IN NANSEN’S FOOTSTEPS
For anyone in need of good calorific fare, (if you, for example, like us, are about to traverse Greenland’s icecap on skis), the Pilersuisoq supermarket in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, has what you need: Musk ox burgers. Whale steaks. Baby milk formula. Frozen meats. Dried fish. Chocolate. It’s all there, as we discover, all manner of tempting tidbits, and our Gore-Tex clad group wanders the aisles, bantering away about the relative caloric merits of whale vs ox in a poor attempt to mask our all-too-obvious nerves.
The attendant, an Inuit, eyes us off from behind the store’s lone till. Amused by our child-like chit-chat, it’s unlikely we’re the first adventurous group he’s sized up. Kangerlussuaq, population 499, lies within the Arctic Circle, at the end of a 190km-fjord, and exists mainly for its airport, Greenland’s largest. It’s a well-trodden gateway for expeditions on the icecap and around Greenland’s western fjords.
Although it’s May—spring in these parts—the fjord is still frozen solid from the winter. For a group from the southern hemisphere, however, it feels as though winter never left. The wind is swirling and picking up spindrift, smacking it against our fresh-off-the-plane faces, and the temperature hovers around minus 15.
“I think I’ll grab an ice cream,” yells Brando ‘Wildboy’ Yelavich, the group’s resident joker. “Who wants one?” His gag is met with laughter, though he probably means it. Diagnosed with ADHD in his youth, and now a full-time adventurer, Brando—the youngest team member—brings a permanently switched on, overcharged boyishness. As the resident introvert, and soon to be month-long-tent-mate of Brando, I’m perhaps the most interested in how this will play out over the next 27 days.
Our team consists of an unconventional group of Kiwis and Australians. Besides Brando and myself, there’s Nigel Watson (Director of the Antarctic Heritage Trust), Kiwi Hollie Woodhouse, and fellow Australian Bridget Kruger. And then there’s Norwegian Bengt Rotmo. A
