Canoe Center

Day 4 of the Arctic Circle Trail
Km hiked today: 27
I miss: Having dry feet. My gosh it's wet here.

We woke up to rain hitting the tent. It sounded pretty bad, so we pulled down our beanies one more time, only to wake up to footsteps passing an hour later. "The runners," I thought. They had woken up early if they passed us already. We had last seen them the evening before at the Canoe Center, which is a big run-down hut by Amitsorsuaq Lake. There are supposed to be canoes there, free to use for anyone, but when we got there, there was only one left. The shittiest canoe I've ever seen in my entire life. It had dents and holes everywhere, and water was flowing in as soon as we pulled it into the water. We took it for a test ride during which I did not feel comfortable at all. I was envisioning us rolling over, our packs sinking to the bottom of the lake, us alone in Greenland without food. Mario, of course, envisioned the opposite, a happy canoe ride through Greenland. After he had patched up three holes with duct tape and found two big trash bags in the hut, he convinced me to get in and paddle. We threw our packs into the bags and tied our hiking poles to the life vest. Then we chose one of the five homemade paddles which were scattered along the beach. I chose a wooden—let's call it—spoon, and then we went for it. Everything went smoothly, and we reached our destination safely and almost dry.

But back to the tent. "It probably sounds much worse than it is. Get up!" one of the three runners yelled. So we poked our heads out of the tent, and it was not that bad at all. Almost no rain. The tent had fooled us. So now we were up and running, but late. This section was the hilliest one of all the sections. We followed the trail up a beautiful mountain and were rewarded with a stunning view. Then the trail dropped back down into a big buggy valley. Remember that scene in Lord of the Rings where Gollum guides Frodo and Sam through a swamp and there are dead people everywhere? That's what it looked like.

We crossed a river and saw no dead people but a tiny motorboat and an Inuit family heading upstream. The reindeer hunt begins in two days, so all the locals are heading out into the wild to get the best shot. We, on the other hand, ended up camping by Eqalugaarniarfik Hut on top of a hill. We met up with the runners again and met two Inuit ladies who were heading out when we were having dinner. I have never seen anyone hike out that late without a good reason, but these two just liked to hike until 2 a.m. That's it, that's all. Looking forward to tomorrow.