The wind had died down to a whisper during the night, and when nature called early the next morning, I unfolded myself from the tent and was greeted by clear blue skies reflecting into the lake and illuminating the ice sheet in the distance. Perfect!
We had an early breakfast of tea and (for me) hot muesli served with the ever-versatile coconut milk powder, and discussed the plans for the day which involved a hike with the main objectives of seeing wildlife and views (spoiler alert: tick! tick!).
(Left) Early morning view from the tent across to the ice cap.
Jens-Pavia packed his 'day sack' (actually still his main ruck sack) with lunch, waterproofs (unlikely though the morning's weather made them), two First Aid kits and his Polar Bear Spray. Like pepper spray.. but for polar bears, which are extremely rare in this part of Greenland. Jens-Pavia had never seen one in his life. I was pleased to hear this given that you need to be about 2 metres away to effectively deploy the spray (which is then however, highly effective).
Jens-Pavia showed me where the key items were in his rucksack, including a satellite phone, in case I needed to find them. He explained how he sends a daily midday message to someone at base with plans and location. If the message doesn't come through, he carries a location tracker. Precautions which were not at all necessary in our circumstances but certainly makes one feel confident.
As we started on our walk, Jens-Pavia talked about his experiences hunting in the area, in summer and winter and his experience with his Greenland Dogs (a pure bred dog, not to be confused with huskies). An extremely hardy breed, he talked about the temperaments of the different dogs which affected their position in the harness, and how young dogs are introduced to the team. Clearly a great lover of dogs, he also explained the need to punish animals when they went off track: on one occasion, two of his less mature dogs decided to go off chasing hares, putting the sleigh and the team in danger. Returning to Jens-Pavia looking pleased with themselves, he was clearly sad when he talked about the lesson that the dogs needed to learn that this was NOT something they should be proud of. However the dogs are fast learners, and when hares were spotted a couple of weeks later, neither dog flinched but continued with their work pulling the sled.
A beautiful blue sky greets the start of our walk (centre) as does a small herd of musk oxen.
Very soon we spotted our first musk oxen of the day - and took a break to sit down and watch them in the distance. I haven't included any pictures because my phone's zoom is poor however more importantly, we ended up seeing so many musk oxen during the day (we estimated 50-100) I can focus on the better ones. Here are a couple of photos and videos.
Jens-Pavia was concerned about the winter survival prospects the tiny musk ox calf in the centre that had clearly been born late in the season (video below). The bumps at the top of the hill on the right are a herd of musk oxen which hot-footed it up there when they saw us coming. Their strategy is to go to higher ground when they sense danger and it's really surprising how nimble these huge animals can be when they want to be!
We also spotted several caribou / reindeer (same thing), one of which kindly posed for me
(centre) and another which had lost an antler
(right). Jens-Pavia explained that they lose their antlers every year after the rutting season, if they hadn't already lost them in fights. Given the size of some antlers, its amazing how quickly they can grow.
Whilst easily spooked, the wildlife does not appear to be particularly wary of people. The caribou seem to stand still for quite some time and look at you to work out if you're a threat or not, before gracefully trotting off, making them fairly easy prey for hunters.
Hunting is a livelihood for many in the area and although rifles are easily bought (without any checks) in a local supermarket, there are quotas and hunters must have licenses. There are regulations against motorised hunting, in particular using 4WD vehicles, due to the volumes of animals that can be killed and the damage that the vehicles cause to the environment, however it appears that enforcement is pretty lax which is clear from the numerous websites of organisations that offer trophy-hunting in Greenland advertising 4WD transfers of hunters and their bounty to and from their campsites.
This is frustrating for traditional hunters who rely on musk oxen for food and income: both musk oxen and caribou are extremely heavy animals. Jens-Pavia described how the numbers of animals killed should be limited to what a hunter can carry, although this means something else in Greenland where it's not uncommon for (even!) women to carry caribou carcasses distances of several kilometres on their back. I haven't found a single picture on Google where a trophy hunter is carrying (rather than sitting proudly over) an animal. Still, at over $10,000 - $15,000 a pop for trophy hunting, I can see that it could bring an important source of income to an otherwise struggling community. During our 3 days, we didn't see any other people (hunters or otherwise) but we did see a lot of wildlife.
Towards lunchtime, we made our way to the top of one of the highest hills in the area and were greeted with a stunning view of lakes and rivers coming from the ice sheet on one side and flowing down through the tundra on the other.
Here's a link to a 360 video that I took.
We were having a large, and leisurely lunch and chatting about his former career as a navigator for the
Royal Arctic Line (exclusive sea freight operator in Greenland) and subsequently as an officer in
Greenland's Ice Patrol, when Jens-Pavia spotted two Greenland Eagles riding the thermals and circling above us. I lay back and just watched the pair soaring for about five minutes - a magnificent sight. This picture is from the internet but imagine two of these, gliding through a crystal blue sky above your head.
Shortly afterwards, we started our way back and were walking past a lake when we saw a sudden flurry of activity at the lakeside and noticed a flock of tiny ducklings fleeing into the water. Behind us we heard an agitated squawking as the mother duck, flapping her wings wildly, wheelbarrowed her way behind us in a most peculiar fashion, quacking loudly. This continued in the opposite direction to where her ducklings were as she made her way into the lake and then took a zig-zag course out to her ducklings, still wildly rotating her wings, like one of those toy ducks, instead of flying. Jens-Pavia explained that this was a display to distract us (the threat) from her ducklings and the odd flapping was to appear as though she was injured, making her a better target for a predator than her ducklings. I found this
video on line which shows what I mean, something I've never seen before in the UK. That's mothering for you!
We returned at about 5pm, as the weather started getting noticeably cooler and cloudier however less windy than the previous night so we were able to bring the 'kitchen' closer to the tents. Jens-Pavia prepared another scrumptious dinner of musk oxen, whilst I headed to the lake for water for our evening drink of cocoa and for the washing up, as light rain started falling. By the time we'd made it into our tents, the wind had got up again. That night I was lulled to sleep by the pattering of rain on the tent. I made a short recording but I can't work out how to add it to the blog so you'll just have to imagine.
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