Interview: Serene Greenland

INTERVIEW Air Iceland Connect

Cradling Mother Earth

Anika Krogh, Air Iceland Connect’s sales executive in Nuuk, is also the co-owner of Arctic-Nomad, which runs a luxury camp for tourists in the Nuuk Fjord. Anika, who is married with three children, loves being outside in nature.

TEXT: Eyglo Svala Arnarsdottir PHOTO: Ole Moeller

What is your role as a sales executive?

I help with positioning Air Iceland Connect in Greenland as an important player for developing tourism. There are two areas we focus on: firstly, get Greenlanders to travel abroad to the rest of the world. Normally, people travel from Nuuk to Kangerlussuaq, then to Copenhagen and from there to, let’s say Paris. With Air Iceland Connect they can travel from Nuuk to Iceland and from there to Paris. It simplifies the journey. Secondly, we want to encourage foreign tourists to go to Greenland, either as a sole destination, or combine Iceland and Greenland. Ilulissat is the most popular tourist destination in Greenland and it’s a challenge because there is limited hotel capacity. One of the tasks is to inform people of possibilities in other places.

Reindeer hunting is a passion for you. When did you first go hunting?

I’ve hunted with my parents since I was eight. It was quality time in the tent for five, six days and hunting

during the day. My parents told me that when I was able to kill a reindeer with a knife if I ran out of bullets, cut it open, carry it all the way down to the coast – eight hours with a reindeer on the back – and cook it myself, I was ready to shoot. At 11 I shot my first reindeer. It wasn’t a very big one, 40 kg [88 lb], but it was almost the same weight as me! I carried it all the way to the coast but in the end I was crying – I was just so tired. My daddy said, “It’s okay, you don’t have to carry it”. But I said, “No way! I’ve carried it this far already!” So, I went on, walking and crying, too stubborn to give up.

The best meat you get is fresh reindeer after having been out hunting for several days. At night you make a little pile of rocks and put a flat rock on top as a frying pan. Then you start a fire underneath and take some of the fat of the reindeer as butter and fry the meat directly on the stone. The crowberry heather [used for the fire] gives it a nice smoky taste and you drink fresh water directly from small rivers. Whenever I get the chance in the summer, I go hunting.

What would you recommend for tourists who visit Nuuk?

Definitely go into the fjord. The fjord system is unique. In the Nuuk Fjord we have the oldest mountains on earth – the oldest rock – and the first signs of life in the form of bacteria, and so Nuuk is the cradle of Mother Earth. There are mountains in other places, like Norway, but here it’s different because we don’t have trees. The air is very dry, which makes it possible to see really far away.

Eating at Qooqqut Nuan restaurant [50 km (31 mi) from Nuuk in “the middle of nowhere”] is an experience as well. You sail into the fjord, go fishing and then they cook the fish you caught at the restaurant.

Another thing I’d definitely recommend is to go to the ice fjord in Nuuk [Narsap Sermia] and listen to the ice. Not just look. When air bubbles from the ice are released you hear the sound of ice cracking. In the Nuuk area there is blue ice. It’s usually the oldest ice from the bottom of the Greenlandic ice sheet, really compressed snow, which has this unique blue colour.

Then I would say, visit the Greenland National Museum in Nuuk. It has the very famous Qilakitsoq mummies, which are very well persevered – you can even see their face tattoos.

You guide tourists as a captain on boat tours. Tell us about that.

We [my husband, I, and other partners] have a luxury camp 80 km [50 mi] away from Nuuk. We spend the whole summer there with the kids, fishing, hunting, collecting berries, herbs, mushrooms, mussels… and I go sailing around with tourists on an open boat. I could easily only be working in an office, but I want to be out there. The ocean completely calm, whales, icebergs, happy tourists and splashes of water… Being able to earn your money doing that is incredible.