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< Sept-Oct 2007
	Features
The Greenland Effect A reporter comes away with a message from the Arctic nation’s receding icecap By Gelu Sulugiuc

As I paddle from the small fishing town of Aasiaat on the west coast of Greenland, I point with optimism to the deep blue sky unfurling on the horizon, figuring that meant good weather might spread our way.

“It’s more likely that a snowstorm is coming,” replies my guide, Adam Hansen, kayaking with relaxed strokes a few paddle lengths to my right.

Unfortunately, his prediction proves correct.

Our two-day trip around an archipelago of 1,000 islands and icebergs in Disko Bay was supposed to begin with a six-hour paddle to a hunting hut on Anaarsuit Island. Such huts provide shelter for the increasing numbers of adventure travelers intent on getting a taste of sea kayaking in Greenland. Most are Scandinavian, but locals hope more Americans will venture out here now that Air Greenland started direct flights from Baltimore to Kangerlussuaq, a former U.S. air force base south of here.

Invented in the Arctic, kayaking almost disappeared in Greenland when modern trawlers made it irrelevant for fishing. To salvage tradition, enthusiasts established kayaking clubs in several towns, and now Greenland holds national championships in speed, endurance, carrying, and rolling. “There are 30 different ways to roll on each side of the kayak,” says Hansen, who competed in his teens.

Travelers come to Aasiaat, the capital of Greenlandic kayaking and whale watching, to paddle for two to eight days, sleeping in tents or huts on uninhabited islands. Stunning in their rugged elegance, the islands are mostly home to Arctic foxes, hares, various birds, and wild flowers. The harsh and windy winters make it impossible for trees to grow here. From June to September, one can see narwhals, minke, fin, and humpback whales up close, sometimes right outside the harbor.

“Once we were kayaking toward a group of feeding humpback whales to get a better look at them when we realized that we were in the middle of the circle of bubbles they make to trap the plankton,” Hansen says with a smile. “We had to paddle fast out of their eating area, because that’s exactly where they surface.”

The best weather for kayaking here is in July and August, but global warming has significantly extended the tourism season, so we’re paddling among icebergs in the middle of May. Snow-capped Disko Island can be seen 50 miles to the west, a distance hunters used to cross every winter on dog sleds, but the bay hasn’t frozen over in years.

Global warming or not, one still must respect the sea, so halfway to the hut Hansen and I decide that it’s safer to ride out the storm in town. It was the right decision. This winter’s final blizzard blasted the quaint town of 3,000 overnight, covering its bright red, yellow, green, and blue houses with a foot of snow.

The next day, we set out for Ikerasakasik Sound as sled dogs howl in unison with the church bell’s toll. The mouth of the sound is still half-frozen, and the broken pack ice scratches against the kayaks with a fearsome shriek as we move carefully through it. This is one of the spots where locals flense the handful of whales they are allowed to hunt every year for local consumption. The skull and bones of a fin whale can be seen resting on the bottom under clear water.

Back on the open sea, we paddle behind an iceberg lazily floating south on the same route one of its predecessors took to its fateful encounter with the Titanic in 1912. Warmer waters melt today’s icebergs before reaching Newfoundland, and this one is already shedding a steady wake of fist-size ice boulders that crack harmlessly against the kayaks.

After passing a small island that hosts a pack of free-roaming sled dogs waiting for their owner to feed them, we stop for lunch at Manittoq Island in a sheltered inlet where a wayward iceberg ran aground. About 500 yards away, an Arctic fox is zigzagging between boulders. We lose sight of it in the shadows, but based on the ruckus that ensues we figure it either nabbed a bird or raided a nest and helped itself to some eggs or hatchlings.

Fifty whalers lived on Manittoq in the 19th century, but the only thing left of their village is a decrepit church. As I hike up to it, two fat Arctic hares dash from behind the wind-beaten building and make a run up the hill. I follow them and take in a sweeping view of Disko Bay, a panorama of icebergs of all shapes and sizes, floating by leisurely. A 20-foot lighthouse guards their passage from a rock jutting out of the water, a favorite spot for hooded seals to lounge in the sun at low tide.

Icebergs are unstable and can flip over or even pierce a kayak if they collapse, but on our way back I can’t resist approaching a small one shaped like a mushroom head that seems unlikely to overturn. The water around my kayak fizzles as air trapped in the middle of the Greenland ice cap hundreds of thousands of years ago finally escapes its melting captor. It sounds like a gentle but persistent warning that as politicians squabble over what to do about global warming, Greenland’s ice cap is melting faster than scientists had predicted.