Hiking in the magnificent Greenlandic backcountry as your job? For many, this may seem like the ultimate fantasy, but for Lisa Germany it is a professional reality. Manager of the Arctic Circle Trail and other hiking trails in Qeqqata Municipality, this Australian astrophysicist tells us how she became responsible for one of the most beautiful hikes in the Arctic.
Have you heard of the Arctic Circle Trail (ACT)? This remote trek for experienced long-distance hikers is located on the southwest coast of Greenland, between Kangerlussuaq and Sisimiut. Until relatively recently, the ACT was largely unknown internationally, but a comprehensive website published in 2022 and sharing on social networks has rapidly increased interest in the trail. It is now estimated that more than 1,000 people take on the challenge every summer.
Polar Journal AG met the Trails Manager for the ACT, Lisa Germany, and asked her about her job, her passion for Greenland, her dislike for rain and how she became responsible for a trail on the other side of the world to her native Australia. Interview.
What is your actual job?
I work for Arctic Circle Business / Destination Arctic Circle in western Greenland as their Content and Trails Manager. One part of my job is the management of all hiking trails in Qeqqata Municipality (around 20 trails including the ACT). This involves marking routes, scouting new routes, identifying improvements for the trails, and answering all hiking-related questions. The other part of my job is to manage all our tourism-related websites and create content for them. I created the official Arctic Circle Trail website and our hiking website from scratch, and completely overhauled destinationarcticcircle.com to provide potential visitors with much more extensive information about the area and what they can do here. I’m also the primary photographer for all our destination marketing.
Which aspect do you prefer?
Depends if it’s raining or not. [laughs] More seriously, this job has everything I love. If there was no rain and no mosquitoes, I would be in heaven!
You’re Australian. How did you end up in Greenland?
In 2016, I started travelling full-time. The first year, I concentrated on Latin America – a place I was very comfortable with (I used to work in Chile as an astrophysicist) and wanted to explore further. Then, when I was planning my second year of travel, I didn’t have enough time to arrange all the visas I needed for my original itinerary, so decided to fulfil a 25-year old dream and explore Greenland instead. It cost me a fortune, but I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I never imagined that two years later, I would be living here.
What attracted you so much about Greenland ?
When I was a teenager, I had this guidebook about the Arctic with different regions. The most thumbed section was that for Greenland. It was so different from Australia and, at that time, nobody really knew much about Greenland as there was so little information. It really captured my imagination.
When I first arrived in Greenland in 2017, I immediately fell in love with it. I then spent the next two years trying to position myself to get a work visa so I could live here. I started working in Nuuk as a content manager. But when Covid hit, my employer couldn’t keep me and I moved to Sisimiut to teach English to adults. Fortunately, after a year, my current position was created, and now I couldn’t be happier.
What was your job in Australia?
By training, I have a PhD in Astrophysics. I worked as an astrophysicist for the European Southern Observatory in Chile in South America. After that, I became an e-learning expert and classroom designer for Australian universities where I implemented new technologies to support learning, and reconfigured classrooms to enable collaborative education.
After 10 years, I took my long-service leave (3 months of fully paid leave on top of the annually awarded leave) and travelled for a year, knowing that my job would still be there when I returned. In the end, I decided not to return to my job but continue travelling, which is how I ended up doing freelance work. My original plan was to move to Ecuador, consult for Australian universities, and work only two days per week. But then I went to Greenland and the plan changed entirely!
How did you become the Arctic Circle Trail manager?
For the four years I was travelling prior to moving to Greenland, I kept a travel blog that encompassed everything I did – including all the hiking. I started pitching to different outdoor adventure companies offering to swap high-quality photography and writing for the opportunity to do whatever activity I was interested in for free. In this way I built up a reputation and network of contacts that ultimately enabled me to find a job in Greenland.
The ACT has existed since 1979, and although cairns had been built and huts constructed along its length, there was no overall management of the trail before 2022. However, the municipality would do basic maintenance on the huts. When this new position was created, I did an audit of the ACT and all the other locally known hiking trails to come up with a plan of work that is ongoing.
There are three big challenges in this role. The lack of money is one of them. While there is a small budget for basic hut maintenance, there is no budget allocated to trail maintenance. We currently ask hikers to donate to the trail but, given the high costs of Greenland, our donations to date have only enabled us to make very small improvements. Second, the lack of people. I work on trails for about half of my time and I do it alone. Most people are surprised to discover there is no ACT “team”. It is literally just me. This year, I have 6 local volunteers helping me undertake one of the pieces of work, and we will likely need to rely on volunteers in the future as well. Finally, difficulty of access. This is especially difficult for the ACT, where it can only be accessed in summer by foot. For this reason, maintenance to date has been limited to winter when we can reach the huts on snowmobile.
The other thing we did was create the Official Arctic Circle Trail website and a separate hiking website for our shorter hikes in Qeqqata Municipality. I also took over as the main admin in the ACT Facebook Group – a very vibrant group with loads of interaction between past, present and future hikers.
Do you collaborate with authorities, the locals or any other Greenlandic organizations?
Yes, I do. The trail includes 10 official huts that are owned by Qeqqata Municipality and it also passes through the Aasivissuit – Nipisat UNESCO World Heritage Site. We collaborate with people in both the municipality and the UNESCO group to ensure that we are all aligned on the work to be done. I’ve also consulted with several locals about specific areas of the ACT that I’m looking to alter to make sure I minimize impact on other activities.
I mentioned before that one of my challenges is a lack of people. So, for the last three years, I have worked with the US Department of the Interior International Technical Assistance Program to source trails experts to come help me during the summer. This year the work includes marking a new trail between Kangerlussuaq and the ACT that avoids the road, improving the markings along the Southern ACT route, and scouting a few potential hiking routes around the Sisimiut area. It’s been a very helpful partnership that has taught me a lot about trail planning and management.
What would be a typical day for you ? If that exists…
During the short summer months, I’m usually out hiking. Marking routes, scouting possible new routes, and auditing our existing trails.
In the winter, I’m in the office working on both trails and content. I update our websites, update our Trails Masterplan and maps, analyse the data we collect from hikers over the summer, write reports about the hiking activities to share with other stakeholders, identify what work needs to be carried out during the winter months and during the next year, and coordinate that work to be done.
In addition, I write funding applications for projects, process photos and video, and this year I hope to start a blog on destinationarcticcircle.com offering more detailed information about what visitors can experience in our region. I also return home to Australia for several weeks to spend time with my family.
What are the pros of your job?
I love hiking, writing, and photography so my job allows me to follow all my interests. I get to spend a lot of time in nature, and if you’ve ever been to Greenland, you know how spectacular that is. I’m also very independent in my job and can develop it different ways depending on the ideas I have.
What about the cons?
Hum, the rain… [laughs] And the mosquitoes. We have very limited funding to make things happen, which can be quite frustrating. You recently published a piece [an article on Polar Journal AG, editor’s note] about a possible fee for international ACT hikers – something we are looking at because we have no money for the trail. Whether it eventuates or not, at least we’ve opened a conversation within Greenland that the ACT is an international trail and needs to be funded/treated as one.
Is your audience mainly international then?
The majority of ACT hikers are international (the reason our websites are in English), but interest from locals is definitely increasing. Greenlanders are very connected to nature and spend a lot of time outdoors, so the ACT and our other hiking trails are welcome options for them.
One last question. Are you hiring?
[Laughs] No, but we’re very keen to start being able to work with volunteers!
To know more about the Arctic Circle Trail (or to apply for some volunteer work), please visit the official website : https://arcticcircletrail.gl
Interview by Mirjana Binggeli, Polar Journal AG
The Arctic Circle Trail (ACT) in facts and figures
2 the number of routes that are currently offered by ACT, the original Northern Route and the more demanding Southern Route. There is also an extension that starts at the Russell Glacier near Kangerlussuaq
762 the numbers of hikers that stated they hiked the trail in 2023. The actual number is estimated to be around 1,200 hikers.
78% the percentage of hikers that come from different countries in Europe. 10% are from North America and 9% from Greenland.
7 to 10 the number of days most people take to hike the Arctic Circle Trail
July to August the most popular time to hike the trail. 80% of all hikers do the trek in these two months
2 the most frequent group size, followed by solo hikers
10 the number of official huts along the trail, including 1 on the Southern Route. The huts are very basic and available on a first-come-first-served basis. Hikers must carry a tent.
0 is the current fee for hiking the trail. This could change for 2025 if a proposal to introduce a €90 fee to help finance the maintenance of the trail is approved. Until then, hikers are strongly encouraged to donate to the trail to help with maintenance.
More on the subject
