26# ORIENTEERING NORTH AMERICA November/December 2012

New Terrain, Friendly Faces & Fantastic Sightseeing

? Tom & Trish Strat, QOC

The winners of the 2nd NATLOC. Tom Strat & Dorthe Petersen, NASP, Nuuk, Greenland.

QOC members, Virginia DeBons and Karen Strat, finish the long distance event in Iceland which took place 10 km south of Reykjavik at Vífilsstaðahlíð, a diverse and challenging forested hill in the Heidmork conservation area. The plateaus above and below the sloped terrain are recent lava fields with caves, spires, collapsed tun-nels and crevices up to 20 m deep.

Map at right: Sprint-O in Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands. The small pen-insula to the south is Tinganes, the ancient meeting place of the Vikings, where sod-roofed houses and narrow alleyways made for challenging navigation requiring quick decisions. To the north is the town park, featuring the only forest I saw in the Faroe Islands.

Tom: If you were looking for stiff orienteer-ing competition this summer, the three-week combination of World Masters O Champi-onships in Germany, followed by the Swiss 5-Days and the spectator races at the World O Championships in Lausanne was hard to beat. But if you were looking for new terrain, friendly faces, and fantastic sightseeing, the North Atlantic Orienteering Championships (NATLOC), held over three successive week-ends in Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands, was the event to attend.

Trish: I’m an intermediate orienteer and I’ve always wanted to visit Iceland. So when Tom asked if we should go orienteering there, I en-thusiastically said, “Yes!” When he suggested we also go to Greenland, I said, “Sure!” But when he asked if we should do the NATLOC trifecta and also go to the events in the Faroe Islands, I said, “I don’t need to.” His reply: “When will you ever have another chance to go there?” So I said, “Let’s go.”

Tom: NATLOC was first held in 2011. That year, the Championships were hosted by

Greenland’s clubs in Nuuk (NASP) and Illulissat (IOG) plus Iceland’s club in Reykjavik (HEKLA). In 2012, the Faroe Islands, which are halfway between Norway and Ice-land, was included. Sprint, Middle and Long distance events were held in each of the three countries, for a total of nine days of orienteering.

Trish: In Greenland, we rented a studio apartment a short walk from Nuuk’s town center. We were happy to learn that fellow QOC members, Vir-ginia and Jeremy Debons had rented a cabin from the same family and we enjoyed cooking some meals together. We did not rent a car, but mostly walked or sometimes took the bus. One of the highlights of the week was the delicious traditional Greenlan-dic dinner, hosted by the friendly members of the Nuuk Orienteering club where we en-joyed smoked musk ox and halibut; grilled reindeer, lamb and sausages; salads; apple crisp and ice cream.

Tom: The first event in Nuuk was the middle distance. It quickly became clear that the map was excellent, the com-petition was strong, and the course design was on par with top races around the world. For both the middle and long, the terrain had moss-covered rocks, which were quite runnable, and complex rock features, which more than compensated for the lack of trees. The views up, down, and across the fjord were spectacular and distracting! The third race was a long sprint which started in the old part of town and took us through some of the quaint neighbor-hoods of Nuuk. The sprint also had some legs in the wilderness which provided some climb and interesting terrain.

Trish: All six of the international competi-tors (four from USA; Hikaru Takeda, from Japan; and Gisli Örn Bragason, from Iceland) enjoyed a boat trip up the fjord to the Narsap glacier which was the source of the parade of icebergs that continually floated past Nuuk. Tom and I took a trip in a small boat to ex-plore a deserted village and do some fishing. We also hiked over a small mountain, ex-plored the town and visited its museum.

Tom: Iceland was the next stop in the NAT-LOC adventure for me, Trish, Jeremy, Vir-ginia, Hikaru and four of the Nuuk O’ club members. Most of the other 100 ICE-O competitors were European. HEKLA club members were all busy working at the event so most of them did not compete. The Sprint through Reykjavik was fun and a little tricky. During the long event at the Heidmork con-servation area, 10 km south of Reykjavik, I enjoyed navigating through the volcanic ter-rain and discovered the difficulties of mov-ing through Icelandic lupines and birch trees.

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28# ORIENTEERING NORTH AMERICA

The middle distance event was in a city park with woods, wetlands, a network of trails and a few streams requiring quick decision-mak-ing and precise navigation.

Trish: Our adult children, Andy and Karen, joined us and participated in ICE-O. Our friends, Janet and Glen Tryson, from EMPO were also there. Logistically, we stayed in ho-tels and rented a car for the week we were in Iceland. This allowed us to squeeze in lots of sightseeing and frequent visits to geothermal-ly-heated swimming pools and “hot pots,” including the famous Blue Lagoon. Some sightseeing highlights were: snorkeling/scuba diving in a crack between the North Ameri-can and Eurasian continents; hiking in the unusual terrain formations and geothermal areas; and a boat trip to see puffins.

Tom: The Faroe Islands was our third is-land country with a Viking heritage. There is no orienteering club there, but Christian Wennecke from Nuuk along with his Dan-ish friend, Lars Bukkehave, organized a ter-rific event with the help of the local Hvirlan Athletic Club. In addition to me and Trish, the international contingent included: the four members of the Nuuk club, four from Norway and three from Denmark. The sprint through the old part of Torshavn and the city park was challenging and fun. The navigation for the long-distance event on the island of Nolsoy wasn’t very difficult, but every leg had a gorgeous view of the ocean and the neigh-boring islands. The Middle, just outside Tor-shavn, had challenging navigation in the rock features and dry marshes high on the hillside.

Trish: We stayed in a nice hostel in downtown Torshavn, which is the capital of the Faroe Islands. Again we had no car, but walked or took the bus everywhere. On our first day, we stopped in the tourist office for advice. When we told the young man why we were visiting, he said that since the weather was perfect, we absolutely had to hike across the island; we could return by bus in time for the Sprint. It was perfect advice and the views on that clear day were spectacular. Other sightseeing highlights included an historic walking tour of the old town and a bird watching cruise along the cliffs.

Tom: While the orienteering and sightseeing activities on our trip were excellent, it was the friendliness of the organizers and fellow com-

petitors that we enjoyed the most. Orienteers are a small community, but we can be found in some of the most remote, and beautiful, corners of the earth.

New Terrain, Friendly Faces & Fantastic Sightseeing from page 26

Map below: Long course in Greenland. Lo-cated just outside of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, this venue offered magnificent views of the fjord and its many icebergs on nearly every leg. Tricky navigation in and among the many types of rock features, even though there were literally no trees.

The long-distance event in Greenland took place on the slopes of Quassussuaq (Lille Malene) and featured mountainous terrain with many boulders, rock faces, marshes and lots of contour features. Despite the fact that there are no trees, this is difficult terrain to navigate. There are spectacular views of Sermitsiaq (Saddle Moun-tain--1,210 m /3,970 ft) and of icebergs calved from the Narsap glacier floating by.

29# ORIENTEERING NORTH AMERICA

NATLOC 2013

June 22 - 24: Nuuk O-fest (Nuuk, Greenland) Contact: Christian Wennecke, na-spok@gmail.comJune 28 - 30: ICE-O (Reykjavik, Ice-land) Contact: Guðmundur Finnbogason, rathlaup@rathlaup.isJuly 3 -5: FAR-O (Tórshavn, Faroe Islands) Contact: Christian Wennecke, na-spok@gmail.com

Also in Greenland, but not part of NATLOC:Arctic Midnight Orienteering (Ilulissat, Greenland)Contact: Morten Vincentz Jørgensen, iog.ilulissat@mail.dkJune 26: Greenlandic Championship. June 27: Sprint in the town of Ilulissat. June 28-29: AMO Race with courses of 5, 10, 15 and 20 km.

Above: Tom Strat approaches his control in the long-distance event on the island of Nol-soy in the Faroe Islands. The terrain featured grassy hillsides with scattered boulders and some fences plus a small village.

At left: A spectacular view of the island of Nol-soy, which is 20 minutes via ferry from Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands.