Living On The Edge: Greenland With Christoffer Petersen

Greenland is the world’s largest island. Three-quarters of it are covered in a permanent ice sheet and with only 56,000 people, it’s the least densely populated country in the world. It is considered a region of Denmark, but Greenland has recently been in the news as President Donald Trump talked about buying the island for its rich natural resources and strategic position in the Arctic. Christoffer Petersen writes Arctic noir crime thrillers based on the seven years he spent living in Greenland, including Seven Graves, One Winter, the first book in the Greenland Crime series and The Ice Star, an action-adventure thriller. In this interview, we talk about what makes Greenland so special, what you might want to visit there, the local delicacies, and why respect for local culture is paramount when we travel. * On Greenland’s history, location and population * Modes of travel in a country with few roads * Recommendations for places to visit in Greenland * Local food and cultural experiences * On seeing the Northern Lights and how to do that * Recommended books about Greenland and the Arctic You can find Christoffer at Christoffer-Petersen.com Transcript of the interview Joanna: Christoffer Petersen writes Arctic noir crime thrillers based on the seven years he spent living in Greenland, including Seven Graves One Winter, the first book in the Greenland Crime series and The Ice Star, an action-adventure thriller for fans of Matthew Reilly, which I just went out and got immediately. I love Matthew Reilly. Welcome, Chris. Christoffer: Thank you, Joanna, it’s great to be here. Joanna: It’s great to have you on the show. And just such a fascinating area of the world. Tell us a bit more about how you came to live and work in Greenland and write about the Arctic. Christoffer: It really started with Jack London’s stories. Reading under the duvet at night with the torch when mum told me I’ve got to go to sleep but I just couldn’t drop the whole Arctic and Alaska and Canada and the mountains. Reading about the mountains is wonderful. But that progressed over time and I actually went to the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow where I studied outdoor education and there was one night in the library when I was actually flipping through National Geographic and there was one of those one page adverts for high-end watches and there’s this guy and his beard is just completely covered with ice and he’s wearing a parka, he’s in a snowstorm and there’s a couple of huskies around him. And it talked about the Danish Sirius Sled Patrol and I just thought, “Yes I’ve got to do that. That’s what I’m going to do with my life.” I started doing a lot of different work with huskies and I went to Alta in Norway and I went to Maine in the States and I also went to Thetford in Norfolk; they do have Huskies down there. But the interesting thing was when I met my wife in the Highlands of Scotland, she’s Danish, and we got to know each other, we fell in love and we got married and I just thought this is it, we’re going to Denmark, I can join the Sirius Sled Patrol and I can go to Greenland and live out my dream until I realized the only thing you can’t be in the Sirius Sled Patrol is married. So it’s one of those. Right. Well OK. Good job I love my wife because I’m stuck here now. That was really the start of it. I’m not one of those people who wants to travel the world. I’d rather get to know one place really, really well. It just so happens I’ve chosen the whole Arctic, as it were, and I’m steadily getting to know different places.