Small Town Greenland, Big World Lessons

In Part 2 of Dubside’s conversation with Danish kayaker Mikkel Larsen, recorded in Copenhagen, the discussion turns from kayaking to the deeper personal experiences that shaped Mikkel’s life after leaving Greenland.

Mikkel reflects on the complicated realities of living in a small Arctic community, where close social ties can also expose difficult moral and social tensions. These experiences ultimately led him to return to Denmark in 2016, where an unexpected opportunity at the legendary Arctic Circle Race set him on a completely new path.

What followed is a remarkable story of improvisation and persistence. Starting with little money and only a brief massage course, Mikkel built a pain-reduction practice called Sportsværksted, developing his own hands-on methods through experimentation and experience. Today he works with athletes and people suffering from chronic pain, guided by a simple rule: if he can’t reduce a client’s pain by at least 50 percent, they don’t pay.

The conversation then shifts to geopolitics, as Mikkel shares a Danish perspective on the evolving relationship between Greenland, Denmark, and the United States, and how recent political tensions have reshaped attitudes in both Denmark and Greenland.

This episode offers a thoughtful mix of personal story, unconventional healing, and international perspective from someone who has lived deeply in both Greenlandic and Danish worlds.

Sports Vaerksted

Guide to Greenlandic culture: Introduction to how Greenlanders think and act. By Mikkel Larsen

Transcript

[DUBSIDE]
Welcome to the Dubcast, with Dubside. This will be part two of a special guest, Mikkel Larson, and he will tell you about his decision to leave Greenland, and the context of social problems in a small community, and that leads into his occupation now, which comes off as something of a miracle worker. He has a pain reduction business. I’ll tell you all about it.

It's called Sportverkstud, and we'll post a link to it. You can see videos of him at work, and then finally, Mikkel talks about the political situation of Greenland, Denmark, and the U.S., and he's got a fair amount to say about that, from the Danish perspective, as well as his take on the Greenland angle. This is slightly less than half an hour.

So what led to your decision to move back to Denmark?

[MIKKEL]
Well, it was sort of a feeling, you know. I had the classes first, second, and third, and then first, second, and third, and it was a very nice way of finishing it off.

[DUBSIDE]
A natural finishing point.

[MIKKEL]
There are more to the story, also some bad things. They wanted me to take an extra course in some very difficult grammatical stuff, which I was too stupid to even pass the first one off. But it was a requirement I apparently had to live up to, and I couldn't do that.

So even if we wanted to, we couldn't. But I also felt that I was done with this. It's a very small town, and in a very small town, you get to know each other in the good ways and in the bad ways.

And I had several friends that I discovered were wife beaters, for example, and did things to other people that is illegal and is highly immoral. And over the years, and because of interacting with people, I wasn't always as good as I should have been either, although that does not cause unfriendships directly.

But it's never black or white. It's very in between in such a small society. And I was done with that. I think I needed to get away.

[DUBSIDE]
Which in a small town, if you grow up there, sometimes there is no way to get away.

[MIKKEL]
And that's why they aren't like they are. They have to get along with each other. And that is why they accept things that should not be accepted.

And this is not just my quote. This is also a quote from some people who have been mistreated. Because they would say, I have to go and look at my perpetrator.

I can see him on the street free. And people saying that that guy did not do against me what I said that he did. No one believed me. And I have to live with that.

Greenlanders would... I had read Greenlanders write that in the papers as opinion pieces, right?

And if you try to come with set morals into that world, you're gonna clash with people, first and foremost. And I did that. I clashed with people.

Not in that way, but people thought I was an idiot who should. And while I was there, I noticed that Greenland became better at, I called it, talking about things, putting words to emotions and feelings. While I was there from ’10 to ’16.

I don't know how it is today, but I assume it's getting better, I hope.

Psychologists and group therapies. And at the school, we also, they did a far bigger effort into maintaining kids emotional health.

[DUBSIDE]
So I'm very interested in what you do now.

[MIKKEL]
So when I came, so in the year ’16, I left, came back to Denmark. I had a small savings. I didn't know what to do.

I made the mistake of moving into an expensive apartment in the middle between Odense and the triangular area where I live now. And while I was there in Greenland, in the spring, they have the world's most difficult ski race, Arctic Circle Race.

And I was asked to be a helper. And she asked me, can you, she just stopped me in school: “Hey, Mikkel, do you want to be a helper?”

“Yeah, why not? I can do that.”

“Do you have a snowmobile?”

“No, I don't. Sorry.”

“Okay, you can be a masseur. Can you do that? “
“I don't know if I can be a masseur. I can try.”

“We'll teach you.”
Again, the Greenlandic attitude.

So as a year, let's try that. Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
So this race, you ski from Sisimiut to Kangerlussuaq, which is what, 180 kilometers?

[MIKKEL]
That's true. Three days.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. And there's hundreds of people do that race.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah. That year, there was the most there ever been. I think there was 230 in year ’16.

[DUBSIDE]
So massage, meaning you're the people during, when they stop for the nights that they need. Massage there.

[MIKKEL]
That's true.

So we set up two tents on the, in the back country. And most of it is for sleeping. And the other tent is all for eating. And there's a kitchen there, etc. And people live in small tents.

[DUBSIDE]
The air temperature is what?

[MIKKEL]
Oh, it's cold. It's minus 20 something.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Okay. That's cold.

[MIKKEL]
It is cold.

And that was a great experience for me. I didn't know anything, but I found out that I had strength and the people who had been helped by me, they thought I was good at it. So I thought that was nice.

That was cool. And when I came back to Denmark, I thought that was interesting. This massaging thing.

And I had heard that the courses were six months long and costs 40,000 kroner. But I quickly found a course costing 15,000, I think, and only over a week or 10 days in a row. I thought that's intense.

That suits me. So I bought that and started a few days later. And I got the lowest grade of them all.

Because I was really, I'm horrible at following a pattern and doing what I'm told. But while I was doing that, so it's only 10 days doing the massage course. But I thought this is pretty cool.

I don't know what else I want to do with my life right now. So I went back home and made a website. I lived about a physiotherapy actually.

And I thought only old people went in and out. So I thought there's much more money in the 30, 40 year olds that sit in an office and then they go out and run in the spring and they break their ankle. So I call it Sportsvaerksted, which means the sports workshop. Sports tool shop. Started the business. And somehow I got to know people.

So I went out and massaged 50 teenagers while I was at the school. 50 teenagers. And then I went out and massaged 20 people at an Ironman.

And then I went out to Fredericia a few days later or a week later, just showing up with my massage table I had bought for 600 kroner. That's a hundred dollars. I'm still at the massage school, right?

And then there was a few days pause. And then I took a sports course, which was also just a week or something. So the school was three weeks in all.

And I had already started the company, made a website, booking and been at these arrangements. I just showed up in the Fredericia triathlon and said, “Can I help? It doesn't cost anything.”

"We don't have any massage people.“

“Well, I'm the first then. It doesn't cost anything. I have my own…”

“Yes, sure. You can do that. Yeah. Just go down there and set it up.”

So I did that.

And I put up a sign, “Free Massage Here”. Let's see. And then people came in and lined up and I just did the best I could.

Took some pictures and I worked until it was so dark. I couldn't see anything. There was no lights. So I couldn't see anything. Everything I've done, I've learned by myself in doing this.

So I just started massaging people and found out when I touch people on the ass, some people had no more pain in their low back. It's just what is this 20 centimeters? I don't know what this distance is.

When I massage people in the neck, some people have less headaches. And I thought, what is this? This is weird.

But there's a system for how this functions, if I can touch people somewhere and they have less pain elsewhere. So I found out that I didn't have to massage people. I could just touch people.

So I did that and then they have less pain. So I began making a system.

[DUBSIDE]
Your own system?

[MIKKEL]
My own system. Absolutely. I didn't get anywhere. I had no money. I was simply so amazingly poor. If I could fill the car half up with gasoline, I was rich.

I had to move out of my expensive apartment. I had to flee out of that because I couldn't afford it. I didn't make any money.

And we're talking three months after I landed in Denmark, right? So this is October, November, something like that. And I got a small room in a shabby place over in Jutland, in the triangular area outside of Kolding, where I live now.

Not in the same place, but I live in Kolding now. And I learned so much. I learned to film the treatments of what I did, use that as marketing.

And I learned more about where to push people. And then suddenly I try to press people somewhere and then they say, Jesus, now I have less pain in my so-and-so-and-so. I thought, what is that about?

I don't know, but that's just amazing. So it flooded in the door with handicapped and people with disc herniations and all kind of wild stuff that a masseur shouldn't really deal with. But I thought, well, they are here and I'm here, so I have to do something to try to help them.

You know, the first person you cannot help with a certain condition, I cannot help. So I said, I'm sorry, I don't know what this is about. You're free to go. It doesn't cost anything. I've always had that principle. If I cannot help, if the client cannot feel a 50 percent or more reduction in pain, I take no money.

I've always had that principle. The third person, maybe I know where to start and what at least not do. The 10th person I can help.

The 20th person I can help in a smarter or faster way. And so on and so forth. Does that make sense?

So I say, I've done this for nine years now.

But I've only been good for the last five. That's the way I see it.

[DUBSIDE]
And you're still doing it. It's still working out pretty well. And you're still helping people and taking away their pain.

[MIKKEL]
Yes, I had a client yesterday. And Sunday I had a handful of clients.

[DUBSIDE]
You're in Denmark, right?

[MIKKEL]
Yes, yes. Here in Denmark, in Kolding.

[DUBSIDE]
So we need to know your website and everything so people can flock to your door if you're that effective.

[MIKKEL]
Sportsvaerksted.com, s-p-o-r-t-s-v-a-e-r-k-s-t-e-d.

[DUBSIDE]
I'll have Andrew put a link to it at the end of the text.

[MIKKEL]
You can do that. I have the English website.

[DUBSIDE]
All right.

[MIKKEL]
So, and that's what I've been doing the last nine years. The damages to my own body, I've had pain in lots of places while I lived in Greenland.

I've also had some kind of a, what do you call it, a crooked back where it was so painful that I had to lie on the couch for three days. My knee, headaches, shoulder.

[DUBSIDE]
Do you use your own techniques in yourself?

[MIKKEL]
I certainly do. And that's why I know they work.

I try them on myself and on countless of people. So I'm not doing something that I read in a book. I'm doing something that I experienced work.

So the first many clients, I learned to help them. So they came in with pain.

They walk out without pain. And I think, oh, I'm just fantastic here. And then they call me the next day and say, it hurts again.

"I was so glad when I left and now it's horrible."

I said, this is weird. How can she be wonderful, and then she's in pain again. What is that? Well, then I have to show her how to do it herself.

So I began incorporating that in my in my way of treating.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[MIKKEL]
Then somebody, then some of them still came back and said, "I have pain again,"

"But I taught you to do this and this and this. Have you done that?"

"Yes, I have done that."

And then I tell them to come back. It turns out they have not done it the correct way. They think they have done it the correct way.

So then I incorporate that they have to come back one more time three days later so I can show it. But from there, they are completely on their own. A physiotherapist or a chiropractor like you experienced in your life with your hand, they want you to come back as many times as possible because that's how they make money.

The more visits, the worse a therapist is at helping you with your pain, the more money he makes.

[DUBSIDE]
Kind of a conflict of interest.

[MIKKEL]
Exactly. The better I am at helping the client, the fewer times I see the client. So I have to be good the first time.

[DUBSIDE]
You told me you have this principle, if it's not better by how?

50 percent. That's the cutoff.

[DUBSIDE]
If it's not 50 percent better. Then it's not working.

[MIKKEL]
Usually, yes. Sometimes if they if they cannot lift their shoulder a lot more than when they came in, I say, go home and do this and then text me in three days and tell me what it's like. So if it's not better, then we just forget it.

And if it is better, then you're allowed to send me some money. I call it you are not you're not allowed to pay me unless that's what I call it. You're not allowed to pay.

It's a privilege to be able to pay for my treatment.

[DUBSIDE]
I wish more doctors and health care providers were like that.

[MIKKEL]
So do I really.

[DUBSIDE]
Me saying this from a country that has a horrendous health care system, in my opinion

[MIKKEL]
I think I could... I would so like to fill America with sportsvaerksted.

[DUBSIDE]
We'll see.

So the one one other thing I would like your views on are the, how the whole situation has changed the last six months with our current U.S. president and how that's perceived in Denmark and just how that how you find all that.

[MIKKEL]
In Denmark? The Danes feel deeply stabbed in the back by the Americans. Deeply.

So the reason is that he calls, he insults our prime minister, calls her a nasty woman. He... not neglect, not neglect, but he sort of puts down our contribution to their war, to the Americans war. While Denmark sent the most soldiers per... Did we have the most soldiers per capita wounded or dead? Or did we send the most soldiers per capita?

[DUBSIDE]
In which war?

[MIKKEL]
In the Iraq war in Afghanistan. Not even not in World War Two. We're talking recent.

[DUBSIDE]
So no, no acknowledgement of that on the part of the president.

[MIKKEL]
Oh, yes. And and then there and then he's throwing all these tariffs on us. And he's threatening to invade Greenland, which is, which we considered not our property, but you know, our teenage son or daughter.

We have a complicated relationship with Greenland, but we are of the same part. We have a lot of history together. Also, the Greenlanders feel that way. They have a complicated history with Denmark as well. You can read about that on my...I wrote that culture guide to to Greenland.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, we'll have to say that. So I'm going to have a link to that. You put up online way back when, a cultural guide to Greenland for people to understand, foreigners understanding.

And so give me just the link to that. What is that?

[MIKKEL]
mikkels.com/cultureguidetogreenland, You'll find it on your phone, probably. You have a smartphone, right? We can find the website.

Now, mikkels.com, there's one of the things that's a link to that.

[DUBSIDE]
I've seen it before. I'll get it. We'll link it at the end of the podcast so people can find it.

[MIKKEL]
Oh, OK. Yeah. Deeply betrayed. Deeply betrayed.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
The Greenlanders probably feel the same way as well, because they had really hoped--- that's my interpretation of it--that America would be the way, a way from Denmark.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
They have they really want to get rid of Denmark or be independent, as they call it, even though they actually are. They can... they are really independent in the most, not in the foreign policy. But if they want to do something with other people, they can do that. Denmark would probably not go in the way of that. So but they call it being independent. And they had thought that America was the key to that.

And now America comes and says this, we're going to invade you. And considering the Greenlandic way of thinking and feeling and being, which is very quiet and reserved and polite, it is just, irreparable damage has been done in these last six months.

America has has scored a lot of "own goals" in the last couple of months.

[DUBSIDE]
Kicking the goal into your own goalpost. That's what you're talking about. For your own goal, right?

[MIKKEL]
Yeah. In soccer, we will call it an "own goal."

[DUBSIDE]
"Own goal". Yeah. You've mistakenly kicked the ball the wrong way.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
In these and it will take decades, several decades to repair.

I mean, if you elect presidents that the Europeans like for the next 20 years, we will not have forgotten this.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Is the relationship between Greenland and Denmark changed? How is that?

[MIKKEL]
They were, see, they were about to point more outwards. But now the American president comes and say that we will invade Greenland.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
So the Danish prime minister, who is fantastic in foreign policy, we were not very happy about her in domestic policies, but she's wonderful in foreign policy. We're fully behind her in Ukraine policy and in the American policy and turning more towards binding Europe together. She went to Greenland.

No, Greenland did that. When this happened with Trump, they had an election at the same time.

[DUBSIDE]
In Greenland, yeah.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah, where they turned away from the Dane critical parties and chose the Demokratiet, which is more Dane friendly.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
And Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, went up there and talked to him. Is he called Jens Frederik Nielsen.

[DUBSIDE]
Jens Frederik Nielsen the new prime minister [of Greenland].

[MIKKEL]
Went up there and talked with Jens Frederik Nielsen and the new government, trying to mend things together, saying we do need to stick together. We should stick together. And the new government said, yes, we see that. We can see that.

So the Greenlanders, they managed to say, oh, this is not good.

Before that, there was a very critical bunch of politicians.

Two of the Greenlandic politicians are sent to Denmark each, for every government, every four years. Two from the Faroe Islands, I think. And two from Greenland.

[DUBSIDE]
And that's the representative on the Danish parliament.

[MIKKEL]
Yeah, that's true. So we have 175 and then two and two that makes 179 in all.

[DUBSIDE]
Do you know their names?

[MIKKEL]
No, not the new ones.

But before it was Aki Mathilde Høyt-Dap, who's actually a student at my school. She was a year over the one that I taught when I started. And she was very critical and very loud.

And that's a voice that is in Greenland. But it pisses the Danes off. The Danes say, if you're so ungrateful or if you're so critical of what we have given you, let's just cut the ties.

So the tension was getting worse and worse between Greenland and Denmark. And then Trump comes in and makes us, first and foremost, the government change in Greenland, but also the relationship between Greenland and Denmark suddenly mend or attempt to mend. Right?

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
I'm not saying this is a wonderful thing for Denmark, because as I said, we think the Greenlanders are getting a bit critical and whiny. And there's been some stories about what Danes has done in the past. There's the abortion thing. There's the mining thing.

There's the stuff that we used to make aluminium out of. And for 100 years, we had a mine in Greenland, and that was sold, a lot of it to America, actually.

And the Greenlanders are critical of this. There were some bad documentaries made that the Greenlanders saw and took offense at, despite the numbers being bad and criticized by professionals, etc. So for the last six months or a year or something, the mood was getting very bad.

[DUBSIDE]
But now it's sort of changed over.

[MIKKEL]
Not...among the government, yes. It's probably also about the ordinary Greenlanders who say, "Oh, we do need Denmark more." But the ordinary Danes, they're getting a little tired of this Greenlander, of the Greenlanders.

So that's not a good thing, but that's how it is.

[DUBSIDE]
Did that make sense? Yeah.

[MIKKEL]
As I said to you while we were in there, there's a couple of airplane routes opening up from the new airport in Nuuk. That's another thing. We spent quite a few billion Danish kroner on building the new airport in Nuuk.

So Denmark is giving quite a lot to Greenland. And what are we getting in return? Criticism. That's what we're getting. So that's why it's good that the Prime Minister is having a level head and saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to stick together now.

[DUBSIDE]
The Greenland Prime Minister?

[MIKKEL]
The Danish Prime Minister, but also the Greenlandic Prime Minister, of course. A couple of airplane routes opened up from Nuuk to America, to Canada. Is that not true?

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, yeah.

[MIKKEL]
So that's a good thing, because that can glue the countries together somehow. Somebody will use that to go to trips to Greenland and see what the country really is about.

And Greenland needs the tourists, the income, the exposure. Like we talked about when we were inside the library, the museum, sorry, that all this media palaver about Trump saying we're invading Greenland. Somebody will say, "What is this Greenland What is he talking about?"

And they will read about it and study, and it will get exposure. Not very many, but some. And that's very important that some, a few people in a country of 300 and 350 million, how many million are you?

[DUBSIDE]
In the US? In the US? 300 million.

[MIKKEL]
Okay, 300 million. If very few people out of 300 million are interested in a country of 56,000, that's gonna move some things. That's a good thing, I think, for Greenland.

But also, I guess that Greenland could be very interested in mending or making more connections with Canada. There's the Inuits in Nunavut, which they actually can understand when they talk together. Like the Danes can understand the Swedes.

It's not easy, but it can be done. And both parties want to do something without America.

And they want to sell to Japan, possibly to China, and Canada is on the way over.

Sort of. 40 million Canadians? So, and I did see a recent article that they were interested in doing some business.

There have been attempts. Some of them have ended in fraud, unfortunately. Greenland is a small country, and they're not so used to being on the guard for cheaters.

So they get abused once in a while. There were some foreigners that promised to sell seal in China, and they just took all the project money and fucked off. But now they just sent somebody to Japan to find out what can we sell to the Japanese.

Fish, seaweed, seal, etc.

You asked me very little about kayaking.

[DUBSIDE]
We talked about kayaking. Any more you have to say about kayaking? I'm hoping to come back next year to Nuuk.

The competition will be in Nuuk next year. And I'm hoping to get a whole lot of Americans going, more than usual, because now we have straight flights. And you're there in Nuuk, you don't have to go to Sisimiut or anywhere else with another plane ride.

So that it should be the cheapest it's ever been to go to the competition. So we'll see if we can get some more folks there.

And there you have Mikkel Larsen, recorded at the end of July 2025 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

And he is outside, pretty far outside of Copenhagen, but he's in Denmark. And if you have the kind of chronic pain that doctors don't seem to be able to fix, check him out. He doesn't claim to be 100% successful, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't cost you anything.

He mentioned his cultural guide to Greenland. That's something he put together from his years of observation of Greenlanders. And that can be found on his website, mikkels.com. M-i-k-k-e-l-s .com. And also there is a link to his pain reliving business, so check it out. Mikkels.com.

Thank you for listening to The Dubcast with Dubside.