Why this ride
On the way it passes Igaliku, Sissarluttoq, Qaqortukulooq and Tasikuluulik.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Qassiarsuk and Tasikuluulik
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 20 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 21 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 3 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 4 km into the recorded legs you reach Sissarluttoq. Next is Qaqortukulooq.
4. 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, about halfway. Next is Tasikuluulik.
5. 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 sits at 10 km, about halfway. Next is back through Qaqortukulooq.
6. back through 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
back through Qaqortukulooq comes up about 13 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sissarluttoq.
7. 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
about 16 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sissarluttoq. Next is back through Igaliku.
8. 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.
9. 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
The route ends here after 20 km.
Leg by leg
Qassiarsuk to Igaliku
Qassiarsuk → Igaliku is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Igaliku to Sissarluttoq
Igaliku → Sissarluttoq is 2 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sissarluttoq to Qaqortukulooq
Sissarluttoq → Qaqortukulooq is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qaqortukulooq to Tasikuluulik
Qaqortukulooq → Tasikuluulik is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tasikuluulik to back through Qaqortukulooq
Tasikuluulik → back through Qaqortukulooq is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qaqortukulooq to back through Sissarluttoq
back through Qaqortukulooq → back through Sissarluttoq is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sissarluttoq to back through Igaliku
back through Sissarluttoq → back through Igaliku is 2 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Igaliku to Qassiarsuk
back through Igaliku → Qassiarsuk is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.