A weekend of ice fishing in Nuuk

We headed out early in the morning before the sunrise, leaving the harbor at 09.05

The sailing itself was smooth and easy, and it didn’t take longer than 20 minutes to get to our destination, “The Northland”

We jumped in a small dinghy to get to the shore, just as the light started coming with the sunrise. We moved equipment from the boat to shore, back and forth, back and forth, as our plan was to stay overnight.

Setting up camp

We loaded all of the equipment onto two pulkas (sleds), put on our snowshoes and we were ready to go. Our trek was no more than 2 km, but with soft snow and no one else around it felt like a proper expedition.

You certainly warm up as you walk, and we spotted 2 eagles flying straight above us, probably scouting the area for ptarmigan or hares.

The weather was great, and I couldn’t have been happier to get away from the busy life of Nuuk. We were less than 15 km away and yet it felt like hundreds of miles!

When we reached camp, one of our guides started boring holes in the ice with the ice drill while the other prepared the tent. We grabbed a bite to eat and then went for a walk looking for any wildlife.

The camp sat on a flat spot right next to the frozen lake. After a long trek without spotting anything but tracks from an Arctic Fox and a hare, it was nice to go inside for a hot cup of coffee.

The tent itself is massive with plenty of headspace, and all 5 of us could sit inside on chairs comfortably to eat our meals.

Ice Fishing

After our afternoon coffee, we decided to try our luck with ice fishing. At this time of year (the beginning of January), the sun sets at around 3 pm, but fishing in the dark was still quite entertaining!

We each had our little hole, a chair, and a tiny fishing pole with a hook and some bait. It took a while for anything to happen so we shared stories of other fishing and hunting trips, laughing over some of our more embarrassing moments.

It was getting chillier and chillier when suddenly, our guide got a bite!

Unfortunately, this particular Arctic Char was a bit too small so we released it and hoped for a bigger fish.

Last year the record catch was an Arctic Char a whopping 43 cm long! With strong intentions to beat that record, we kept fishing for a while. But alas, there were no more bites.

We returned to the tent, boiled some water and had a delicious rehydrated Travellunch dinner. With our hearts content, we shared fun stories over the “fire” (in this case a petroleum heater) until it was time for bed.

Day 2

The next morning we found that it had started snowing overnight. But the wind was quiet so, equipped with a hot cup of coffee, we tried our luck again with the fishing poles.

Unfortunately, we didn’t catch anything.  And before we knew it, it was time to pack our gear and head home before it got dark again.

By the time we were ready to leave, it was snowing quite heavily and we were almost in whiteout conditions. But it didn’t matter. We knew the way home and it didn’t take us long to get to the boat.

I had an absolutely splendid time ice fishing and exploring the Northland, and can highly recommend going on this tour. It’s usually only a day tour but you can extend it to stay overnight in their tent if you’d like. 

See the tour here for more information.

Read more travel blogs from Lasse Kyed