem on a qajaq is trying to operate a touch screen with constantly wet and cold fingers, but apart from that, the navigation was OK after that – even in thick fog in Melville.
One other potentially catastrophic issue I faced was my elbows packing in. Last year, I averaged about 30km paddling per day but had to push it farther this year because of the geographical issues – often long stretches of open water in between headlands of 40km plus. Another issue was that I had work commitments back in the UK, which I couldn’t rearrange. Both meant I’d have to double the qajaqing-per-day distance to at least 60km.
Which very soon took its toll on my elbows – a sharp, tennis-elbow-type pain that kicked in around 30km or so. By the time I got to Nussuaq (a small settlement a day or two south of Kullorsuaq), I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to complete the expedition without a rest day every other day. I was using a Euro-style paddle and had never used a Greenlandic paddle but had heard they lessen the strain on joints – so in Nussuaq, I searched for a house with a couple of traditional qajaqs outside and knocked on the door.
Thomas didn’t speak English, and my Greenlandic is embarrassingly inadequate, but I eventually conveyed my need for a Greenlandic paddle. He told me to return in an hour, which I duly did to find him sanding a plank of wood that was starting to look a tad Greenlandic. Another hour, and I had myself a proper Greenlandic paddle! This is one of the many incredibly positive moments that sums up Greenland for me – such a great bunch of people with a never-give-up attitude and a willingness to help out.
And, incredibly, the paddle worked brilliantly. It weighed almost 1.5kg – most ‘modern’ paddles are under one kg – but was comfortable to hold for long periods and seemed to spread the stress of paddling across my whole upper body instead of fixating on my elbows or shoulders. My average speed also seemed consistent with the Euro-style paddles- staying at around 7 km per hour even after 12 hours of paddling. It seems thousands of years of virtually unchanged design are for a reason.
Incredible part of the world
And then came Melville Bay. What an incredible part of the world. The first couple of days continued with glorious sunshine and great camp spots – albeit further between. I was in radio contact with the boat to check on ice conditions and camping spots, which was working out fine. Then came a long 45km slog between headlands – the icecap on the mainland to my right came directly out onto the sea, and there was too much ice – both sea ice and icebergs from the many calving glaciers, to get anywhere near the land.
But Laasi said there was an excellent hunters’ camp spot just past the Melville Monument (pictured!), a dramatic jut of rock just off the coast named by Sir John Ross in 1818. And then a pea souper descended, and within minutes, I couldn’t see farther than 10 metres.
It’s such a speedy turnaround. Trying to figure out which way to go without losing precious energy and time readjusting my line was proving difficult without an easy-to-access GPS. I had only been about 20km from the camp spot when the fog came down – but dodging looming great icebergs and brash ice whilst having to stop to try and operate my phone for my position was starting to grate and, as always happened in the cold of Greenland, you start to get cold the instant you stop paddling.
I radioed the boat to guide me into land – it seemed to take forever, and I had been convinced I was only a matter of minutes away. But finally, around two hours later, I landed on a great little rocky beach, pulled Scorp (P&H Scorpio, my qajaq) up above high water and found an almost flat camp spot with great views over the disappointingly close Melville Monument. It was disappointing because it looked so close, and I’d paddled past it hours earlier. That was a 78km day.
The next day looked good – the boat would hang about a bit closer as the ice farther north was thick and routes to land and camp far between. If I couldn’t reach the mainland, I had a backup island as a potential Plan B camp spot, but I always knew I had the boat as a Plan C if other options failed. Plan B soon became Plan A as I had to continually head westwards to avoid large sections of sea ice and icebergs – there was also plenty of fresh sea ice forming despite the weather being sunny, qajaqing through this fresh ice is quite draining; it feels like someone’s hanging onto the back of the qajaq and cutting your speed right down.
A dramatic gash
I also found myself constantly changing my paddling style – that may have been a hangover from the elbow problem or just general fatigue or a combination, but it seemed to help a lot. Leaning right back or forward and having a high or low and shallow stroke also seemed to break up the monotony.
I could see the island I was heading to for hours before reaching it – sometimes hidden behind icebergs, it popped in and out of view over the course of the day, always aggravatedly seeming the same size, and it felt like I wasn’t closing the distance at all, not until the last kilometre, when it increased rapidly in size, that I realised just how high it was (pictured!) – an incredibly dramatic gash from top to bottom that I could qajaq right into, beautiful clear waters where you could see the continued descent of the rock into the depths. At this point, I was about 75km from any other land and, rather disappointingly, the rock plunged directly into the sea with no chance of a landing, let alone a camp spot.
The boat couldn’t see a way through the ice to the nearest land, so we decided to haul Scorp onto the boat and search for the safe line to camp. Six hours later, we finally made it – after some interesting moments. Often, in the sea ice, you just can’t see a way out, and then, almost magically, the differing currents pull and push the ice apart to show a clear line to aim for. The camp that night was on a smallish ledge and didn’t happen until 02:00hrs – I just wolfed down another seal stew – and prepared several bags of it back in Kullorsuaq, which I was now getting fed up with.
The next day was more of the same – a battle to get away from the coast and the sea ice, and then into some crazy large icebergs and brash ice – smaller chunks that are big enough to have to skirt around as opposed to bashing through and all swimming in a slushy soup of other smaller ice chunks. And I saw my first polar bear! It was about 600 metres away, walking on the sea ice, luckily walking away from me. Thankfully, it didn’t seem interested as I didn’t have enough water to make a quick getaway if he’d popped over to see what was happening. He trundled off into the distance, eventually disappearing amongst the ice.
Massive icebergs
And then the fog descended again – I was headed almost west towards Savissivik and Kap York. Incomprehensively, massive icebergs loomed like mountains out of the gloom, lifting the hackles on my neck when I knew I’d got a little too close, but keeping them at a safe distance whilst navigating the smaller chunks was a challenge. Especially when the fog hid them from view, several times, the slight greyish tinge in the fog darkened, revealing itself to be an iceberg that took over an hour to skirt safely.
Eventually, though, land came into view sporadically between the bergs and after spending two hours trying to find a way through, the boat again had to come to my rescue – I’d been moving at less than 1km per hour for the final three hours s I got deeper into increasingly thicker ice and, after 14 hours of paddling, could feel myself getting exhausted and hypothermic again. Again, Scorp was hauled into the boat, and we spent several hours bashing through the ice trying to get to land – sleeping on the boat was an option but would mean a constant ice watch and what with Scorp being on, there wouldn’t have been a great sleep.
But the next day was clear, and I’d now passed all the most productive glaciers, meaning the threat of icebergs had decreased. Also, the sea was mostly clear of the previous few day’s sea ice, and it was a straight run of 40km or so to the settlement of Savissivik – a tiny place of around 50 people I had a well-earned rest day here – so amazing to get a shower, visit the shop and get back onto WiFi. I also ate several kiviaq – the Little Auk seabirds flying by the millions all around Melville Bay.
These are caught in great big nets on the mountainside and then stuffed intact into a seal (without its insides), sewn up, the air pressed out, and the whole package stored for several months under rocks. At this point, the birds are well-fermented and aromatic. And they were jam-packed with great bacteria and nutrients.
Qaanaaq finally felt within my grasp – 300km left. The weather was deteriorating a little from now on. I’d lose three days to high winds – the scoot along the coast from Kap York westwards is a fantastic journey – plenty of camping spots and actual greenery – this is prime muskox territory, and there were a few boats with hunters either off to shoot them or returning with a full boat.
Up this was I was also getting close to the US Space Base at Pituffik. And at one camp spot – an old US army station that was now only two abandoned huts – I was spending almost two days waiting out the winds when two ATVs appeared over the mountain and came to say hello – it turns out the Space Base was only a two-hour ride over the mountains from my cosy camping spot. Lovely to get a mug of hot coffee!
US military shop
It took me another two days to reach Dundas – the distinct flat-topped mountain directly adjacent to the Space Base, and I managed to wangle a visit there – to the social club and the US military shop. An unexpected visit to a strange location in a part of one of the most remote areas in Greenland.
From Dundas, I pushed on and did over 70km again to Kap Radcliffe, the last real headland before Qaanaaq, where I was pushed back by high winds and had to spend a frustrating day and a half waiting it out. Even then, I launched into heavy seas, expecting a hard slog to get not very far. But 6km in, I rounded the headland, the wind died, and the sun came out; 10 km of paddling later, I could see the coast where I knew Qaanaaq was. I was too far away to see the town, but I knew it was there and decided to go for it. It was a 55km straight schlep past Herbert Island on my left, and it felt like it took forever.
On those long legs, the land ahead doesn’t get any closer for hours. No amount of singing or whistling at the seals makes it pass any quicker, and it’s depressingly monotonous. But then you can slowly make out details of the land, the oil tanks that are a big feature of every settlement, and then the buildings and their bright primary colours. About 2km away, three hunters’ boats came out to greet me, firing rifles into the air.
As I closed on the long, recently built jetty, I made out the figure of hundreds of people lined up – despite it being clear daylight 24/7, a bunch of fireworks was set off, and several traditional qajaqs skimmed out to meet me and escort me in. At this point, I was struggling to keep the tears in, and once the singing floated out to greet me from over half the town that was waiting for me, I was crying like a baby.
3000km of solo paddling
I slid up onto the sand to massive cheers; Greenlandic flags were being waved – one being thrust into my hands as well as a couple of bags of Greenland mattak (whale skin and blubber) and prawns, and I was greeted like one of their own. I had completed it. Finally, over 3000km of solo paddling. The final 900km with a shaped plank of wood, through ice, fog and storms.
It is an experience that I will never forget. Greenland is wedged in my brain now, and I hope I return many more times. If anyone has a chance and/or the means to get to Greenland, I would not hesitate to say Go. It’s an incredible country, with the most beautiful landscapes and paddling anywhere in the world. But it’s the people who make it. Make the effort, and they’ll respond in kind.
