Many of the paths crossing the West Greenland tundra have cairns to guide the way. These have often been adorned by the skulls and antlers of reindeer.

The Arctic Circle Trail isn’t particularly old. For much of it’s length however, it crosses ancient hunting grounds, often following paths walked by hunters for hundreds of years. Cairns were built in the 1990s, piles of stones, often marked with a paint daub, or two, or three. A helpful semi-circle of red that reassures the hiker. Many of these rock cairns have been added to over the years, hunters adorning them with antlers from their kills. These are often more visible than the cairns and paint splotches, standing prominent, noticeable from a distance either through shape or colour.

Other than some impressively large cairns, with many rocks balanced precariously, the description ‘cairn’ can sometimes be a little fanciful. It may simply be the skull of a reindeer, sometimes still fur covered, with a set of antlers, balanced on a larger rock. Any meat has long gone from these skulls, picked off by flies and corvids. There is a strange brutal beauty to these antlered cairns. I didn’t think them gruesome in any way when I walked the trail. While the animal carcass has been hauled away, used as food, the empty eye-socketed skulls and pointing antlers remain to fulfil another purpose, guiding the way across an often harsh landscape.

• Arctic Circle Trail: Kangerlussuaq to Eqalugaarniarfik
• Arctic Circle Trail: Eqalugaarniarfik to Sisimiut