moving piem

Sisimiut old centre

After ten days hiking, I took a few days in Sisimiut. I pitched my tent in the camping, at the end of the road where hundreds of sledge dogs are chained for the summer. Back in town, I found a place to do my laundry and met with two French lads who had been on the trail about a week before me. I had read all of their messages in the guest books of the huts before meeting them, and it was great to be able to exchange about this trip.

I also met with Sabrina, from Switzerland, who is travelling on her own in West Greenland. The four of us went to try and climb Nasaasaaq again, but we stopped at 500 meters under a thick lid of clouds.

Johann, 71 years old, from Sisimiut, hosted me for a couple of nights. He is a great man, generous and sensible, and sings and plays organ and guitar like I wish I could. He was happy to have a visitor and showed me the harpoons he carved in the traditional way.

Then I boarded on the coastal ferry to reach Nuuk, where I spent a short week. Frans, friend of Carlos, gave me the keys of the beautiful studio flat of his sister. It felt nice but strange to have my own little house again for a short while.

Cairn in the sun

On June 15th, I watched the plane of Carlos taking off while enjoying a nice breakfast at the airport canteen. I had already bought most of my food for ten to twelve days in Nuuk. I found some mosquito repellent, coffee whitener at the nearby supermarket and started hiking towards Sisimiut, the village on the coast, 180 km to the West.

For the first four days, I met only reindeer, arctic hares, rock ptarmigan, and several kinds of smaller birds. I was alone in this immense and beautiful tundra.

I spent most of my nights in little huts. Many of them are maintained by the Greenlandic Tourism Association, but private huts are also left open for hikers and hunters. Often, the hut can fit 3 or four people and contains just a pair of mattresses and a kettle, but it feels great to find a shelter in the evening when the temperature is around 2 or 5°C. ... more

Approaching the ice sheet

Kangerlussuaq is more an airport than a village, and the main entry point to Greenland. Before taking his plane from Kangerlussuaq, Carlos joined me for a warm up hike, 25 km East all the way up to the ice sheet and back.

We left in the afternoon and walked late in the midnight sun, on the ridges of the hills, slowly approaching the ice cap. We spent the night next to the Russel Glacier, and went down to admire it the next morning.

It is hard to tell how little one can feel in front of such a massive amount of ice. Every ten minutes or so, the glacier grumbles as entires slices of the wall fall and the torrent running at its feet gets loaded with huge chunk of ice.

We went back via the sand track in a hot summer day, attacked by hordes of mosquitoes, and arrived exhausted at the airport, 25 hours and 50 km later.

Vagabond in Kangerlussuaq

Lea and Vincent stayed in Nuuk waiting for their return flight as we were sailing North towards Kangerlussuaq. With only four of adults and two little girls, the boat suddenly felt really empty.

The fjords in this region are magnificent, with mountains raising more than a thousand meter above sea level. We passed the city of Maniitsoq and entered the 180 km long fjord. We had the currents and the wind with us and sailed it in half a day at 11 knots, twice faster than our usual speed.

After one month living on board, these were my last hours with Vagabond. I spent the night getting my things together and preparing my backpack. The crew of scientists landed in the morning, and embarked on the boat, while Carlos and I disembarked.

The tide was emptying the fjord, so it was a good time for Vagabond to leave. I shed a few tears hugging my brother, France, and my nieces, untied the boat and watched them leaving the little pontoon in this desolated harbour.

Blocked by the ice

Our two younger crew members went off the boat in Narsaq, and Carlos, a french cook working at the embassy in Tunis, joined us. We first went to visit Ipiutaq, the farm of Kalista, Agathe and their daughter Ina. Agathe is French and Kalista is Greenlandic. A few years ago, they took on the adventure of starting a farm in South Greenland. It was really nice to discover their life, and to spend some time on a solid ground.

We then sailed to the North, and soon ended up blocked by the ice in a narrow fjord, at 2AM. After a night watching out the boat, we took out the ice poles in the morning and started pushing. After about two hours, we managed to reach the open water again.

We had a good weather sailing northwards up to Nuuk, despite a thick fog that prevented us from seeing the huge glaciers coming down to the sea. At 4AM in the morning, we arrived in the harbour of Nuuk, capital of Greenland.