Iceland review - 2002, Page 44

Around noon every day of the summer-season week, a throng of
tourists shows up on a grassy cliff overlooking the Kulusuk harbour
to watch ‘The Kayak Man’, a local hunter who is employed by Air
Iceland to entertain its afternoon guests.
“This is our Kayak Man, Pelle,” announces an Icelandic tour
guide in a logoed fleece. Also named Pelle, this hunter has been
working on these cliffs for two years since the airline’s first Kayak
Man died in 1999. He carries his kayak down the cliff over his shoul-
der, hunting spear in hand. Once in the water, the hunter makes a
wide arc around an ice floe to demonstrate traditional Inuit kayak-
hunting techniques. Ooohs, aaaahs, and rounds of applause fol-
low. Anda, a fellow airline employee and Kulusuk native, performs
next, appearing in the traditional white anorak and seal skin boots
to do a drum dance for the group. The songs that Anda sings every
day are the only kind of music native to Inuit culture. The per-
formance is interesting, but the scene is strange: a loud helicopter
passes overhead midway and, when Anda finishes, the gathered
group quickly claps their approval and scatters to soak up Kulusuk’s
other sights before jogging back to a preflight stop at duty-free.
Not a plane, train, or automobile
The quickest way to get a laugh in Greenland? Ask for a road map.
If you don’t hire a boat to Kulusuk, you’ve got one other option –
chopper. I’ve been escorted to the front passenger seat of the
Tasiilaq-bound helicopter at Kulusuk Airport, strapped into an
alarmingly spare harness by an alarmingly young Danish pilot. As
the helicopter’s blades have already started their slow, deafening
rounds, I point to the headset dangling in front of me and raise my
eyebrows in question to the pilot. He nods solemnly: on they go.
“First time in Greenland?” The pilot points to the plexiglas
underneath our feet that offers a spectacular if vertigo-inspiring
42 ICELAND REVIEW
GETTING AROUND
The Kulusuk Airport is a displaced, silver box whose designer forgot to
draw the line on the old-meets-new aesthetic when adding seal-fur
detail to the stainless steel wall panelling inside. Air Iceland offers daily
flights into Kulusuk during the summer season, and twice a week from
September to May. If you’re continuing on to western Greenland,
Greenland Air connects Kulusuk to several domestic destinations.
From Kulusuk, Ammassalik island, home to the town of Tasiilaq, is acces-
sible only by boat or helicopter. You can arrange a boat ahead of time
through the youth hostel and travel agency in Kulusuk, or through one
of the tourist agencies in Tasiilaq. You can also reportedly try to hitch a
ride with a hunter making the crossing at the harbour. Air Alpha
Greenland packs seven passengers in per flight on a regular weekly
schedule back and forth to Tasiilaq for 545 Dkr each way. Tickets can be
purchased at the airport.
WHERE TO STAY
The road to Kulusuk passes the town’s only hotel, aptly named Hotel
Kulusuk, about halfway to the village. Opened in 1998, this hotel is
owned by two brothers from Tasiilaq who also run Hotel Ammassalik in
Tasiilaq and Arctic Wonderland Tours out of both. They offer jeep and
boat tours during the summer season and sled tours in the winter. There
is also a youth hostel in Kulusuk proper, run under the name Kulusuk
Youth Club, providing similar services. Camping is also an option.
Geographical orientation in Tasiilaq is not difficult. It is built around its
old centre and harbour – dubbed Marina Arctica – and up the rocky hill-
side, where different clusters of hunters’ houses have been erected. The
newest part of town, with a recently built school, hospital and new
housing, lies on a peninsula to the north. Tourists have a simple selection
of accommodations with tourist offices: Hotel Nansen, a small, casual
hotel just opened this summer, Hotel Ammassalik, the most ambitious
venture at the top of the town, and The Red House, an ecologically and
socially conscious guest house. Visitors can also pitch tents for free out-
side of town or for a small fee by the harbour.
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