The Dagmar Aaen is ready to set sail. We’ve taken on plenty of provisions. Nuuk was our last chance to buy fresh vegetables. We won’t have another opportunity to visit a supermarket on the Labrador coast for at least three weeks. The fresh-water tanks are full to the brim.
We’ve also stocked up on diesel. Incidentally, most of the fuel for Greenland is supplied by the Bremen-based shipping company German Tanker Shipping. The Seacod is a 40,000-tonne ice-class product tanker that calls at the capital five times a year. Kerosene for the airport and diesel for the power station’s generators are the most important types of fuel.

On deck of the Dagmar Aaen, all movable items have been lashed down securely. We also made the most of the last few sunny days in Nuuk to finish off various paint jobs. A culinary highlight for us all was a visit to our Danish friend Claus (he is the sole representative of the tool company Würth in Greenland) and his friend Anette, who grew up in Colombia. Anette is a vet with the Danish Fisheries Inspectorate and has been living in Nuuk for the past six months. For our visit to her flat with a sea view, she specially conjured up an authentic Colombian chilli con carne. Delicious! A cheerful evening with good conversation around our hosts’ large table.
When asked about Donald Trump’s desire to buy up the country, we’re met with vigorous head-shaking. Anette reckons that Trump probably thinks of the Greenlanders as a horde of uneducated people, but in her opinion the locals are smart and clever – and extremely polite. That’s the only reason things haven’t escalated yet.
It’s no coincidence that many shops sell T-shirts bearing the slogan: ‘Greenland is not for sale!’

We spend the last few hours before setting sail having a long shower at the Seamen’s Home in Nuuk. And then we’re off. We set sail in calm seas. Under a double-reefed mainsail, jib and jib, we sail a west-south-westerly course. Our original plan was to head for Baffin Island.

But that’s not going to happen. Up there, the ice cover is 9/10. No chance of getting through. So we’ve now set our course for the northern tip of Labrador, where the ice conditions are said to be manageable. We’re heading straight across the Davis Strait, the stretch of sea between Greenland and Canada. We’ve got around 440 nautical miles ahead of us. On the very first evening, the increasing swell is rocking the boat quite a bit. Some of us are struck by the dreaded seasickness. Me too. It’s sickening… Every movement is a struggle. Putting on all those layers of clothing before a watch becomes a real struggle, and for the whole four hours you dream of getting back into your warm bunk as quickly as possible. But that’s just part of it. As I write these lines, it’s extremely foggy all around us. The sea has calmed down, and our spirits have returned. We’re looking forward to Labrador!

Matze

We continue northwards. We experience deserted, unspoilt landscapes, drop anchor in peaceful fjords, catch cod, and discover long-abandoned fishing settlements – Greenland has us spellbound!

After nine days, we finally reach Nuuk – where we are welcomed by our Danish friend Claus Hassing, who has been living in Greenland for years on behalf of the company Würth. He throws us a wonderful welcome with fish and rum.

Our journey so far and now Nuuk: the contrast could hardly be greater. Whereas we’ve previously visited quite small settlements with just a few people, most of whom make a living as fishermen and hunters, we now find ourselves in a major city, even though Nuuk has ‘only’ just under 20,000 inhabitants. Huge, sprawling blocks of flats with grey façades housing many people, instead of the small, colourful houses. Here, no children greet us in the streets, and there are no sledges dotting the landscape. Instead, branches of Danish retail chains line the streets, and traffic rumbles through the city.

Nuuk does, however, offer one highlight: the Greenlandic National Museum. And we delve a little into the history of this icy island. Due to the extreme conditions, many areas remained uninhabited for millennia. When people came here and settled in individual regions, this did not happen as a continuous process, but rather in waves: after successful years, even a slight worsening of the extreme conditions could often spell the end of a settlement.

The first settlers arrived as long as 4,400 years ago

The museum showcases various phases of this early settlement of Greenland: the earliest was probably the ‘Arctic Small Tool Tradition’. It began as long as 4,400 years ago. People came to Greenland from North-East Asia and Siberia and were able to craft extremely efficient harpoons and spears from stone blades, bone and driftwood. They used these to hunt musk oxen, seals and caribou. They also possessed remarkable seafaring skills and were even able to cross short stretches of open sea without a compass or sonar! The museum displays reconstructed everyday objects and hunting weapons from this period – we can only marvel at how hard these people had to fight for their survival back then.

In a second wave, hunters from the Arctic region of Canada crossed Ellesmere Island and settled in Greenland. On the one hand, there was the Independence I culture, which settled in northern Greenland, particularly in Peary Land, between approximately 2,400 and 1,800 BC. These were highly specialised hunters who lived in small, mobile family groups in tents and hunted primarily musk oxen and seals. The other group consisted of people from the Saqqaq culture, who lived in the somewhat milder western and south-western parts of the island. They chose to live in larger communities and to build winter dwellings out of stone and peat.
How did they survive here – without boats or dogs?

Finally, the Dorset culture remains a great mystery – hunters who survived successfully in the Arctic for centuries and about whom we know very little. In fact, the only thing that is clear is what they did not have: no traces of boats or kayaks have been found among this group. Nor is there any evidence of dogs or transport sledges. How did these people get around in Greenland? How were they able to go hunting without a kayak? Weapons such as bows and arrows, or drilling tools, were also probably unknown to the Dorset people. It is truly a mystery. What they did master, however, was hunting seals and walruses on the winter sea ice. They invented the igloo as a shelter and dwelling on the ice, and developed lamps that provided them with a little light in the Arctic night using seal blubber.

The Thule Inuit prevail

However, the massive cooling of the Arctic from the 14th century onwards – with drastically altered ice conditions – and the arrival of the technologically far superior Thule Inuit, with their kayaks, bows and dog sleds, ultimately led to the hunters of the Dorset culture being displaced. Nevertheless, the Dorset live on in the legends of today’s Inuit. In the ancient sagas, they are called the Tuniit – a people of shy giants, very strong, but also easily frightened.

And finally: the Vikings. No history of Greenland is complete without a mention of Erik the Red. Legend has it that Erik was banished from Iceland for three years for manslaughter. He used this time to search for the large, icy island to the west that fishermen had told him about. He set sail with 25 ships, 24 of which eventually reached the island. Erik chose the name Greenland (= ‘green land’) for his discovery – a clever marketing ploy on his part, which he used to attract more Icelanders around the year 986 AD. Yet even for these hardy ‘Graenlendingar’, life on the Arctic island was anything but easy, and so they abandoned the settlement after around 400 years.

For us, however, the achievement of these very first settlers of Greenland is almost beyond comprehension. We can only imagine the hardships survival must have entailed back then and just how perfectly these people had adapted to the extreme conditions of the Arctic. Otherwise, they would probably not have survived a single winter.

Uli Weih

Ikerasassuaq – Prins Christian Sund

In the thick fog, the entrance to Prins Christian Sund is barely discernible. We slowly approach the entrance to the fjord, only realising at the last moment the tall, dark rock faces to the right and left of the narrow passage. But then the fog suddenly clears and the sun shines – the warm rock burns away the fog and we have excellent visibility. ‘One of the world’s most magnificent passages’ awaits us, according to the otherwise rather sober and matter-of-fact nautical guide.

‘Ikerasassuaq’ – the Great Sound, as the locals call this passage, which connects the Irmingersee on the east coast with Baffin Bay on the west side of Greenland. A sound some 100 kilometres long, but in places only 500 metres wide, framed by high granite walls, massive glaciers and rugged mountains. The water is constantly filled with massive ice floes: huge icebergs sent on their way by the inland ice, but also Arctic pack ice from the Arctic Ocean. No wonder the Prins Christian Sound is considered a highlight of many Greenland cruises. However, cruise lines only venture on such a voyage in late summer, when there is slightly less ice. For the captains of these floating hotels, it remains an enormous challenge nonetheless: particularly in the extremely narrow sections, they have hardly any room to manoeuvre – and if an ice field blocks the passage, turning round is usually impossible.

Very beautiful, but also challenging

What’s more, the notorious winds and strong currents in the Sound demand a great deal of attention. The steep rock faces, over 1,000 metres high, act like a giant jet duct; the winds are forced through this narrow channel and reach high speeds from directions that are almost impossible to predict. The ship is constantly being buffeted by wind and currents. Or icebergs approach faster than the helmsman would like.

On top of that, you can run into very dense fog at any time here, for example when very cold polar water meets warm air masses that have been heated by the cliffs. This can lead to thick fog – and it takes a very long time to spot the ice. Despite all this: ‘Ikerasassaq’ is an incomparable experience; the nautical guidebook has not exaggerated.

Colourful houses beneath a cliff face

After a long journey through the sound, we spot some colourful houses below a mighty, almost vertical cliff face: Aappilattoq. One of Greenland’s smallest permanently inhabited villages, extremely isolated, easy to overlook. ‘Aappilattoq’ means ‘sea anemone’ in the Inuit language. A lovely name for this little spot, home to around 80 people. Like almost all settlements in Greenland, the village can only be reached by sea.

The people here have adapted perfectly to the conditions. They live almost entirely off seal hunting and fishing. Whatever is caught is shared amongst the village community. The colourful houses provide a cheerful contrast to the reddish-grey of the rocky landscape. In the past, the colours had a functional significance: for example, red stood for the school or the church, whilst yellow indicated the doctor’s house or – where one existed – the hospital.

Education can mean saying goodbye

As we moor in the settlement, our boat is quickly surrounded by curious children who smile at us and ask lots of questions. A foreign boat in the village is always quite an event. We learn that all the children from Aappilattoq are taught in a tiny school. And because there are so few children, pupils of different ages usually have lessons together.

At least, that’s how it works in primary and lower secondary school. Anyone who wants to go on to secondary school afterwards has to leave the village. For the children and young people, however, this represents a radical upheaval in their lives. They have to leave their home completely at the age of 15 or 16. This means being apart for months – the young people often only see their families and friends at Christmas or during the summer holidays. For the rest of the year, they are on their own. For most, this is no easy situation.

Loneliness and feeling overwhelmed

On the one hand, there is the culture shock of city life. Around 80 people live in Aappilattoq; here, everyone knows everyone else. In cities like Nuuk, by contrast, there are 20,000 people and it is much more anonymous. Instead of simple wooden houses, rubber dinghies and the local football pitch, the city has prefabricated blocks of flats, cars and huge shopping centres. For many young people from the remote world on the Sound, this is overwhelming.

On the other hand, the young people face lessons in a foreign language. In Aappilattoq, people speak West Greenlandic. In secondary schools, however, the language of instruction is Danish. Many children from the settlements, however, do not speak Danish and struggle with this language barrier in the first few months.

All of this leads to a very high drop-out rate among young people from remote settlements. Those who do manage to complete their schooling successfully almost always go to Denmark to continue their studies. A return to Aappilattoq at a later date is then virtually out of the question – there are hardly any suitable jobs for graduates amongst the hunters and fishermen. And, with their new experiences, these well-educated young people find it difficult to readjust to everyday life in their home village. Thus, for a village like Aappilattoq, higher education almost always means the loss of its young people.

Uli Weih

Up at 3.30 am. Brush our teeth, slip into our oilskins. The watch change is at 4.00 am. For the next four hours, three crew members are in charge of the ship, whilst the rest of the crew are still asleep.

A thick layer of stratus cloud has settled over us; there’s dense fog. 98 per cent humidity – everything on deck is wet, and our clothes are getting damp too. On top of that, an icy north wind is blowing; the damp oilskins cool down quickly – it’s an uncomfortable, cold watch.

To make matters worse, the Atlantic has a fair bit of swell; the Dagmar Aaen glides up the crests of the waves, only to plunge straight back into the next trough. And the ship is rolling: first it leans far over to port, then tilts back over to starboard.

Icebergs are drifting into our course; they are clearly visible well in advance, even in the thick fog. It’s a different matter with the chunks of ice that have broken off these icebergs. These ‘growlers’ are difficult to spot, but large enough to cause serious damage to the ship. For the watch, this means keeping a constant eye on the sea so we can take evasive action in good time.

The wind is set to pick up

In between, we keep checking the latest weather data for the region we’re sailing through: the wind is set to pick up and there’ll probably be a fair bit of swell soon – with waves coming straight from the front. We decide to sail closer to the coast, partly so that we can retreat into a bay if things get really stormy later on.

We regularly report the weather conditions around the ship to the German Weather Service so that the meteorologists can incorporate this data into their weather models – water temperature 2.6 degrees, air temperature 2.8 degrees, low-level stratus clouds, etc.

After hours on deck, the cold has crept into our limbs. Even a cup of hot tea doesn’t help – the watch is frozen through and exhausted. After four hours, it’s time for the watch change. Out of the wet oilskins; the cook has made fresh coffee. Time to rest whilst the next watch continues to feel their way through the icy fog.

Uli Weih