Hiking among the Vikings

Early in August 1962, my family and I landed at a small airstrip in southern Greenland. The name of the small town was Narsasuaq, located at the bottom of a steep fjord. The town consisted of little more than a hotel, a former Danish army quarters, and restaurant and a few homes nearby.

We left the airstrip in a small bus and headed for the hotel where we were briefed on what we would be doing the next three days. We would be doing much hiking – to the ice cap and to a small Inuit village (formerly a Viking village) across a good sized hill. And we would visit, by boat, first Narssaq, a small village at the top of the fjord, and another one across the fjord, Igaliko, a historical site and the place where Erik the Red had settled and used as a base to explore the east coast of North America.

Very early the next morning we set out for a long hike of several miles to the tip of the Greenland ice cap. The weather was clear and cool enough for heavy sweaters and warm pants. Good hiking boots were very much a necessity. It would take easily a couple of hours to get to the edge of the glacier. We passed and forded, jumping between rocks, small, ice cold streams clean enough to drink from, before we finally reached the edge of the ice. At that point we were given loops of rope which we hitched to a long rope that we used for safety while walking on the glacier for about a half mile. That part of the glacier no longer exists! Another long hike brought us back to the hotel for the next event.

We boarded a small shrimp boat a few hundred meters from the hotel and set off across the fjord to Igaliko. Igaliko was once known as Brattahlid, and was originally settled by none other than Erik the Red. This is where his son, Leif, was born, and this was the base for several exploratory trips along the east coast of Canada, as far as L’Anse au Meadows in Newfoundland. After a box lunch we explored several archeological diggings. Of a home, a barn, a long-house and a church. Yes, these Vikings were Christianized and this village was the most remote western outpost of the Catholic Church at the time it was settled, in the late 9th century. It remained inhabited until sometime in the middle of the 15th century, when it was abandoned due to much colder climate, too many ice bergs and too little arable land left to sustain a village.

In the early evening we returned to the boat and chugged back across the fjord to the hotel and more lectures including the history and archaeology digs we had just seen. We also learned what we would be doing the following day.

The next morning we again boarded a boat for an hour-long trip to Narssaq where we visited the shrimp processing plant and watched an Inuit kayaking demonstration among small icebergs. The lunch on the boat on the way back to Narssaq consisted of shrimp sandwiches and soft drinks. The ride was choppy, my stomach was … unsettled. I ate, but the lunch didn’t stay with me long. What I tasted of the sandwich was good. What was more bothersome was how the tour conductors disposed of the paper plates and cups, and remainders of the lunch – by tossing them overboard, with the excuse that they would soon vanish or be eaten.

When we returned to the hotel, we changed socks and picked up snacks for the next event, a long hike across a low mountain to Gardhar, another former Viking settlement, and now a small Inuit village. Gardhar was very much off the beaten path with no road, just a well worn footpath. Several older hikers opted out of the hike because the uphill parts would be too steep.

Gardhar had a population of about 150, and included a small school, medical office and a church, along with several dwellings. Here, too, were several diggings but not active at the time. The Inuit we met spoke no English, and little Danish, so we had an interpreter who helped them show us costumes, and to translate several songs a group of children performed for us.

After a couple of hours we left for the hike back to the hotel, and the promise of a good dinner. Along the way we were treated to a lovely sunset over the fjord. We returned to the hotel late in the evening tired and very, very hungry.

The dinner was a wonderful meal of boiled Arctic char (similar to salmon but with white meat), boiled potatoes and local vegetables that could be grown during their short season – baby carrots and cabbage. After the delicious dinner we had a trip critique and a short movie, before we collapsed into our beds.

The next morning we boarded the plane and flew back to Reykjavik, Iceland, a mere two-hour trip back to civilization.