.A Winter Journey in Greenland.

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At the time a few people jokingly told us our timing was perfect, there was no better place to be in the world than Greenland, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to ramp up a gear in Europe. It was the end of March, but already the wisdom-giving glasses of hindsight show how naïve we were to think that this would all blow over quickly, and that self-isolation was an excuse for an impromptu holiday.

In those few weeks, Annie and I swapped one form of isolation for another: the exquisite blue-white surroundings of frozen lakes and mountains in western Greenland, for self-imposed imprisonment as we avoid contact with others for the next two weeks, following a few days traipsing through the viral minefields of international airports. We cut the trip short just in time as cases began to emerge in Greenland, and took one of the last flights out of the country for the foreseeable future. In the inter-connected world that we live in, not even Greenland is that far away.

Having travelled there in 2018, during the short arctic summer, we were looking forward to feeling the calming, humbling influence of the huge landscape in its winter coat. That summer, we followed sandy river valleys and the higher, sparser areas of tundra that allowed some of the best adventure riding that I’ve ever been lucky enough to enjoy. In winter, lakes, rivers and swamps freeze up hard, and the local Greenlandic population have made use of them for thousands of years, following the topography to take the line of least resistance inland toward winter hunting grounds. This has become the Arctic Circle trail, a summer hiking trail between the settlements at Kangerlussuaq and Sisimiut, but Greenlanders have always known that it’s better to travel in the winter, when dog sleds and snowmobiles make the 120 mile trip between the two towns far quicker.

We love the cold; proper cold that is, not the grey shmung that passes for winter in the UK most of the time. Give us a week’s supplies, and and the lonely line of the single trail through silent valleys, and we will be quite happy, thank you very much! We just love the ebb and flow of the journey. The trail travels first along the head of a frozen fjord, before turning inland and linking a series of huge lakes — with all the features covered in snow and the flat winter light, it’s easy to get disorientated and think that you’re pedalling toward a rock a few hundred metres away. More than once I got grumpy that we weren’t getting any closer to our agreed lunch stop, when we checked the map and realised it was 10km away!

Winter was particularly cold in western Greenland, with temperatures regularly approaching -50 degrees. Luckily things had warmed up whilst we were there, but the air still hovered around -20 degrees for much of the day. At that temperature, your clothes sound like a crisp packet, and taking off your gloves even to do a small task is not a good idea. Unlike the damp winters of the UK, that deep arctic cold goes straight to the core of your body immediately. It was frightening on occasions to feel how quickly the warmth that’s keeping you alive could be sucked out within seconds of stopping, but learning how to adapt to those challenges is part of what we enjoy so much about travelling in new environments.

We used Salsa Mukluks shod with 5” studded tyres to carry us and our gear across the snow, with some key components swapped out to Hope, since I trust them a lot more when heavy loads and remoteness are involved. Living in Canada last winter, I learned that Hope brakes perform well when it’s super cold, when a lot of others tend to feel like they’re full of golden syrup.

Dotted along the trail are a series of free huts, similar to a Scottish bothy in size and level of luxury, but they were a very welcome sight when one of them coincided with the end of the day. After melting snow on the stove to make dinner and fill the flasks, one of us would stick our head outside to see if the aurora was lighting the sky — it usually was. The warmth of the sleeping bag is always tempting, but I’ll never get bored of watching the lights.

We arrived in Sisimiut just in time to learn what was happening in the rest of the world, with the situation seemingly changing by the hour. Even in Greenland, where life is very different to Europe, cases were emerging and normal life was being put on hold. When the order came that in 48 hours all 74 settlements in Greenland would effectively be going into quarantine, we recognised that it was time to go home — the places we wanted to go would still be there afterwards, and there were more important things to think about than a bike trip. In the space of a few days, we went from enjoying a night inside and eating as much food as we could, to sitting anxiously at the small airfield, hoping that the delays due to strong winds from the ice cap wouldn’t lead to us missing our flight home, mulling over the sudden unemployment that’s hit us and all freelance outdoor instructors, and coming to terms as quickly as we could with what is going to be a very different future to what we anticipated.

Bikes rides often produce a good story though, and at least we have this story to share and remember until we can live the next one. Now is the time to share your own stories of adventures, look after the friends you enjoyed them with, and think about how cool it will be to make more stories when things are looking a little brighter.

Words and Pictures: Huw Oliver