Climbing To A Better Future

Against a background of 10,000-foot peaks, icebergs, and the vast Atlantic Ocean, local Inuit kids in East Greenland are growing up stuck somewhere between traditional ways of life and the quickly encroaching modern world. Communities struggle with record suicide, alcoholism, and abuse rates. Four Icelanders and an American asked the question: Can rock climbing help?

- Berne Broudy

This is Kulusuk, East Greenland. I’m here with four mountain-guide friends to teach local kids how to rock climb. East Greenland is the narrow north-to-south strip of land that lies east of the Greenland ice sheet, which covers 75 percent of the world’s largest island. East Greenland is home to about 5,500 of the island nation’s 56,000 residents, and it’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Serrated peaks jut out of the ocean where glaciers grind jagged outcroppings into smooth, rocky shelves then calve into thousands of icebergs that float slowly past. A smattering of brightly painted houses grips the rocky shoreline in protected harbors.

In 2013, Leifur Örn Svavarsson, Ólafur Júliusson, and Jón Gauti Jónsson, all mountain guides from Iceland and employees of Icelandic Mountain Guides (IMG), came to East Greenland to tackle alpine first ascents deep amid the region’s unclimbed peaks. Bad weather trapped them in Kulusuk, home to the only airport for hundreds of miles and also IMG’s local expedition base. While they waited, Leifur, one of the owners of IMG, had a brainstorm. “The towns of Amassalik Fjord are surrounded by beautiful nature,” he observed, “but the kids here don’t really engage with it. Kids are on their own, with almost no parental oversight. They sleep until noon, stay up late, and they just don’t know any possibilities for a better life.” Leifur thought that bolting some sport climbs near town then teaching kids to climb might give the children something to do.

Three years, 20 routes, and four sectors later,