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| Point 660 |
It’s a five hour round trip from Kangerlussuaq to Point 660 (if you go via the Russell Glacier and you really should). You’ll need a good 4x4 and a guide who frankly isn’t bothered if he bends the vehicle in half. That’s because the route is rough. You will see reindeer, musk ox, and even arctic hares. If you're lucky (we were) you'll see chunks of ice calving from the glacier. Some intrepid adventurers trek this journey on foot and camp overnight, and I rather envy them. Maybe next time.
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| The Russell Glacier |
If you look at the map of Greenland you’ll spot a swathe of green down the west coast, and roughly where this landscape is at its widest, you’ll find the village of Kangerlussuaq (population 450) (pronounce it kang ul schwua). Remarkably there is a road to nowhere that leads east from here for 26 kilometres. The road was apparently built by Volkswagen to test cars on the ice. It is the longest road in Greenland (unsurfaced of course) and it winds steadily upwards along the desolate glacial valley alongside the Sandflugtsdal meltwater river, through sandy desert, hills, and utterly breath-taking landscapes, past frozen lakes and glaciers, and then it ends abruptly when it meets the Greenland Ice Cap. This is Point 660. You won’t have passed a living soul for almost two hours. You leave the ‘comfort’ of the 4x4 and you trek on foot over a rocky moraine – like the spill from a gravel quarry – and after a while, you find yourself on the ice sheet. And here you draw a very deep breath. 
The Greenland ice sheet is one of the great natural wonders of our planet. It is colossal. From Point 660 you’d need to walk 600 km in a straight line over ice to reach the west coast. The walk to the northernmost point would be 1,000 km, and it’s 800 km south until you run out of ice. That is a seriously big lump of ice. And it’s deep. Really deep. Most of it goes down more than 2 km. That’s well over a mile for English readers. And while we might idly imagine that Greenland could lose a little ice and still have plenty to spare, it might be helpful to consider the impact this immense block of ice has on the globe. A lucky accident of geography has plonked it right at the top of the Atlantic, where it acts as a global air conditioner, keeping the world from heating up too much by cooling down winds and reflecting away a lot of sunlight. It also holds a heck of a lot of freshwater. If (or maybe when) it all melts it would raise sea levels all around the world by 7 metres.
My new novel for 2023, 'The Wager and the Bear,' features the Greenland ice sheet. (The title may be subject to change of course.) The story unfolds in the fictional village of St Piran in Cornwall, and it begins with a very public altercation between two villagers – one a climate activist and the other an ambitious politician. The argument concludes with a dangerous wager that only one man should be able to survive. Events spiral out of control and somehow both men find themselves alone on the Greenland ice sheet, and then adrift on a giant iceberg, floating down Baffin Bay. It does make sense I promise. It is a novel about climate change, but it is also about enduring love, friendship, and community. Watch this space – or follow #thewagerandthebear on Instagram or Twitter and I’ll let you know when it is available for pre-order.
So back to Point 660. It is an awesome destination. Desolate and beautiful. It made me feel quite emotional to walk out and stand on the ice. I hope it stays, pristine and forever frozen. I fear that it won’t. The what3words link below takes you there.
https://w3w.co/superhero.spelled.crooned
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