Why this ride
The stops in between: Qaqortukulooq, Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming and back through Qaqortukulooq. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Tasikuluulik and Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 19 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 20 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. 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 is where the day begins. Next is Qaqortukulooq.
2. 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 comes up about 4 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming.
3. 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
about 10 km into the recorded legs you reach Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming. Next is back through Qaqortukulooq.
4. 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, late in the day. Next is Tasikuluulik.
5. 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 at Tasikuluulik. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Tasikuluulik to Qaqortukulooq
Tasikuluulik → Qaqortukulooq is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Qaqortukulooq to Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming
Qaqortukulooq → Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming to back through Qaqortukulooq
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming → back through Qaqortukulooq is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Qaqortukulooq to Tasikuluulik
back through Qaqortukulooq → Tasikuluulik is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.