Reflections
The Greenland Experience
Hi everyone. I’m baaaack! As you can see from the date of this post, I’ve been back for a while – and I’ve been busy.
It was a great trip. Mixed in many ways: difficult physically sometimes, up and down emotionally, full of incredible natural beauty, and in some ways almost surreal. Sometimes I think I haven’t even been there.
We accomplished our primary goal, which was to raise funds as well as inspire others to get involved with the Charitable Organization “Fondation Sur la pointe des pieds” www.pointedespieds.com. We reached our final destiation after four fairly long days of kayaking (15-23 kilometres per day, setting up and taking down camp each day), but the journey was with it. Along the way we passed over a hundred icebergs; sometimes navigating our way through an entire field of them. And when we arrived at our destination, we were surrounded by glaciers making their way down into the ocean.
We had the good fortune of seeing a piece of the glacier fall off and become a new iceberg, and we also had the pleasure of seeing a large iceberg split apart and flip over. It is truly magical. We also had a polar bear within 3 km of our camp on our last night. As much as this sounds potentially exciting, it is quite dangerous. I learned that apparently polar bears are the only bears that have a taste for human blood. This means they won’t simply kill you out of fear or anger, they might hunt you and EAT you. Wow.
We also enjoyed our brief stay in Iceland on the way home. I had been there before, spending over 3 weeks there in 1996 and circling the whole country by car with a British friend of mine. It’s a beautiful and interesting place.
Of course, words will never do it justice. To get a sense of what I’m saying, Google “Greenland” and check out photos of this beautiful country. It is remarkable: vast, largely untouched, rugged, etc. It reminds me a lot of Canada’s remote regions.
