X’GREENLAND MAY-JUNE 2023

PATRICK, CATHERINE , STEPHANIE, OLEKSANDER, ROBERT, MARGRETHA & CAROLINE

Day 0: COUNT DOWN

We are nearing the time we will all meet for real! Wednesday the cargo with equipment etc will leave Norway. Then the guides will show up to see that everything is in our storage and look over the equipment.

Then next week everybody will arrive, and we will work, pack, test, talk, weigh and have some fun. Get our shoulders down and smiles up!

See you soon!

Day -4: SEE YOU SOON

Finally here we are, we have been there for 3 days now to prepare the sleds and the rest of the technical equipment. All that's missing is you!
Everything will happen very quickly in the next few days. The nights are short and the sun rolls over the horizon without even hiding.
It is very plesent this week. Arnaud, Margretha and I went to see the starting point of the expedition, on the way we saw several reindeer, partridges, muskox and hares.
We will pack all the food together and will be meeting at the good restaurant to taste specialities of the place tomorrow. It's spring and we're almost ready to start this great adventure.  

Caro, Maggie, Arnaud 

Day -3: THIS IS THE START

As the first teammmates are trickling in from around the world and preparations continue, we wanted to show you the first glimps of the Inland Ice. It is truely beautiful, but daunting at the same time :-)

We are leaving tomorrow, see you on the other side !

Caro and team.

Day 1 on the ice!

Finally. After a quick breakfast inside and a warm shower, we left the hotel Old Camp. Thanks to everyone out there, they were so kind with us!

Arnaud’s team said bye to us.

We carried everything from our starting point and did 4,25 km in a snow labyrinth.

We just entered our 3 tents. It’s really warm and we may have some rain tonight. We have to find a good routine for the next weeks now. We will try to send good pictures and vocal messages in the next days 😄 . Enjoy the Audio diary below!

From the team: Mag, Robert, Cath, Pat, Steph, Alex, Caro

day 2,

We started the day right on time at 8am. It was cloudy at first but the sun was soon to announce its presence and did a very good job at warming us up!

We’re still working our way through the icefall, which involves a fair amount of up and down, and which made for slow going especially with our sleds still pretty much at full weight.

Good news is that we were able to get on our skis at about lunch time which made progress a little quicker (and it’s what we’re here for !) Other than that it was a gorgeous day with very little wind and temperatures hovering around zero Celsius.

I want to say a special hello to Dusty and Wendy.

Looking forward to day 3, bring it on!

Steph

Day 3.

Hi friends and family. This is Maggie.

We have had the sun shining and plus degrees. So hot on the ice. And we have polar sleeping beds. Warm nights.

We are working our way up up and up. Never ending hill. But we are all with good spirit, and when needed we all help each other. Great team.

Today we really got to feel how important water and food is on an expedition. So more of that tomorrow! The scenery is just amazing.

Talk to you tomorrow!

day 4

Hi all. Still very warm. Still only skiing in base layers. In the end the clouds came in and we skied the last hour in white out.

We did our first 20km. That we had to celebrate. Time to take out the Akvavit bottle. We put the bearings at Dye II, an old building located in the middle of nowhere, so good feeling. Great snow conditions. Now there is a music party in the camp and we are having dinner.

Team on the ice

Day 5

It feels so great to finally enter the big plateau. There is not much to see, only the beautiful white landscape on 360 degrees. It’s a nice feeling to go east and just think about skiing. No need to check emails or our phones here. It’s pure silence. Air is fresh.

We meet in the early evening for a good meal in the tent. We have to be careful because we already smell like strange creatures after the long days of pulling our sleds!

We did a big 17k. We are all good and happy.

Have a great week everyone !

Day 6

Hi hi!

We had a shorter day today due to heavy headwinds this morning so we left our tents at midday. The first few hours were straight into the strong winds but eventually they died down and we managed a respectable 12km in 6 hours.

We’re all looking forward to getting in our sleeping bags tonight and having a solid day tomorrow with hopefully less wind and lower temperatures (which will make for less sticky snow !)

Steph

Day 7

Hello everyone! Caro here.

Today was nice because we celebrated our 100km on the snow!

Navigating in a whiteout can be hard. All of the team members went in the front to lead the way. We were able to do a bit more than 18k. Robert is listening some Metallica music, Steph and Cath are writing their diaries. Life is good! I hope it’s not too warm in Montreal!

Here it’s perfect weather 😄 We look forward to May 17th, Maggie is preparing a Norwegian birthday party!

Day 8

The story of our intrepid adventurers continues under the wise and fearless leadership of Carro and Maggie.

Today as we made our way through a whiteout we stumbled across a frost giant, known to some a Yeti - one of the giants of old. The frost giant emerged from the whiteout, as the the nature of these mythical beings for it is only when visibility is poor they appear amongst the cloud and snow.

Little is know about frost giants, and what is recorded in lore is assuredly wild conjecture made by silly little men. This frost giant was perhaps 20 feet tall, a little small for a giant of old but monstrous compared to us humans. It was covered in a fine white fur that had a mysterious ability to blended with the hue of the light of day and cloud shadow. Perfect camouflage. On his back he wore an old blue canvas backpack with bed roll and tin cup attached to the outside.

The frost giant introduced himself as Svrre in perfect French. Luckily we have 3 French Canadians on our team so they were able to translate.

“Svrre is the name of my nephew” exclaimed Maggie, which Carro translated. The frost giant turned gently, looked at Maggie, and said “I know”.

Svrre invited us to join him for some tea, which as it turns out was basically melted snow and gin. Catherine, whose pallet was more refined than the rest of us due to the fact she is a master chocolateer, thought she could taste something a little different about the gin. She asked Svrre what else was in the tea. The giant replied “the gin is infused with sense of direction. This tea is how we frost giants are always sure of where we are going, even in the worst whiteouts.”

Catherine asked where the gin came from but Svrre politely declined to answer saying “It is improper to answer such questions in frost giant culture”.

We sat on our sleds, while Svrre sat cross legged on the snow, and spent a while sipping tea and talking about esoteric subjects like what a butterflies favourite dance was, the going price of mackerel per barrel and what dreams stars dreamt when they went to bed for the day. You could tell be the way he spoke and the look in his eyes that he treated all topics with great importance.

Sadly we could not stay long as we had many more kilometers to cover before the days end. So we thanked the giant for his hospitality and prepared to depart. As we were leaving he asked if we had seen any crystal tigers on our journey. We said no - not even knowing what they were.

“Not many people have seen a crystal tiger” he said. “They are difficult to spot. They are often only seen as a far off glint in the distance, in the corner of your eye”.

Before we could ask anything more the giant turn slowly and lumbered off into the fog of the whiteout.

…

Day is over. 1/4 of the expedition in the bag. Big hugs to family and friends from Greenland.

Day 9, What a day!

Since the morning we were constantly in a complete whiteout what made a navigation very tricky for everyone. Afternoon it started also to be a bit colder than in previous days. Despite this we managed to cover 20 km. We also can celebrate a bit crossing the line of Arctic Circle!

All team feels good and happy in camp n. 9

Cheers to our friends and families! Robert

Day 10

day 11

Alex, one of the team members of our group here wrote a fantastic story. He wanted to share it with you!

The Northern Wisps

… Morning …

As Alex packed his sled for yet another day, he momentarily thought he saw in the corner of his eye the same horned dark figure in the distance he saw the day before. But just like before when he went to take a second look there was nothing there. “Déjà vu” he thought to himself.

… Later …

The team was progressing slowly across the never ending frozen landscape that is Greenland. It was yet another 50/10 minute split. 50 minutes hard work, 10 minutes break.

From time to time on sunny days they would hear a “thump”. This was common enough and not worth too much concern in Greenland where the terrain was so flat it did not mean risk of avalanche. Just the sound of layers of snow collapsing under their own weight.

Thump.

The team thought nothing of it.

Thump.

Thump.

This was a little odd, thumps don’t often come in such quick succession.

All of a sudden the the thumps began to become more frequent and could be heard in all directions around the team.

“Oo la la” exclaimed Carro in her French Canadian accent with a slight look of concern as she surveyed the landscape around the team.

“Everybody stay very still” she yelled out to the team.

It didn’t take much to convince the team to stop. Any chance of a brief respite from the endless grid of hauling sleds was always welcome.

The ground around the team stared to move. Cracks appeared and small spurts of snow shot up between the them as air push though. The snow began to undulate.

“I know what this is! Stay very still!” yelled Carro again.

The team started looked worried.

“Don’t worry everyone. We’ve accidentally interrupted some hibernating Wisps” Carro explained quickly to try and allay the team’s concern.

“Some hibernating what?” asked Patrick

“Ah, well you see, Wisps are…” and before Carro could explain further, plates of snow started to curl up from the ground, and from underneath emerged the most curious of creatures. The snow gently shed off their backs onto the ground as they emerged. The Wisps looked similar manta rays but much thinner and almost completely translucent, save for the faintest of coloured hues. Some were gradiented yellow and green and others pink and purple. They slowly ripped their wings floating and gliding through the air gently ascending further.  Each Wisp was a different size. Some measured only roughly the size of a bicycle wheel while others appeared to be the size of a billboard.

As one emerged from the ground its wing brushed against Alex who lost his balance and fell over.

“These are Wisps” said Carro outstretching her arms, turning on the spot and wearing a big smile on her face. “They are the source of the Northern Lights”

“They a secret known only to polar explorers and one that is tightly controlled by the UN”

“I have seen Southern Wisps when I was skiing to the South Pole”

“I was not expecting to see them here because it is the wrong time of year. During the summer when there is constant light in the sky they hibernate just under the surface of the snow.”

“But I guess we must have accidentally woken them from their slumber.”

The Wisps flight, which at first chaotic, began to coalesce and the Wisps stared to fly in unison in an ever expanding spiral.

“If we’re lucky we’ll see them synchronise” explained Carro and sure enough the faint coloured hues of each Wisp started to change to the same yellow and green gradient, painting the sky. The colour was soft and difficult to see in the light of the day, after all it was not their season and Wisps are most brilliant at night.

The Wisps rose higher and flew further away as a chorus of soft simmering light, eventually disappearing into the horizon.

“Where have they gone?” asked Robert

“To find a new place to rest until the next season when they will grace the night’s sky again” replied Carro

… Later …

 The sight of the Northern Wisps played through Patrick’s mind as he pushed through yet another 50/10 split. He was leading the pack this turn and briefly stopped to check his bearing. As he looked from compass to horizon searching for any little bit of variation in the snow by which to navigate he thought saw something glisten in the distance. “A crystal tiger perhaps” he joked to himself knowing full well it was most likely just sun reflecting off some ice.

day 12, 17th May, norwegian national day

We woke up this morning and we had a great view on our next waypoint: an old American base station in the middle of Greenland. We were able to see it from 20 km away!

It’s nice to have a visual about something that was built by humans, there has been no trace of humans since we left Kangerlussuaq !

We celebrated Norwegian national day in a beautiful sunny day. We are now in the tent boiling water. Tomorrow it’s Robert’s birthday 🥳 !

Caro

day 13

Hi hi everyone!

This is Steph and Caro 😄

We started the day in a dreamy ambience this morning and the wind rose up and now all the team is all together in one tent. We listened to some Metallica and celebrated Robert’s birthday.

We had our longest day yet (22km) and we are supposed to get strong winds tonight. We will probably wake up to our strongest winds encountered so far on this trip tomorrow morning. Maybe gusts of up to 90km/hr., in which case we will call it a tent morning.

Excited to almost be reaching the halfway point.

I (Steph) want to say a special hello to my boyfriend, friends and family following along. I miss you all and see you all soon!

day 14

Hi hi!

Stormy day with whiteout!

All the team will sleep well tonight. Zzz

day 15

Hi hi! Wind has set and we woke up ready to get some km behind us. We can start feeling the 15 days out now. Some blisters, smal frost bites and some red noses. But all in all we are doing very good. Looks like we are just behind a storm. So we have a good window. Today we did 21km and we all says us happy with that. We are still going up, Next 4 days and then hopefully we can start feeling some more sliding on our skiis. Today we all did some housework in the tent. Some cleaning of our home. Feel so good. Maybe we will but on some new socks as well.

More to come but now a Michelin start Real Turmat dry food is eaten and it’s time for bed. And maybe a movie in the sleeping bag. Good night.

day 16

Good morning friends and family!

Brrr it’s cold here.

We took the decision to leave the camp at 8h this morning and we were brought by the wind 20km closer to the east coast! We skied with this wind in our back and it was pushing us in the right direction. The summit, the elevation point, the highest of our itinerary is really close now.

Tomorrow we will unfortunately have some wind in the face. We will try to get up early to do as much as possible.

Stay warm !! Team Sastrugis surfers

day 17

Hellooo everyone!

I am currently writing from the comfort of our very warm tent after finishing at midday today. We only managed 4 legs until the headwinds and whiteout hit us with full force. With that, and under the wise guidance of Caro, we decided to set up camp for the day.

These winds are forecasted to continue into tomorrow which means we may have a few more tent hours, but we will see. Everyone is in high spirits and we are all looking forward to soon starting our descent back to sea level. This will mean warmer weather, more efficient skiing and brings us closer to a shower.

Special hugs and kisses to my boyfriend, I hope you are warm and out of the wind! -Steph

day 18

Today we are tent bound. Too windy to go out! We play cards and Alex wrote a small story inspired about the last days. Tomorrow we should be able to move!

Here is Alex’s tale:

The Aeronauts

The team had made camp for the night - if you could call it that with the constant light of the Greenland summer. They had made some good progress, but with many hundreds of kilometers yet to go it still felt like a monumental task lay ahead.

Catherine had exited the tent to get something from her sled. After finding what she was looking for she turned back towards the tent and unexpectedly saw a hot air balloon drift by land with a soft thud behind Patrick’s and Robert’s tent.

The presence of a hot air balloon is strange enough in Greenland, but what was stranger still was this one only about the 1.5m high.

Understandably intrigued by what she saw she made her way over to where the balloon had landed.

Rounding the corner of the tent she didn’t know quite how to react.

Three little mice clambering out of the basket, which had fallen over. Squeaks were heard as they helped each other out.

The mice wore little aviator googles and caps and little down jackets with Rab logos on them.

Knowing the team would want to see this, Catherine raced between each tent encouraging everyone to stop melting snow and come outside.

Catherine led the team to the landing site where they saw the balloon, limp on the ground, and the three little mice.

One mouse noticed the team coming toward them. The mouse separated from her compatriots and scurried across the freezing cold snow to meet them.

Standing on its hind legs and pointing to the balloon the mouse made several squeaks. Catherine kneeled down in front of the mouse and said to the the team “I think they want our help”.

A few more squeak were emitted from the mouse followed by a cough and and a clearing of the throat.

“Ah that’s better” said the mouse.

“Let me introduce myself. My name is Amelia, first officer, and over there are Atticus, second officer, and Agatha. We’re aeronauts and our balloon seems to have hit a spot of bother. Could you help us? It’s terribly important that we get back into the air as quickly as we can.”

The mouse had an unmistakable British accent.

“We’d love to help you” replied Catherine, speaking for the team knowing full well they would not want to see anyone stranded in the vast unforgiving landscape that is Greenland.

Atticus and Agatha had scurried over to join Amelia addressing the team.

“Jolly good” replied Atticus. “You see we’re in a bit of a hurry. We’re in a race around the world and we can’t let those bloody French win”

“A race? Around the world? The French?” questioned Steph

“Oh yes, it’s the Great Mouse Balloon Race. Held every year. A tradition between the British Royal Mouse Aeronautics Society and the French La Société Des Souris Aéronautique.” explained Agatha.

“We have a good chance to beat the French this year but equipment failure has momentarily got the better of us.”

“We saw your camp from the sky and thought you may be able to help. We think one of the burners is clogged.”

Maggie pipped up “I have a MSR repair kit. I’d be happy to take a look at your balloon’s burner”.

With that the team and the mice collected the balloon and brought it inside one of the tents for repair. They spent the evening working together on the balloon. As they worked, the teams shared stories of their adventures and the Greenland team shared some of their food with the mice. The mice particularly enjoyed the Havarti cheese Alex shared from his rations and the Aquavit Maggie had left over from a previous day’s celebration.

After a few hours of tinkering around, tightening anything that needed tightening, cleaning anything that needed cleaning, and patching anything that needed patching, the balloon was ready to set flight.

They took it outside the tent and ignited the burner which took a few goes due to cold. Success! Hot air started to fill the balloon. The two teams exchanged goodbyes and well wishes. Patrick handed the mice a small care parcel of goodies for the rest of journey which included some chocolate liquors left over from Robert’s birthday celebration.

“Thank you fellow adventures” squeaked Amelia as the balloon started to pull at its mooring, a spare snow peg. “If you’re ever in London do stop by. We’ll do tea. Agatha makes a mean lemon drizzle cake”

And with the three mice in the balloon’s basket Amelia released the mooring rope and the balloon rose into the sky and out of sight… hopefully hot on the heels of those bloody French.

day 19

Hi hi!

We are celebrating our summit today. We reached the highest point of our itinerary and we took a picture of all the team for you! 25,7 km, this is our best distance done.

Cheers, The sastrugi surfers

day 20

Oh wow!

It was a sunny day and we needed one after a long week without seeing it. This morning all the tents were frozen. We had one of our coldest nights. Brrr!

The day became warmer and warmer with a beautiful light and no wind. Everyone did some cleaning in their sleds! Some of us ate outside.

We were happy because we were able to dry our sleeping bags on our way to the camp located 25km from the place we slept last night!

We start early tomorrow. We miss you all.

day 21

Yahoo!

Today we pushed hard and we succeeded!

27.60 km done. Cath and Patrick

day 22

day 23, greenland crossing

Hi!

Here we have a lot of fun. Big hugs from Greenland.

Today; beautiful sunny and warm.

Team 1 XX

day 24

Hello this is Cath, Today was a beautiful sunny day that really put all the team in a good mood. We did push a lot again today.

We finally got out of a huge sastrugis field and we are starting to descend yeah. We are starting to feel the end approaching really fast. It’s a mixture of feeling happy to be so close to our goal but also maybe starting to feel nostalgic about Greenland.

We are lucky to have this amazing team of funny people from around the world.

day 25

Good afternoon friends and family,

Today we were able to go so far! We achieved a distance of 32km. Weather was warm and we can feel that we are going down now.

In the tent tonight we repair our clothes that we are wearing since almost one month already. Tomorrow there maybe some rain on the forecast. Oho!

We will try our best to do another 30km.. Have a good day Team 1

Day 26, and the the end is in sight

To quote the Beatles “yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away”… the memories of the mammoth task that lay before us are distant.

Day 26 and the the end is in sight. Not geographically but emotionally. We haven’t seen the coast yet but we’re now only a few days away from completing our epic journey.

Our conversations have turned to what fresh food we want to eat when we’re back in civilization, the cleanse of a nice long shower and the magic that is running hot water from a tap.

We all stink (so, so bad!) and are sore and tired but spirits are high and ready to push for Day 27.

Alex

day 27 , Mountains on sight!

Mountains on sight!

For the first time this month we can see in the background the beautiful mountains of the eastern coast and even some glaciers in the fjords. The air smells good, and we did around 32 km.

Tomorrow we aim to the last waypoint already. Nothing is done yet because it’s a part where we need to take our time.

We can’t wait to reach the small village Isortoq, where an helicopter will come and pick us up in the next days but at the same time we all feel that this amazing journey just started only some days ago. We became friends, adventure partners and the return back to civilization will be so different from our way of life here in the outdoor!!

We look forward to seeing our families soon.

Thank you to Ousland expedition for the great experience of a true polar trip that we will never forget. A huge thank you to Lars Ebbesen the weatherman and strategist of the expedition. Kathinka the polar mom, Rune and Alf!

We almost made it, only a few kilometers more 😄 “Adventures are always better when shared with others” - Team 1

Day 29th, We can now say that we crossed the Greenland icecap.

We had to reach the place where Salo, a kind man from Isortoq would take us to the village for the next days. We had to carry our sleds on the ice of the fjord to meet him.

The view was grandiose!! Fog and sun were dancing together in the morning.

We manage to do 2.4km in 3h20 and the place was full of life; birds, seals and other animals were so close to us.

We were 7 people that didn’t know each other at the beginning but become friends along the way. Our strong bond made us succeed. We said we succeeded because our values of will, passion and friendship are still after 29 days the main link that allows us to finish this beautiful story together.

Robert, Cath, Mag, Steph, Alex, Pat and I will have a lot to share with you when we will be home.

Caroline

A post Script

Greenland reminded everyone in the team that this is a true expedition in a truly remote area with very scares infrastructure.

The way home became another adventure in the adventure.  Bad weather made use of helicopter impossible. But as a luck of stoke a huge storm not long ago crushed a lot of the ice close to shore. The following western winds pushed all that out a bit and created the possibility for small boats to push through. The locals here are phenomenal hunters and seamen. So, believe it or not, for the first time in more that 35 years, we were able to transport from Isortoq and the ice-edge to Tasiilaq by boat in the spring. THAT is an immense experience!

In fact, they used boats both over to Tasiilaq AND on to Kulusuk for the flight to Iceland. It was a lot of hard core pushing and showing ice away to create a path and try not too be stuck. – Guess they all understood how Nansen had to fight to get through the packice and reach shore…

Now, everyone is home and, we hope, happy and hungry for more?

We at Ousland are really impressed. Big Congratulations!!!