Adam Kjeldsen descends a bowl far above Itisoq Fjord before dropping into a cliff-lined chute below. The clouds cleared just as we topped out, giving us an incredible view of the fjord below. Words, Photos and Captions EMILY SULLIVAN FRESH off six weeks of heli-guiding around West Greenland, Adam Kjeldsen is sorting gear on the couch in his parent’s house on a late spring evening in Nuuk, Greenland. At 64 degrees north latitude, the sun won’t set until 10:15 p.m., and a deep orange glow streams through the westward windows overlooking the Nuuk Fjord. It’s taken me three days to travel here from Alaska, but my exhaustion doesn’t register as Kjeldsen describes skiing across the sea ice under pink skies as a child. Affable and charismatic, it’s easy to think of him as an old friend despite a winter’s worth of long-dis-tance correspondence. Having noticed a Greenlandic representation gap in ski media, I reached out to Kjeld-sen to learn about his roots and community. He, in turn, invited me to come over and see it for myself. dic people are accustomed to problem solving, subsistence harvesting, and living in right relation with the land. But there are no roads between settlements, so travel is either by water or air, which can be expensive and difficult. Kjeldsen’s easy smile and calculated skiing are shaped by these realities and a profound connection to Greenland’s vast landscape. Instead of describing his favorite ski line near Nuuk, he’ll describe the local wildlife. He’ll reference the ptarmigan that perch on the surrounding rock walls like tiny sentinels, watching as skiers skin through the canyon below. He might share that his son, Miki, caught his first ptarmigan nearby—a point that brings more pride than a first descent ever could. Finally, he’ll paint a picture of the views: granite walls towering above a glacial amphitheater which tumbles steeply from sum-mit bowl, to couloir, to fjord—a classic Greenlandic ski line. Most ski tourism in Greenland focuses on terrain and largely misses the culture that makes the country so unique. For many, the allures of skiing in remote locales are the uncrowded backcountry, the continuous ski lines from summit to fjord, and the novelty of skiing amongst glaciers from a sailboat. But athletes and tourists who travel to Greenland and forego time in local communities can easily, and unknowingly, miss the depth of the country’s beauty. Greenland is a huge country with a small population. Its 836,300 square miles are mostly covered by the now famously receding icecap, and of the country’s 56,000 residents, the majority are Greenlandic Inuit, or Kalallit peoples. The coastline is dotted with small settlements, ranging from small villages of a few hundred folks to nearly 20,000 residents in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. Greenlan-074 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 3: Page 74
