DAY 3: The village of Qaanaaq is small and simple.  Here about 100 families live quietly on the edge of a fjord far above the arctic circle. Farther north, in fact, than any other permanent settlement in the world. There are only six cars. Ski-doos are forbidden.

The traditional livelihood for the villagers is hunting and fishing, generally using sleds pulled by a team of twelve dogs (similar to Huskies).  Today, there are only about 70 hunters left, as the job gets harder and harder and their revenue is steadily decreasing because of the dramatic changes that have fallen upon the region over the last 15 or so years.

Earlier today, we met Paulus Simigaq, a 42-year-old who has been hunting arctic wildlife (caribou, musk ox, polar bear, narwaal, walrus, seal, halibut and beluga whales) since he was five. Because so much of the sea ice that these hunters depend on is turning more and more into open water, the hunting territory is shrinking fast. The fjord has historically stayed frozen until July, and then frozen again by October.  Today, it's open water from May to November.  

In ages past, the hunters would dogsled across cross the Nares Strait to Canada's Ellesmere Island, which was described to us as the best hunting around. The strait no longer freezes, and the month long trips that Qaanaaq's hunters relied on are a thing of the past. 

On top of all of this, quotas have been set for endangered species. The village is limited to killing six polar bears, whereas they used to be able to bring home one for every hunter.  Similar quotas have been set for other species that until recently were unregulated: one musk ox per hunter, five caribou per hunter, 100 narwaal per village, 10 beluga whales per village.

The skins of many of these animals are valuable for clothing, so with these hunting restrictions, the people of Qaanaaq have seen a dramatic lose of income. 

In other words--they have less work, less revenue and their cultural expertise is slowly eroding as their children have no interest nor future in hunting. Paulus has four children now in school, none of whom have any interest in joining him on hunts as he did with his father. 

So I ask him: What do you do when you aren't hunting?  Nothing, he replies. 

And what will your children do when they grow up?  Most likely, nothing. 

It's hard for the children of Qaanaaq to consider leaving, as integration to western society is nearly impossible, yet there's little to nothing left for them to do in their home village. Even tourism is not much of an option for the village, as it's is so remote and exceedingly hard and expensive to get to. They'll continue to receive financial support from Denmark, and hope against all hope and science that the ice starts acting like it used to. 

On a logistical note-- Alain and I completed our preparation packing our sleds, testing all the equipment, and are ready to go set out tomorrow on our skis!

Going to the church [in Qaanaaq] before leaving for the worst.

[Editor's note: Over the course of two weeks, Larry Lunt, a member of NRDC's Global Leadership Council, and Alain Hubert, a Belgian explorer and founder of the International Polar Foundation, will trek some 200 miles from the town of Qaanaaq across Greenland's Humbolt Glacier, the Northern Hemisphere's largest and fastest moving river of ice. Along the way, as special contributors to OnEarth's Greenlight blog, Lunt and Hubert will post dispatches from the ice: stories of a culture and wilderness in flux and lessons for what our own future may hold.  Follow the journey at our Destination: Greenland page.]