The Great Wild Beyond

In 2017, parts of southern Greenland were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List for bearing witness to two cultures centuries apart. Daniel Neilson and Anders Brogaard, in association with Merrell and SportsShoes.com, travelled to Greenland to meet the sheep farmers who eke a living on the edge of the ice cap, and find unnerving parallels with the Norse who came before them and suddenly disappeared.

The rib bounced across gentle waves and slalomed around icebergs. Even on the short trip across the fjord, we quickly got used to the crunch of ice under the boat. The pilot of this open-topped boat had put on his ski goggles to protect against the biting wind. Some of the ‘ice bits’ were the size of a car, others the size of the de Havilland Dash-8 we’d flown in on. I looked at my companion, the photographer Anders, and he looked back at me with a huge grin. We knew this was something extraordinary. The rib came to an alarming halt by the small jetty at Qassiarsuk, and we hopped out, throwing our backpacks before us. The pilot waved and disappeared behind a sheet of metallic blue ice.

We’ve come to Greenland to report on two stories. Both are stories of exploration and endurance, of heroism and calamitous change. Both take place in two little settlements at the edge of the ice cap. We only knew the outcome of one story, and that didn’t end well. Our journey took us on planes and boats, kayaks and on foot, through iceberg-scattered fjords and steep-sided mountain passes. We met the hardy yet generous people who live off this icy land. These were the third generation of a new wave of Inuit farmers in southern Greenland, areas that had been recently listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Their families had been here for around a century. The earlier story was of the Norse who landed in Greenland around AD 980. Their story on Greenland was cut short; they disappeared a few hundred years later. We began in the capital, Nuuk, to discover why the Norse abandoned Greenland.

We travelled first to Nuuk, a colourfully ramshackle city of 17,000, to meet one of the world’s foremost experts on Norse culture in Greenland to find out why the Norse came here in the 10th century, only to leave their farms so abruptly around 1500.

From his office overlooking Nuuk’s old harbour, Christian Koch Madsen, Deputy Director of the Greenland Museum and Archives, is telling a story of true exploration that can no longer be found on this planet. This archaeologist and researcher runs upstairs and speaks about the Vikings with confidence and precision, but also a childlike excitement, as if he can’t quite believe he’s made a living out of a childhood passion.

‘In the Viking age, if you can go to a place where nobody has gone before and report of new wealth or possibilities you get renown,’ he began. ‘There’s the driver of being an explorer and being the first. That’s how they find all these north Atlantic islands, and that’s essentially also how they find Greenland. The Norse had an exploratory urge in their culture.’

The Norse first landed in southern Greenland around AD 980, bringing ‘package farms’ of goats, cows, sheep, and tools on their boats. The Icelandic Sagas tell us that Erik the Red was among those first explorers, and it was he who named it Greenland: 10th-century propaganda.

‘Today we see the Norse as entrepreneurs looking for valuable raw materials they could send back to Europe rather than farmers looking for a new farm. Greenland is a remote place, and back then it would have been even more isolated. They would have needed a good incentive. Calling it ‘Greenland’ like Erik the Red supposedly did, I don’t think it was enough. They were looking for walrus ivory, polar bear skins, narwhal tusk – things worth a fortune.’

Despite being hundreds of miles from their homeland, their worldview remained structured around the farmstead. It was the farm that reminded them of home, that offered the location for a structured and cultured society. ‘And then they have the great wild beyond,’ Christian said. ‘It’s where dangers lurk. There are sea creatures, and there are different kinds of magical creatures out there. And of course, there are more of them in the wild.’

‘Around 1250, they were hit by an abrupt climate event – a period of 10-15 cold summers and winters. Just two years in a row with a bad harvest to feed your animals would be a dire situation.’ Combined with the decline of interest in walrus tusks, Norse society withered. Over a few hundred years, the Norse had expanded their realm, traded with the Thule people, but then just disappeared from the historical record.

From Nuuk we flew to Narsarsuaq Airport, built by the US War Department in 1942, where we got the first glimpse at a landscape that would dominate the next few days. Icebergs, from the size of a mansion to that of a foosball table, floated in Tunulliarfik Fjord. The bluest bergs seemed to be alive, pulsing electric blue light from deep within. We checked in to Leif Eriksson Hostel run by Spanish tour company Tasermiut. Teresa, the friendly hostel manager, was the fourth person in a week to tell us what a great cook our next host was. But before dinner, we explored the Norse ruins.

Qassiarsuk is a two-car town. Today, around 90 call it home, and the ruins of Erik the Red’s estate can still be seen in the middle of the village. As we approached, two white-tailed eagles launched themselves off the ruined church walls and lifted off slowly into the mist. The footprint of the estate remains, and upon a nearby hill is a reconstruction. On that cold September day, the mud huts and shallow thatched roofs looked inhospitable. Qassiarsuk was abandoned when the Norse left; only in 1924 did the first farmer return to Qassiarsuk, and we were having dinner with his great-grandson.

Ellen is a quietly spoken school teacher and looking forward to her retirement next year. She greeted us with a smile and invited us into her home at Ilunnguujuk Farm. The aroma of two lamb legs roasting in the oven filled the kitchen. While stirring the gravy, she told us the story of how her family came to be here.

‘Otto Fredrickson, my husband’s grandfather, started farming here in 1924,’ she explained. ‘At that time in Greenland, the climate was getting warmer, and they could see that there weren’t so many seals, so the government brought 10 sheep from the Faroe Islands. They also brought some sheep from Iceland to see if it is possible to become a sheep farmer. Otto brought the first sheep here on October 7, 1924, and he started with 150.’

The sheep are free to roam the green hills through the short summer, but in winter they are brought in and fed on the grass grown through the warmer months. The day we arrived, the first snow fell on the high mountain peaks. In a coordinated effort, the farmers of each peninsula worked together to bring in the sheep and then swap them over – it’s a huge task, with long days in the saddle or on ATVs. Their hope is the feed they have grown will feed the sheep until the last lamb is born and they are again released to roam. Carl and Ellen have 650 sheep and 37 hectares of hay. They’ve recently opened a guesthouse too, with incredible views over the fjord.

Over our dinner of delicate roast lamb, Ellen explained some of the challenges that the few farmers in Greenland are experiencing. ‘Back in 2007, the climate started to change. Some summers there was no rain for two months, and harvests were reduced – in some places up to 80 per cent. If the yield is not good enough, we have to order more fodder from Denmark, and it’s very expensive. We are worried because climate has been so different from what we are used to.’

While the significant change that is happening to our climate is likely out of the hands of these farmers, there is at least the hope that their contribution to the history of a nation, a culture, has been recognised. In 2017, Kujataa Greenland, this subarctic landscape at the edge of the ice cap, was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The citing reads: ‘It bears witness to the cultural histories of the Norse farmer-hunters who started arriving from Iceland in the 10th century and of the Inuit hunters and Inuit farming communities that developed from the end of the 18th century. Despite their differences, the two cultures, European Norse and Inuit, created a cultural landscape based on farming, grazing and marine mammal hunting. The landscape represents the earliest introduction of farming to the Arctic and the Norse expansion of settlement beyond Europe.’

The next day, we put on our hiking boots and headed south to Silissit. This narrow rocky road took us through mountain passes and past little lakes before falling back down to the fjord. As we descended, the mist lifted to offer an ethereal view that stopped us in our tracks. The scale of the fjord made my mind swirl, as if I couldn’t quite comprehend the magnitude and beauty.

Thousands of icebergs, some the size of tower blocks, swayed in the swell and breeze. Others had washed ashore. And in front of it all, a farmer hopped into his tractor and began his daily work, insignificant against a backdrop as eternal as life. Along the beach, we tested our Merrell Thermo Rogue boots, specifically designed for walking on ice, on the washed-up bergs. For hours we walked among these giant ice sculptures, as divine as anything by the hand of Michelangelo or Rodin.

We arrived at Silissit farm as the sun was falling behind the mountain, and stayed in a warm little cabin the farm owners have developed. We dined on a beautiful lamb leg again with the family and chat over coffee into the evening. They too express their concerns about the climate, and the way of life, out here. Yet it’s a thoroughly modern life with internet and iPads, flat-screen TVs and coffee machines.

The next morning, a boat from Blue Ice picked us up – a tour operator who, along with Tasermiut South Greenland Expeditions, are attracting more and more tourists to the area. Farmers are welcoming the new visitors in their houses, and to their dinner tables. We came to meet Malene Egede, one such farmer who also runs a side business for tourists. We crossed Tunulliarfik Fjord again and headed to Igaliku, population 27, one of the first places chosen to reintroduce sheep farming. It’s no coincidence that there are extensive Norse remains here too. After a walk from the dock to Igaliku Country Hotel, we met Malene. She had an easy laugh and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She runs ATV tours around the area when the farmhands don’t need them.

Malene came to Igaliku in 1984 and met her husband. ‘I was supposed to stay here for one year, but my husband and I met, and he couldn’t move with 500 sheep, so I just stayed,’ she said with a laugh. Today, they have 650 sheep, 8-900 lambs, 25 Galloway cows and 20 calves. There are also 11 chickens. ‘They’re mine!’ she adds.

We zoomed off towards the farm as her husband rounded the corner in a huge tractor. We shake hands, and she introduces him. ‘He is seventh or eighth-generation descendent of Anders Olsen, I am too a descendant on my mother’s side.’ Anders Olsen is a name that appears a lot around here – he was the town’s founder. In 1783, this Norwegian settled on the land, just as the Norse did more than 600 years earlier. Every year, more than 500 of Olsen’s descendants from around Greenland and beyond return to Igaliku for a huge party. It was in this town, in 1914, where sheep farming was first reintroduced to Greenland.

The next morning, a Blue Ice boat picked us up again, and with time before our flight from Narsarsuaq to Copenhagen – the last of the season – we explored a tributary leading to the glacier. The rumble and whip-crack of shattering ice filled the cold air. It’s the beginning of one of only two ice sheets in the world, and it’s been there for 18 million years. Set against geological time, 1,000 years may seem a snowflake, but UNESCO hopes that sheep farming in Greenland will continue for that long. The Norse didn’t make it 1,000 years, and the current run has only celebrated a century, but Ellen was hopeful: ‘We are about to retire from farming and our sons will take over. I hope they will have good conditions when they start. The idea is that sheep farming in Greenland should be continued 1,000 years from now on and I hope that it will be like that.’

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