The Last One In: The Trials of Mikkel Larsen

In this special guest episode of The Dubcast with Dubside, Dubside sits down in Copenhagen with Mikkel Larsen — a Danish teacher who spent six transformative years living in Sisimiut, Greenland from 2010 to 2016.

What began as a leap of faith — moving to Greenland to teach Danish to high school students — turned into a deep immersion in Greenlandic culture. Mikkel shares what it was like navigating language barriers, silent kaffemik gatherings, and the subtle social codes of a small Arctic community. Along the way, he found his way to Qajaq Sisimiut and, before long, was building his own skin-on-frame kayak inside the clubhouse.

Despite having almost no experience, Mikkel was pushed — in classic Greenlandic fashion — straight into competing in the National Greenland Kayaking Championships. He recounts lining up for his first race after only minutes in his new kayak, battling fear, cold water, long-distance takisuumut races, and the humbling reality of always finishing last — yet always finishing.

This is a story about cultural humility, persistence, embarrassment, pride, and the profound feeling of being alive on Arctic water. It’s also a portrait of how Greenlanders welcome outsiders — slowly, quietly, and on their own terms.

Transcript

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[DUBSIDE]
Welcome to The Dubcast, with Dubside. This is a special guest edition of the Dubcast. I'll be talking to Mikkel Larsen, a Danish guy who lived in Greenland teaching Danish for several years, and gained a whole lot of insight about Greenland culture, and he also got involved with the qajaq club.

Now, I have to tell you that Danish speakers sometimes say that they are “sailing” a kayak. That's not what we say in this country. 

Also, they'll talk about “rowing”, which I misunderstand. Sometimes I think they're saying they're rolling, but they mean rowing, which is going out and paddling your kayak. In the U.S., if you're going to row anything, it has to have oars, not paddles. 
Another thing he does is talk about years as in ’10 or in ’16, which means in 2010 or 2016.

So this runs a little over half an hour. 

So, today is July 29th, 2025, and we are sitting outside of the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen, and I'm talking to my good old friend Mikkel Larsen.

[MIKKEL]
Thank you for calling me that.

[DUBSIDE]
Thank you.

[MIKKEL]
I consider you my good old friend as well.

[DUBSIDE]
And you lived in Greenland, you lived there all year round from 2010?

[MIKKEL]
’10 to ’16, the summer, yes. I worked as a teacher at the high school there and taught the language of Danish, which is the most important subject in the curriculum.

[DUBSIDE]
So this is too Greenland kids who mostly spoke Greenlandic?

[MIKKEL]
Yes. In Greenland, the primary language is Galaktiskort, as a Greenlandic, but the second language is Danish. It's necessary to have Danish as the second language because a lot of the knowledgeable workers that come to Greenland are from Denmark. Greenland is such a small country that they cannot do without a lot of essential workers from Denmark who travel up there for adventure or earning some money.

And that could be hospital workers, nurses and doctors. It could be dentists, it could be teachers, mostly at the high school level or at the hospitals, right? So, some kind of professionals. 

Carpenters, in very few cases, but they're very good at educating carpenters. There's a lot of native carpenters in Greenland. And in 2010, I was out of university. I had a master's degree in business communication and couldn't get a job back home. So my friend who had gone to Qaqortoq a year before, he laughed at me and said, “Of course, you need to come up here. You can be a teacher.” 

“What am I going to do in Greenland? Nobody lives in Greenland. There's nothing but ice and there's nothing.”

“Come on, you don't know what you're saying,” h said. "I'll send you some links and write some letters and you can send them to the high schools and then I'll probably get back to you.”

And the more I saw about Greenland on YouTube and what he sent me, I thought, “This is fantastic. What is this? This is so strange from everything else I've ever known.”

The language has nothing to do with any of the European languages that I know. You can always say if something is French or German or English or Danish or such, but Greenlandic is a completely own language family.

And their mimicry is also completely different. They're very silent when they speak. I could see this on television.

And their eyebrows go up and down. And I thought, what is that? I have to learn this.This is fantastic. Amazing. I want to learn this.

If they can, of course they can. I can also. I want that.

And I had some self-esteem problems about moving up there. What if I get fired? What if I...

And I made a bunch of mistakes in the beginning. Catastrophic mistakes. But I managed to hang on and slowly make fewer and fewer mistakes.

And some of the... So I was not afraid about being a bad teacher. I was afraid of standing up in Greenland without a job.

What would I do if I stand in a foreign country? Well, then you'll just take a ticket home and borrow the money or I'll pay you the money or something. Okay, well, all right then.

So I went. And we were a couple of people who went up there.

[DUBSIDE]
And you wound up in Sisimiut?

[MIKKEL]
I'm sorry. Yes, sir. We went in Sisimiut.

I had the choice between... He ended up there for 18 years actually. He's been up there for 16, 18 years.

He just went back to Denmark now. He told me you can choose the civilized, that's Nuuk, the beautiful, that's Qaqortoq, and the wild, that's Sisimiut. And I'm a little bit adventurous.

So I said, that's what I want. With the dogs and above the polar circle and darkness in the winter and all that stuff. That sounds cool. I want that. 

So, and the first year was about learning how to teach and teaching.

[DUBSIDE]
What age range were these students?

[MIKKEL]
The students were from 16 to 18 when we start in the first of the three years. And I had from first year to second year to third year.

And then once more from first to second to third, that's six years in total. And I was given all of the first year students. And we started with three classes. And then suddenly we were expanded into five classes.

[DUBSIDE]
So that reduced the number of kids you had.

[MIKKEL]
It expanded the number of kids, I had up to 125 in all.

[DUBSIDE]
In a classroom at one time, you have how many?

[MIKKEL]
Twenty-four when we start. And then over the years, it gets reduced to some classes as little as 12, 15 students. 

So I had a lot to work with when I started. And that's a good way to learn things. It's actually a very Greenlandic way to learn things, to be thrown out into it. And then you'll just learn as you go along.

Yeah. That's how that was.

[DUBSIDE]
And somewhere along the way, you found the Qajaq Sisimiut, the club.

[MIKKEL]
One of the teachers at the school and one of the Greenlandic teachers at the school, I think because I took the time to sit with the Greenlanders when they were talking together, just sitting with them, listening to how they talked and looking at their faces and their hands, sitting with them when they were eating, eating the Greenlandic food when that was served. I gained their loyalty. I read a lot about Greenlandic history and came and asked them all sorts of questions.

So one of them, Dorthe Katrine, invited me home for a kaffemik where the social rules are completely different from what they are in Denmark. It's silent. Nobody really talks unless they have something to talk about.

They're usually quiet. And I sat down. I thought, “What is this?”

I mean, I tried to engage some ladies in conversation and they didn't really respond. What is this? 

I've forgotten some of my Greenlandic. I apologize. But you know, she invited me over and said, pick some food. This is this and this is some potatoes and this is … and so and so.

Thank you. 

And strange people coming in and they must know these people. Who are these people? I don't know anybody, but they knew each other. It's very informal. The opposite of Danish.

Danish can be very formal. Now the party starts.

[DUBSIDE]
So a kaffemik is for any special occasion. You announce that you're going to have a kaffemik and people come by and have pastries and things and food. Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
And you can come when you want to. It's like in between a set period. And the thing is that they don't talk a lot. They sit a lot and just be together. It's never… Well, you can ask, “So what about that thing you're working on?” 

“Yeah, that's good. It's going just fine. No, no, that's OK.” 

“And your wife? How's that?”

“Oh, that's just fine. Yeah, it's fine.”

And you know that how things are going, because you see people every day and everybody knows somebody who knows somebody.

So you've likely heard how the wife is doing or you have a reason to ask or something like that. It's very informal and calm. But for a Dane, it's very opposite.

We sit down and then we talk. So quickly I found out that a party of 30 Greenlanders is as loud as five, seven Danish people. And I could walk from a kaffemik between Danish colleagues, 10 colleagues, and then go down to a Greenlandic kaffemik, which were less loud, even though it was three times, four times the amount of people, including children running back and forth.

Danes talk a lot, all the time, loud. Greenlanders, they don't. Dorthika, she invited, there was a guy there who was, that was Imanuak's father. And he said, I think, I can't recall if she suggested it or if I suggested it or if he suggested it, but someone suggested that there was this kayak competition in town. And I thought, kayaking, that sounds, it's that Greenlandic thing, isn't it? What is it? I don't know. I would like to try that. I just want to be more into what these Greenlanders are doing. I just want to know more of what they are about. 

So he said, somebody said, “Well, come down there. My son is down there, that's Imanuak. Come down there and see whether it's this next weekend here. And you just come down to the harbor.” 

So I just met up at the harbor. I didn't know anybody at all.

[DUBSIDE]
So that was 2011.

[MIKKEL]
No, that's true. And that's not true. There was a meeting before in the qajaq clubhouse.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
And all of these people knew each other. And I was a weirdo outside Dane. So I was just there.

I didn't understand anything. And Ida, who was the chairman back then, she came up to me and said, “Who are you?” 

“Well, my name is Mikkel."

I understood from the first time I set foot in that qajaq house that this is different. This is foreign to me. I am the alien here.

Silent. People may talk to you.

[DUBSIDE]
They were all speaking in Greenlandic.

[MIKKEL]
Yes, sir. And they may ignore me, but they all notice me. They all notice a foreigner, but they don't talk to. 

And later, if that foreigner is not being annoying or and being helpful or somebody seems to know, accept that person, then other people will come over and slowly engage that person.

Sometimes in a very surprising manner by stating something very personal or something. Again, not like it's in Denmark. So I was there at the meeting and she asked me at some point, “What can you do?”

“I don't know what I can do. Do you want me to do anything? I can do…” 

“Just show up. We always need hands.”
“OK, I'll do that.”

I was just happy to be allowed to be there.

And then it started and people, all these strange people came in, gathered at the harbor, lots of kayaks. I went around and I didn't take pictures so much because I was a foreigner. So I just went around and looked and here and there.

[DUBSIDE]
So this was the actual competition?

[MIKKEL]
Actual competition, yeah. So and I was just trying to be as much as I could as a helper and helping where people wanted me to and standing next to people and asking, “Hello and what is this?”

And slowly getting to help a kayak down or not carrying a kayak.

I wasn't allowed to do that or didn't do that, but carrying water, for example, and sitting at the pier when they came in and giving them water. What do you call it? Saft? Kool-Aid?

What do you call that? Sugar water. What do you call that? 

[DUBSIDE]
Sugar water is what it is. Saft. Saft is a Danish word, right?

[MIKKEL]
Yeah. Juice, I suppose it is, but it's not juice. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Sweet juice.

[MIKKEL] 
Sweet juice, yeah. And you know, I remember some of the guys like Gununguak and Jafeti and all of those guys, they looked at me a little bit: “Who is that guy? Why is he suddenly with us? Who is that guy?”

Not confronting me, not being aggressive in any way.

“Who is that guy?”

And then I just hung on and then I was permitted to be at the… I remember I was going with a couple in their boat as a follow boat.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, chase boats for the race. Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
That was also a wonderful experience being out on the ocean for the first time with these new people I didn't know. Juret and his wife, his girlfriend, Dottingerak. So at the end of this competition, I was at the party as well. You know, the farewell party.

[DUBSIDE]
The final dinner, yeah.

[MIKKEL]
Where everybody gets together and everybody gets a round of applause, even the cleaners and the kitchen people and the judges and everybody. And all of the singing and the eating and people walking between each other and being extremely informal and familiar with each other. It was such a wonderful experience.I haven't heard that before. So that was really warming up my heart.

[DUBSIDE]
And so after the competition, there was still some activity at the club or it kind of closes down for the winter?

[MIKKEL]
No, no. In the summertime, as much as there's room for it, most up to but also afterwards. All the summer, in the evening, when people are off duty, usually afternoon, somebody puts a few kayaks in the water and then more and more people put kayaks in the water.

So we can be 10 people in the water. There's a little lake down just next to the kayak clubhouse at the harbor. And people stop by, just riding by.

They can see from the main road that there's activity. So they drive by down there and say hello to each other. And again, everybody knows each other some way, right?

So I went down there and saw that and he said, “Would you like to try one?” 

And the next day we went out and I thought, “I want one of these. Can I borrow one?”

“Well, you can build one,” he said.

“Who can help me build one?” 

“Well, I can do that,” he said.

“You can do that? That's awesome. I'll pay whatever it costs.”

“Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll figure it out.” 

And I paid him, I think, a thousand dollars, 6,000 kroner back then.

So that's about a thousand dollars. And we went up and bought the materials and he told me what to do. Now you drill these holes and then we measure here and he measured me and all that.

So we spent the, I think we spent the next spring on that or the winter on that, sorry. The winter on that. Building this kayak for me, which was a very wide and stable kayak because I wanted it to be. Plus I'm fat.

[DUBSIDE]
So this is building inside the club in the wintertime because it's warmer. You didn't build it outdoors.

[MIKKEL]
No, no, no, no.

The building is usually done in the wintertime. When you take off the old skin and putting a new skin on, that's usually done in the spring because there's lots of people and then you can test it right away. There's a lot of building going on in the spring.

So we would have started in the start of a year, February maybe. And then up until then, if you are too late to build the kayak, the clubhouse is completely filled and you don't have time to do it. The closer you get to the championship, the more people want to use the clubhouse for repairing their kayaks or for finishing their own builds, et cetera.

There were people who built their kayaks so late that they didn't get to really test them until the actual competition. That's just the attitude. When the kayak was built, Imanuak, he did some of the woodwork that had to be bent, et cetera.

And he also just, the back, is that what it's called? He bent that also in place. What's that called? The manhole?

[DUBSIDE]
The cockpit combing.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah. The back. I think it's called the back.

And I found a paatit, a paddle that I could borrow. And I paid an old lady called Mette, I went to visit her a couple of times, to make me an akuilisaq that fitted the kayak because it's individual. It has to be specific. So the akuilisaq fits a certain kayak and belongs with it. Different people can use the kayak, but the akuilisaq fits the kayak.

When my kayak was finished, I remember that Eliassi, he put me in the kayak and turned the back end outwards so I was facing them at the shore. And he pushed me out without a paatit, a paddle, without a paddle. So I sat there and had to keep the balance.

It was flat, but I was the only one. And if I tipped around, I was really up, I was really in trouble. Remember, the last time I sat in a kayak, I almost drowned.

[DUBSIDE]
So no one else is on the water. He shoves you in your brand new kayak without a paddle out into the water.

[MIKKEL]
Yes, sir. Absolutely. You can't do that.

And they were laughing at me. Not laughing evilly, but in a friendly way. Just keep the balance. It’ll do. And then he took the paddle, put it in the water and aimed it and shoved it out to me. And it did not land just next to me. I mean, I had to grab a little to get it, paddle a little bit to get it, but I got it.

Now I felt a little bit more certain. And then he said, it's fine. And then there was this handful of people standing on the shore cheering me on, looking at me. Will he capsize? Or will he…how is this going to go? 

And then when I came in again, I said, “Now I'm just going to learn to train to do it, to actually use it.”

And he said, “No, you can't do that. There's no time for that.”

“Time? What do we mean by time?”

“No, because we have to go to the… national championships.”

“But that's not now. That's in 14 days or something like that.”

It's three weeks or something a month. It was a long time. 

Yeah, but we have to put the kayaks in the container and ship it there.”

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, I see. Say goodbye to your kayak three weeks before the competition.

[MIKKEL]
So we actually, so I took the kayak ashore and I think, was it the same evening? I think it was the same evening or the next morning. It's the same evening, I think. We carried a bunch of the kayaks over and put it in the container.

[DUBSIDE]
And that was it until...

[MIKKEL]
I can't compete in the contest. I don't know how to sail a kayak. I mean, it's fine that you use the kayak, but I'm not going to do it.

“Of course you are, Mikkel! You're going to learn it while we're doing the competition.” 

“I can't do that!.”

“Of course you can!” 

That's the Greenlandic attitude. That's the way I've learned all of this. It's in these practical interactions with these wonderful people. I was very neurotic when I came. Like I told you, I was even afraid that I would fail when I arrived. And so I had a talk with a friend of mine, a pal of my father’s, Kai. 

And I said, “Oh, this is going to go, what if it goes bad, Kai?”

“Yeah, then what? What's going to happen? 

“Well, I'm going to get fired.” 

“Yeah, and what's going to happen then?”

"Then I'm going to go back to Denmark.” 

“Yeah, so you're going to go back to Denmark. Then what?”

That's the same attitude the Greenlanders have. I can't paddle this kayak. I don't know anything. You're going to learn it.

So before the first competition, we had just unpacked the kayaks. I hadn't sailed in it yet. We had just unpacked them.

I sit next to Ida Abelson and some of the other women, I think. And then Maligjaq Padilla sits and has eaten with us. I didn't know who he was.

And if you're listening to this, you need to know that Maligiaq is the best and fastest paddler probably ever. 

[DUBSIDE]
Everybody who has listened to my podcast has heard the name Maligiaq, probably 30-40 times.

[MIKKEL]
OK. He’s absolutely amazing. When he said his name was Maligjaq, I thought, “Oh, he knows something about this. I've heard his name before.”

So I asked him, “I've never paddled the kayak. Would you be so kind to go down with me and help me, just paddle it with me a little bit so I can get the feeling?” 

“Yeah, of course, we do that. Now?” 

“Yes, let's do it now.” 

So we went down there and I got in my kayak and he got in his kayak. And we, inside the harbour, we paddled outwards and we just round the cliffs. And I got a little bit used to it, keeping the balance and turning and such. And he said, “We probably should go back now because I think they're getting ready.”

And it didn't make sense in my head, but OK, that's fine. So we went and went back. We've probably only been gone for 20 minutes.

When we rounded the cliff, there was 200 people on the pier and 20 people lined up at the starting line, ready to go. Towards us.
[DUBSIDE]
For the race? 

[MIKKEL]
Oh, yes. And that's again, that's Greenland for us. Things just spring up out of nowhere.

And it's very on an ad hoc basis. Or it's just me who doesn't know how to keep the precise time or finding out where things are happening at the right times. That happens to me many times.

[DUBSIDE]
They don't plan things into detail. They just let it go.

[MIKKEL]
“Are we ready? Yeah, let's go. Come, we're starting.”

So we went down and I turned my kayak around and laid next to the other people. That was for the first race. So that would be the short distance race.

And the start signal goes and away we go. And there's a lot of waves suddenly. And I thought, “Shit, if I'm capsizing here, I'm drowning. This is… I have to keep balance. If not, I'm dead. I'm just dead.”

And when there's so many people, if you capsize, it will take a little bit for the rescue boat to get to you. But there are always follow boats. So we would have been, how many people? Twenty people lined up. Does that sound reasonable? And then there are 7, 8, 10 rescue boats.

And as people, they stretch out, the rescue boats take each and their section of the race. They're very good at that. It just happened organically, I think.

I don't know how much they speak to each other on the radio, but they're very good at organizing it. So the fastest ones just go ahead. And I just paddled.

My goal is just to keep alive and not capsize. That's my goal. And I came in, survived that, a little surprised.

[DUBSIDE]
So that was an official race?

[MIKKEL]
Yes, yes. Oh, yes, sir.

[DUBSIDE]
You came in at the beginning?

[MIKKEL]
Last, I mean.

In all of my time, I've always been very afraid when I set out in the kayak for the first 20 minutes. It has never left me. Could be why I've never sorted out since I left Greenland.

I haven't touched a kayak since 2016 and now it's 2025, right? I've always been afraid for the balance. And when you leave the harbor, there's a bit more waves and such.

And after 20 minutes to half an hour, you get salt water in the eye. That happens not every time, but often. And when you get salt water in the eye, you can't see anything and it hurts a bit. You can't see anything. So now you're on the waves. I am saying you know all of this.

I apologize. I get water in my eyes. And so I have to keep the balance. But I don't know if there's a wave coming. So that's extra frightening. And that lasts for…

[DUBSIDE]
So, without capsizing? You still get water in your eyes just from splashes or?

[MIKKEL]
Yeah, yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah. So it could be because I'm sloppy when I row.

[DUBSIDE]
The stroke?

[MIKKEL]
Yeah, the stroking. So that leaves the eye after 15 minutes or something like that. And from then on, I've been perfectly fine.

Always.

[DUBSIDE]
So just getting through that stage when you get in the water.

[MIKKEL]
Yes. And it's always been like that. Very strange.

I always bought, I also bought a wetsuit. Not a wetsuit, drysuit.

[DUBSIDE]
Drysuit.
[MIKKEL]
Yeah. And in all of the competitions, that drysuit is the reason why I have medals at all. Because I could be the very last person out of, in my age group, we could be 10 people or something like that.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[MIKKEL]
But those before me would drop out due to fear of the waves. That is a real concern. They do drop out because they get afraid of the waves.

And cold. Because they start off in their t-shirts. And then they get cool because it is cold. The wind and the water.

[DUBSIDE]
The wind picks up and it gets cloudy. It's considerably colder than with the sun shining when it's cold.

[MIKKEL]
And I always paddled with my drysuit and a vest, but I was always the slowest and my kayak was the most stable because it was the heaviest and most wide. And that is why I have any medals at all. Because I just kept on.

Yeah. At Paamiut, the last of the big races is the takisuumut
which is

[DUBSIDE]
A long distance race.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah. Between 17 and 21 kilometers. And at the takisuumut the first one there in Paamiut, I didn't know anything.

I was just going where they wanted me to go. I mean, “Turn that buoy.” 

Okay. We're turning that buoy. Is there a boat nearby? There's a boat. Fine. And in the second half, the boat was just on me because I was the latest. And I asked, “How are things going?”

And they were yelling to me, “You're fine, you're fine. You're the last, but you're fine. They're waiting for us. Come on, mate.”

And I was just standing there paddling along in a fine mood. I mean, this is wonderful.

Me and my butt. And there's such a millimeter of fabric between my ass and the bottomless ocean. Not bottomless, of course, but very deep ocean.

And in Ilulissat there is lots of ice as well, which we are sailing through which is scratching down the kayak. So that was a few years later in Ilulissat, right? This feeling of being alive. So the next portion I’ve always felt very afraid and very alive, when I paddle the kayak. Always. Alive like I’ve never felt it before. So magnificent. Beautiful.

It's only my hands that make certain that I go anywhere. And if I'm tired, only my hands are gonna make sure I get back again. There's nobody coming to save me if I give up.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
That's wonderful.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
When I finished the long race at Paatit, the sun began to set.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
And I hadn't seen anybody else on the water for hours. An hour or something like that. I think it takes three hours to do the takisuumut. For me at least. And I hadn't seen anybody for an hour.

And I kept asking them, “Is it all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, you're all right. Just continue,” they yelled from the boat.

And when we finally rounded the last cliff, the pier was filled with people. And I think they began to yell when I came in. So when I came in the last, there was just lots of cheering and yelling. I was just happy that this strange white Danish guy just finished. Because we can get home now.

Well, maybe that was part of it. I don't know. I know that later, in the later competitions, the judges were quite tired of me because, oh, that's Mikkel.

We need to get home and we're still waiting for Mikkel to get in. I mean, really, that's just... I think, actually, Maliaq, he told me...

It hurt my feelings, but that's probably because it was right. I think he told me in ’15-’16, perhaps... I can't remember how he phrased it.

He phrased it very nicely. “Perhaps you shouldn't be doing this anymore. I mean, perhaps you shouldn't compete.”

I mean, because we're waiting for you all the time. And that hurt my feelings, but it's true. It's absolutely true.

So when I landed in Paatit, they actually lifted me up in the kayak. And I'm a fat guy. I weigh close to 100 kilos.

I'm fatter now. They lifted me up in the kayak up onto the pier itself. So lifting me up onto their shoulders, carrying me upwards.

[DUBSIDE]
I've seen them do that with kids at the end of a good kid's race.

[MIKKEL]
They do it all the time with the dog sled winners. It's in Paatit. They lift the winner up on the sled and carry him around for a little bit.

And they do that every year. I think they were very proud that this weird newcomer wanted to take an interest in what they were doing and did not give up. Just wanted to continue.

In Ilulissat, perhaps, I don't know if we should take that separately, but I remember I was almost... I fell and I hit my head and I went under the water. It was a portage.

So I had to get down into the kayak again. I slipped and hit my head. And the 100 people on the beach were dead silent.

Complete silence. They were standing on the rocks, you know what it looks like up there. So I got up, got into the kayak and then I paddled backwards to get out on the water and then to break and turn it.

And then I began to, you know... And then when I finished that round, when we had to get on land next time, the guy who followed me in the boat, he yelled to the others on land, that guy's a real Greenlander. That made me very proud.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay, we're going to pause there because I talked to him for another half an hour, but I'll make that a Part Two. Because he continued the conversation describing his decision to leave Greenland and some of the small town aspects of that situation. He got into massage and discovered he had somewhat of a magic touch in relieving pain and has now started a business and he only charges if the pain is better. Interesting concept. 

And then we ended the conversation with his feelings about the world political situation regarding Greenland and Denmark and the U.S. That'll all be in Part Two of the Mikkel Larsen interview on The Dubcast with Dubside.