SeriesTravel by proxy – A former base-jump champion, this native Breton first came to Greenland to climb an iceberg. Conquered, he settled there, started a family and became the first foreign professional hunter.
He only needs to crack the whip and the dogs stop. In front of him stretches a frozen lake. On the sides, a few icy hills. In the distance, the town of Ilulissat and its colorful little houses. “The first time I saw this, I felt like I was changing planet. I was no longer on a sled, but on a spaceship. I was almost crying because it was so beautiful. “
Settled in Greenland for about fifteen years, Julien Caquineau, 47, is the only foreigner to have a professional hunting license there. Former base-jumper (those parachute jumps during which the parachute is only opened very close to the ground …) of very high level, very seriously injured, he succeeded with an iron will to walk again then to consider to start top-level sport again.
Coming to Greenland to climb an iceberg there, a project that flipped, he stayed there: odd jobs, big parties and one day the meeting of an old hunter who introduced him to his art. Conquered by the exercise, seduced by this omnipresent nature, happy with this new challenge, Julien Caquineau officially became a hunter. Married to a Greenlander, father of three children, he continues to roam these frozen and sumptuous lands.
Her favorite destination, both professionally and personally, is a cabin on the edge of a frozen fjord, Nunatarsuaq, open all year round to hunters and walkers. He goes there with about ten dogs, on the classic sled of the region, called qamutik by the Inuit, twelve planks (counting in planks, not in meters, etc.) long, two raised runners on which a wooden platform fitted at the back with two uprights is fixed. He was the one who built it. A sled suitable for terrain where the snow is not very deep, where there are many stones, and where it is necessary to carry very heavy loads.
To get to Nunatarsuaq, you must first cross a large frozen lake, then climb the mountain of Aqinaq, 300 meters of vertical drop covered with several meters of snow. The dogs darken, very quickly slowed down by the accumulation of powder. Julien Caquineau jumps from the sled, gets in behind, tries to push. A tough task. You then have to cross a first lake, then a second. When night falls, the reliefs stand out, more mysterious under the light of the moon. A bluish color spreads over the mountains. The silence is total, disturbed only by the crackling of the ice and the trotting of the dogs’ paws.
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