Age Hammeken Danielsen has hunted narwhals since he was a child. He and his father would travel along Greenland’s fjords on a small motorboat, armed with rifles and harpoons and dressed in polar-bear fur trousers and sealskin boots to insulate them against the freezing weather.
Danielsen, now 33, is a licensed hunter in Ittoqqortoormiit, a remote settlement of 345 people in east Greenland. Narwhals are his main source of income. Known as “the unicorns of the sea” for their long spiralled tusks, they are a Greenlandic delicacy. Raw, diced narwhal skin and blubber, called mattak, is often served on special occasions.
