Words and photos by Angela Percival
In the spring of 2016, Arc’teryx Senior Photographer Angela Percival made an internal push to shoot and film for our spring 2017 line in Greenland. Inconvenient, far away and relatively unknown, Ange had a clear vision of what she wanted to capture. She provided us with a handful of photos to convey her passion for the area and her rationale for her objectives.
What initially drew me to Greenland was how little I knew of it. With 80% of its land covered in ice, I was moved by the mystery of its non-ice covered landscape, its sheer remoteness and 3000km of Chamonix style peaks that were rumoured to make up the coastline of East Greenland.
This shoot started out as road trip or ‘Moving Cabin’ idea I had but when Greenland became my focus it quickly turned into a road-less road trip, as roads in Greenland are almost non-existent. The whole country has no more than 60km of paved road. Particularly in East Greenland, where towns and villages are only accessible by sea or air and transport for locals is limited to motor boat or helicopter. The boat became our moving cabin.
Paul McSorley prepping for a climb in the boat front berth turned gear locker.
Having a first up close look of the Mythics Cirque. The Mythics Cirque is located on the East Coast of Greenland in the Kangertitivatsiaq Fjord which is 150km north of Tasiilaq, or about 300 nautical miles from Iceland. The cirque is made up of multiple steep towers exceeding 1000m in height.
The raw and rugged beauty of the rocks and glaciers in the landscape as a whole were incredible but even more raw when we got amongst them.
Paul McSorley with little protection among some pretty brittle rock conditions.
Truly representative of every reason I wanted to go to Greenland. Big mountain landscape backed by wide open ocean. My ultimate challenge was to honour the grand scale of ‘Epic’ and fit it into a single frame.
Looking due East towards where we had sailed across from Iceland 5 days earlier, Paul and Vikki climb the final pitch of the previously unclimbed unnamed peak. The peak was named Aurora after the boat that got us here.
Good times at the belay station. Every trip needs people who laugh as well as those who laugh easily.
Our ‘Moving Cabin’ dwarfed by iceberg giants.
Vikki Weldon
Paul McSorley
Paolo Marazzi
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