IQALUIT
What started in a bar in South Africa ended last month after 56 days of kite-powered skiing around the Greenland ice cap.

Eric McNair-Landry and Dixie Dansercoer celebrate after completing the first circumnavigation of Greenland's ice cap June 3. - photo courtesy of Eric McNair-Landry

With that, Iqaluit's Eric McNair-Landry and Belgian Dixie Dansercoer completed the first full circumnavigation of the ice cap without the assistance of motorized vehicles.

McNair-Landry got the idea while talking to Sam Deltour over drinks in Cape Town after Deltour and Dansercoer failed to complete the circle of a similar trip around Antarctica. Deltour dropped out of the Greenland expedition, and Dansercoer was planning a parallel trip, so instead of competing, McNair-Landry and Dansercoer joined forces.

"The first two weeks were pretty horrible," McNair-Landry said, noting high winds and heavy snow. "At one point, we were five days in the tent. We were in the tent almost 11 days in the first two weeks, pinned down, unable to go anywhere with high winds, 40 to 45 knots. We could have thrown our hat in at the beginning. We were averaging 20 km per day, and when you start doing the map, we'd be out there indefinitely trying to do 4,000 km."

And the temperature wasn't making it any easier.

"It was colder than we expected," he said, noting it went as low as -28 C. "It does get quite warm in Greenland at times, and this was not one of those times. But we went a bit early. We had to ask permission from the Greenland government to go as early as we did, so in that way, we were kind of asking for it."

Once the pair was able to escape the troublesome starting point, conditions were extremely favourable, and they sped around the island in a little more than 40 days. They were hauling enough food for 80 days, about 180 kg each.

The trip started and ended in Tasiilaq, and the skiers travelled along a line about 2,000 metres above sea level.

"We went through a whole bunch of areas where no one had gone through before," he said. "There was some scientific data, just theoretical data on what the winds did, and they all predicted really low winds for those areas, so that made it a challenging trip."

One highlight was a stop near DYE-2, a distant early warning line site long abandoned save for an American couple that has a camp set up nearby.

"There are two people who I know quite well from other trips, Drew Abbott and Silver Williams, so we stopped in and spent two days in and around their place," he said.

"It's a cross-point for shorter trips, so we met some

Brits doing an expedition through there also. It was a highlight of the trip to see other people."

For McNair-Landry, the social aspect of this type of trip is critical.

"I've never done a solo trip," he said. "I much prefer to work as part of a team. That can be a huge limiting factor. If you are going to do a long hunting trip, you're going to want a buddy. And asking someone to take two to four months out of their life is very difficult, let alone that they need to have the right skill set."

By Day 47, the pair had surpassed the Arctic distance record of 3,120 km established by Adrian Hayes, Devon McDiarmid and Derek Crowe in 2009. But 12 days after celebrating their new record, McNair-Landry and Dansercoer discovered that a second team had surpassed their mark by more than 1,000 km, covering 5,067 km in 58 days.

Although the mark was surpassed, it was a joy to set a record, and to accomplish the feat. McNair-Landry credits living in Iqaluit with having a great venue to practise his kite-skiing skills.

The expedition helped provide climate scientists with ground data previously only available by satellite, and the explorers served as real-time calibrators to ensure data was accurate.

"They're looking at temperature and humidity and energy transfer," he said. "It all ties into climate change, so having ground data is important to them. No one has gone up onto the ice cap on the east coast of Greenland. It isn't attractive to expeditions and it's very difficult to get to."

And he's going back in two years to try again.

"We'd like to extend the scientific aspects and bring better equipment," McNair-Landry said. "There was a lot of learning on this expedition that can be brought forward."

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