LIFE AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD

Two wildlife photographers on the thrill and importance of documenting the frigid natural beauty of Greenland

- Joseph Phelan

GREENLAND IS A wild, hostile place. It's isolated, cold and sparsely populated: it spans two million square kilometres, making it the world’s largest island, but is home to just 60,000 people. It's a landscape that is simultaneously stunning and barren, with around two-thirds of the country sitting within the Arctic Circle, and 80 per cent of it blanketed with ice.

At first glance Greenland seems far from hospitable; it’s a frigid world of ice caps and glaciers, mountains and permafrost, and boasts the coldest temperature ever recorded in the northern hemisphere (-69°C). Yet, despite the island’s undeniably testing conditions, it’s far from empty. In fact, hosts of species are not only surviving in Greenland—they’re thriving.

From sea eagles to reindeer, Arctic foxes to polar bears, hooded seals to walruses, Greenland and its surrounding waters are inhabited by an array of incredible wildlife. They have evolved to be able to deal with extreme cold, limited vegetation and long, dark winters; December days in Greenland rarely see the sun for more than four hours.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that despite Greenland’s fauna being abundant, it isn't necessarily easy for humans to observe. Most species are illusive and wily; they are cautious, wary of their surroundings and unwilling to do anything that could put them in harm’s way. What’s more, the island is so vast that if an animal is determined to remain out of sight, there’s no shortage of hidey-holes for them to retreat to.

For a certain type of intrepid photographer, these hurdles, coupled with the island’s serenity and remoteness, makes Greenland both the ultimate work environment and the most challenging.