Why this ride
It goes by way of Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming, Qaqortukulooq and back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Igaliku and Qaqortukulooq · 18 km
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 18 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 19 min
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Igaliku
A motorcycle is an awkward guest in southern Greenland, and Igaliku is the reason to think about it carefully. There is no road network linking the settlements here; you reach them by boat, helicopter, or on foot, and the tracks between the farms are short and local. Nevertheless this is one of the great historical landscapes of the Arctic, and it deserves a place in any ride that dreams about the edge of the map.
Read the complete Igaliku write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Igaliku is where the day begins. Next is Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming.
2. Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Kujataa is south Greenland at its gentlest, which is a relative term. The fjords here are deep, the mountains are steep, and the glacier is never far away, but in summer the valleys are green with grass and dotted with sheep. This is where Norse settlers from Iceland arrived in the tenth century, led, according to the sagas, by Erik the Red, and where Inuit hunters and Norse farmers lived within reach of each other for centuries. UNESCO listed the area in 2017 as a cultural landscape of farming at the edge of the habitable world.
Read the complete Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming comes up about 3 km into the recorded legs. Next is Qaqortukulooq.
3. Qaqortukulooq
The last time anyone wrote about a living person at Hvalsey, they were writing about a wedding. In September 1408, a couple were married in the church there, and that is the final entry in the written record of the Norse settlement in Greenland. What happened afterwards, whether people died out, left or moved on, is still a mystery. The ruin, which the Greenlanders call Qaqortukulooq, is the best-preserved Norse building in the country, a church of grey stone with high gables, built around the year 1300, standing beside a small bay under green hills, with its walls still more than four metres high.
Read the complete Qaqortukulooq write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 9 km into the recorded legs you reach Qaqortukulooq. Next is back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming.
4. back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming, late in the day. Next is Igaliku.
5. Igaliku
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Igaliku write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Igaliku. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Igaliku to Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Igaliku → Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming to Qaqortukulooq
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming → Qaqortukulooq is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qaqortukulooq to back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Qaqortukulooq → back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming to Igaliku
back through Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming → Igaliku is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.