Why this ride
On the way it passes Igaliku, Sissarluttoq and back through Igaliku.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Qassiarsuk and Sissarluttoq
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. Qassiarsuk
Qassiarsuk is a sheep farming settlement of a few dozen people on the green side of a fjord in southern Greenland, and for a few years around the year 1000 it was the centre of European Greenland. The Norse chieftain Erik the Red, banished from Iceland for killing, arrived here in the 980s, built a farm that he named Brattahlíð, and became the leader of a colony that would eventually number several thousand. His son Leif, called the Lucky, sailed from here to the shores of North America.
Read the complete Qassiarsuk write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Qassiarsuk is where the day begins. Next is Igaliku.
2. 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 comes up about 5 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sissarluttoq.
3. 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
about 9 km into the recorded legs you reach Sissarluttoq. Next is back through Igaliku.
4. 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
back through Igaliku, late in the day. Next is Qassiarsuk.
5. Qassiarsuk
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Qassiarsuk write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Qassiarsuk. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Qassiarsuk to Igaliku
Qassiarsuk → Igaliku is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Igaliku to Sissarluttoq
Igaliku → Sissarluttoq is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sissarluttoq to back through Igaliku
Sissarluttoq → back through Igaliku is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Igaliku to Qassiarsuk
back through Igaliku → Qassiarsuk is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.