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Lonnie Dupre
“Our objective is to create a film that will pay homage to the Polar Inuit, humble people that carve out special lives in a land of snow and ice. Their innovation through trial and error and their creative ways of improvising have always amazed me.” Lonnie Dupre.
It’s been two decades since Lonnie Dupre and fellow explorer John Hoelscher completed a three-year, 6,500-mile circumnavigation of Greenland by dog sled and kayak.
In the modern era, Lonnie and John were the first and last people to circumnavigate this ancient land by dogsled and kayaking.
Over those twenty years, plenty has changed in Greenland, both culturally and environmentally, said Lonnie. So, Lonnie and a team of five highly skilled arctic explorers left on Saturday, January 15, traveling back to the land of ice and snow to document those changes.
And, said Dupre, “It’s time to go back and visit old friends and make some new ones.”
The trip’s focus includes visiting the Polar Inuit of northwest Greenland and then traveling to an extremely remote place in Southeast Greenland called Kangerlussuaq.
Along the way, the team will document the effects of climate change on the world’s largest island, but Hoelscher won’t be one of them.
“John and I talk periodically, catching up with each other,” said Lonnie. “Because of covid we haven’t been able to see each other in the last couple of years, but we remain friends. John still lives in Australia. He’s married now, and he and his wife have built a new house, and his wife has two children from a previous relationship. He’s happy and he will be part of the film we are making. I will interview him extensively about our time together in Greenland for the film, Pulling for the Planet.”
Teammates on this journey include Tine Lisby of Denmark, Scott Cocks of Canada, Pascale Marceau of Canada, Josefin (Josi) Kuschela of Germany and Jayme Dittmar of Alaska.
“Our objective is to create a film that will pay homage to the Polar Inuit, humble people that carve out special lives in a land of snow and ice,” Dupre said.
“We aim to share with the world the importance of Greenland ice, its people, and its fragility.”
Said Lonnie, two films will be made on this journey, one a 15-minute short, and the other will be an hour-long documentary that will weave video footage and photographs and stories from 20 years ago with what has taken place in the years since.
A main goal, said Lonnie, is to “build a connection between the past, present, and future, of the northernmost people in the world.”
Once in Greenland, Dupre and crew will acquire dog teams to use on their venture. As they travel from village to village, Lonnie said they would reunite with old friends and meet new, young and old villagers. We will go out in pursuit of walrus, fish, seal, and birds; regaling in one of the world’s most unique marine diets.”
Lonnie said by mid- March, his team and Inuit hunters will use two dogsled teams to travel to the edge of the Arctic ocean. From there, Pascale, Jayme, and Scott will strap on cross country skis and make a 43-kilometer crossing on ocean ice to Prim Island, on the shores of Ellesmere Island, Canada. From Ellesmere Island, they continue southwest to the village of Grise Fjord, resupplying before ending at Pond Inlet on Baffin Island.
That journey, said Dupre, will retrace Qitdlarssuaq’s epic expedition. He was a legendary Inuit shaman who left Baffin Island with a small band of about 50 in the mid-1800s. That group traveled for nearly a decade and eventually connected with a band of Polar Inuit in northwest Greenland. The Polar Inuit were less than 100. They had lost many elders who didn’t have a chance to pass along the skills needed for the younger members to know how to make bows, arrows, kayaks, and spears for fishing. Qitdlarssuaq reintroduced these skills to these people, and to this day, many families in northwestern Greenland are descendants of these migrants.
Qitdlarssuaq left Greenland to return to Baffin island but died during the journey. This journey by Pascale, Scott, and Jayme will retrace Qitdlarssuaq’s intended journey back home.
When asked if any network had picked up the rights to show Pulling for the Planet when it is completed Lonnie responded by saying the film had been paid for but no, he didn’t have a contract to distribute the film. Yet.
Greenland
According to research published in the journal Nature, 3.5 trillion tons of Greenland’s ice sheet had melted from 2011 to 2020.
In July 2021, the Guardian reported that in one day Greenland’s large ice sheet melted enough to cover the entire state of Florida in two inches of water. That same article noted that Greenland’s ice was melting “faster than any time in the past 12,000 years.”
A 2,166,086 sq km, Greenland is comparable in size to Mexico. Because of its size, Greenland is the 12th biggest country globally, but with a population of fewer than 57,000 people, it is also by far the least densely populated place on the planet.
The capital city of Nuuk has about 15,000 people.
Greenland means Land of People. Its native population is believed to have come from Central Asia, and Vikings discovered the island in the 10th century.
About 80 percent of its surface is covered by ice caps and glaciers. The largest glacier, the Ilulissat Icefjord, is the largest glacier outside of Antarctica and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
July is the only month of the year when temperatures are above freezing.
Qaqrotoq, a town in southern Greenland, has been populated for 4,300 years.
Greenland was a Dutch colony until 1953, when it became a country.
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