Why this ride
A 54 km round trip from Qaqortoq - roughly 56 min in the saddle. The stops in between: Sissarluttoq, Igaliku, Tasikuluulik and Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Qaqortukulooq and Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 54 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 56 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. 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
Qaqortukulooq is where the day begins. Next is Sissarluttoq.
2. Sissarluttoq
Greenland has no roads between its towns, and in the south, where the green fjords of Kujataa lie, that fact is both a limit and a charm. The Norse came here in the late tenth century, led by Erik the Red, who settled at Brattahlíð, now the farm of Qassiarsuk, and for nearly five hundred years there were farms, churches and a bishop at Garðar, today's Igaliku. The settlers raised cattle, sheep and goats and hunted seals and walrus, and then, around the fifteenth century, they vanished, for reasons still debated, among them climate, trade and conflict. The Inuit farmers and hunters who live there now raise sheep on the same pastures, and UNESCO listed the Kujataa landscape in 2017 as an example of farming at the edge.
Read the complete Sissarluttoq write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sissarluttoq comes up about 6 km into the recorded legs. Next is Igaliku.
3. 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
about 11 km into the recorded legs you reach Igaliku. Next is Tasikuluulik.
4. Tasikuluulik
In the green fjords of South Greenland, roughly where the ice sheet meets sheep country, lie the ruins of a church that has outlasted the Norse people who built it. Hvalsey, known in Greenlandic as Qaqortukulooq, is the best preserved of all the Norse ruins in Greenland, its gable and walls of local stone still standing against the sky beside a quiet fjord. In 1408 a wedding was held here, and a letter written about it is the last written record of the Norse in Greenland. After that, silence, and no one is sure exactly what happened to the settlers.
Read the complete Tasikuluulik write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Tasikuluulik, about halfway. Next is Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming.
5. 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 sits at 27 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tasikuluulik.
6. back through Tasikuluulik
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tasikuluulik write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Tasikuluulik comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Igaliku.
7. back through 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
about 43 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Igaliku. Next is back through Sissarluttoq.
8. back through Sissarluttoq
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sissarluttoq write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Sissarluttoq, late in the day. Next is Qaqortukulooq.
9. Qaqortukulooq
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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
The route ends here after 54 km.
Leg by leg
Qaqortukulooq to Sissarluttoq
Qaqortukulooq → Sissarluttoq is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sissarluttoq to Igaliku
Sissarluttoq → Igaliku is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Igaliku to Tasikuluulik
Igaliku → Tasikuluulik is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tasikuluulik to Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Tasikuluulik → Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming to back through Tasikuluulik
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming → back through Tasikuluulik is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tasikuluulik to back through Igaliku
back through Tasikuluulik → back through Igaliku is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Igaliku to back through Sissarluttoq
back through Igaliku → back through Sissarluttoq is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sissarluttoq to Qaqortukulooq
back through Sissarluttoq → Qaqortukulooq is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.