Welcome to Elk News

Each month we post one of the true stories, that we used to create Welcome To Elk. If you follow them, playing Welcome To Elk will be like hanging out with old friends. Reading the stories will give you no hints on how the game will end or how we will use the story in the game


In the North, it’s not only cold, it’s also dark. Especially in December – it’s as cold as it is dark!

But December is also a joyful time, with Christmas and family festivities happening. The town’s Christmas tree stands tangled in electric bulbs and yellow paper stars sit in windows, casting a cosy dim light on the snow.

But in Marie’s house, there was no joy. Jakob, her son, who was a keen fisherman and hunter was not at home. He had left the settlement at the beginning of November to go seal hunting. He had taken his rifle and fishing gear to the boat. His boat had a rather powerful outboard engine – as did we all. But in winter – as you can surely imagine – it can be a bit difficult to “fire up”.

Jakob was a strong guy. A couple of strong pulls on the starting cord usually did the trick. But not on this day. The gear lever was stiff as were his fingers (and pretty much everything else on this cold afternoon). He remembered his friends’ advice, to “fire it up” and give the engine a good tug. So, Jakob in his thick sweater, overalls and heavy rubber boots pulled the cord violently and suddenly the engine came to life! Unfortunately the gear lever slipped and the boat leaped forward. Jakob fell overboard, the boat went round in a circle and the propeller split his skull.

What followed was a swift – and probably a painless – death. He disappeared quickly from the harbour surface. There was no rescue. Friends and family started a search around the pontoon and further, even going up to the black harbour’s creaky ice edge. They searched for days, but Jakob had vanished.

So this Christmastime in the settlement was not as joyful as it should have been.

It was not until spring – in April – that Jakob was eventually found. The ice had mostly receded and as the sun spread its low angled light over the settlement, there was a clear view of Jakob at the bottom of the harbour.

Jakob was taken to the small wooden chapel next to the church. A few days later, after a rather indifferent inquest, everybody participated in the burial of Jakob. He was taken to a prepared grave in the churchyard, built long before his discovery in the harbour.

Story writer
Karsten Pennov

Each month we post one of the true stories, that we used to create Welcome To Elk. If you follow them, playing Welcome To Elk will be like hanging out with old friends. Reading the stories will give you no hints on how the game will end or how we will use the story in the game





I was working as a carpenter in Greenland. I was young at the time and it was my first winter in the bygd (small settlement in Greenland) All days were cold and dark and nothing like what I was used to back in Denmark.

I was working all weekdays with almost no daylight, when I was hammering nails, the nails would stick to my glove because of the frost. I was constantly hungry, every day I could easily eat a whole cake just after lunch to keep me warm and happy. I felt very alone, I was used to hanging out with like-minded young people back home. We would be going to concerts and pubs each weekend and I always had someone to talk to. Here I had no one, there were people around me but no real friends. I even at some point drew my own imaginary facebook feed (there was no internet) to pretend stuff was happening.

The people I spoke to were my colleagues. We were a team of about 8 men. They had seen the world but they all came from Denmark, and by the various roads of the world ended up here in a small cold and windy bygd on the west coast of Greenland. They were older than me and came from a different time and background.

Each day we would all drive from each of our construction sites and back to the barracks to have lunch together. I was mostly quiet while eating, I didn’t know what to say and how to be part of the conversation. They would occasionally speak about women in a way I felt uncomfortable with, but they were also the only people there that I could hang out with so I never said anything against it – I probably would have today.

One day during lunch they talked about a woman they called the goat, they had all been with her ( or pretended as they had ) I don’t know if it was her job or if she just hooked up with them, but they all made fun of her as she had a handicap that made her sound like a goat during sex. I was especially silent that day and found their jokes and treatment of this person awful.

Many months later I was on the plane back home to Copenhagen. I sat next to a young man like myself and we started talking. He worked in Denmark but had just been back in Greenland to visit his mom, she was handicapped and needed help.

She came from the same city and had the same handicap as the woman the men in the barracks had been talking about. I said nothing to the young man.

I’m older now, I often think about this story – that next time ( if ever ) I’m in a room with people speaking about another person like this, I will say something, these people are real people and not just a story to tell for fun during lunch.

Story Teller and Writer: Lauge Christensen

Each month we post one of the true stories, that we used to create Welcome To Elk. If you follow them, playing Welcome To Elk will be like hanging out with old friends. Reading the stories will give you no hints on how the game will end or how we will use the story in the game






This is a story about my friends, back when I was living in Greenland.

Musen, Carsten Sur and a girlfriend to one of them (I can’t remember who’s girlfriend she was, but she was the nurse from the seaside town where we lived) went on a fishing trip, traveling away from the ocean and instead towards the mainland.

They went by plane so they could get farther up a cold stream to fish salmon and trout.

When you fly there, you agree with the pilot on a pickup time. Once they leave you, you are completely on your own with no means of contact. If you should need any help, you’ll have to wait for the pilot to come back days after – if the weather allows it.

Musen and Carsten Sur liked drinking beer and schnapps when fishing. It kept them warm and made the conversation run smoothly in the long hours waiting for a catch. At one point Carsten had one or two beers too many and needed to sleep before he could join Musen a bit further up the river.

Most of the area was covered with grass and small shrubs – which isn’t comfortable to lay your head on, but the muskox herds make a lot of small paths close to the water, so Carsten simply laid his beer-heavy head down on one of these and soon fell asleep.

You’ve probably already guessed what happened next – the herd started walking down from the mountainside to drink, and one of the muskoxen – not knowing that their path was also now the perfect bed for Carstens head – accidentally stepped a bit on his forehead.

The muskox did not mean to step on the drunk sleeping Carsten, so as soon as it felt Carsten under its hoof (the muskox is actually a sheep), it stepped aside leaving Carsten wide awake with only a mild concussion and a deep tangle in his forehead.

Carsten was bleeding heavily, and it was going to be another 3 or 4 days before they would be picked up by the pilot.

Luckily they had the girlfriend nurse with them, but she felt the wound was a bit more than her training could cover. However, Musen was a butcher and he thought fixing Carstens head could easily be done with his experience of bleeding meats and all the schnapps now warming his stomach.

He broke the barb off of a small hook meant for fishing salmon. Then he gave Carsten the rest of the schnapps as a painkiller (even though that meant no more schnapps for the remaining 4 days), and while the nurse kept Carsten’s head still, Musen very delicately sewed Carsten’s forehead back together.

Days later, when they were back in town, Carsten went to the doctor, who was so impressed with the sewing skills of Musen that he let the stitches stay until the wound had closed.

I think Musen told me this story – because he was very proud of the work he did on Carsten, leaving Carsten with only a thin scar.

Story Teller: Jan Christensen

Stroy Writer: Astrid Refstrup

Each month we post one of the true stories, that we used to create Welcome To Elk. If you follow them, playing Welcome To Elk will be like hanging out with old friends. Reading the stories will give you no hints on how the game will end or how we will use the story in the game





I had promised my friend Asta that her rabbit Klumben would be in good hands while she lived in the US for some months. We had 3 rabbits in total, Jim Seven, Ponyo and Klumben, they all lived in nice cages Asta had built for them at the university garden.

It was winter, and the rabbits were all fluffy and winter-furry, but Klumben wasn’t feeling well. She would just sit there in the corner getting more and more sad and tired. She was ill and rabbits never show that they are ill, so she must have been extraordinarily ill. I called Asta telling her that we would have to put her down, and I would take her to the vet on Monday. But when Sunday came around, Klumben was doing even worse, and I felt terrible. The best thing to do was to put her down right then and there.

I grew up in the country, so don’t judge me, when on this sunny Sunday morning I thought it would be best if I just took care of Klumben’s misery myself. First thing I did was to call my dad, he knows how to do these things. He suggested putting Klumben in a box and in a plastic bag tied to the exhaust of a car; Klumben would die in a peaceful way.

So I called my brother Lauge asking him to bring over a car, which he did. But he brought an electrical one, which would only do the job if we drove over Klumben and that was definitely not the plan. We took Klumben in the box to Lauge’s workshop – here he had a “real” car. In the backyard of the workshop we tied the box with Klumben inside to the exhaust of the real car, turned on the engine – and waited.

We carefully opened the box after 20 minutes – but Klumben was still alive, maybe a bit high, but definitely not dead. Lauge then remembered his car had one of those environmental filters on the exhaust.We decided to take Klumben to the basement to try and find another way of ending her misery. Being very unsure on how to do this in a humane way, we turned to YouTube, and after watching several videos of rabbits getting killed in various effective ways we decided that we would hit her over the neck with a metal stick. It looked fast, and easy.

But who to do it? Who should kill Klumben, both of us were nervously tiptoeing in circles around the poor rabbit lying helpless on the floor – begging us to end her life. I argued that Lauge did not know her, therefore it would be easier for him, while he said I was the rabbit caretaker and therefore I should do it. Truth is both of us were cowards.

I don’t know how long we must have been in that basement with poor sick Klumben, but Lauge’s partner Frigg called and said there was lasagne ready at home. Hours must have passed by now, so I was confident I was ready to do the deed, I just had to visit the toilet to be sure I would not pee in fear when killing Klumben.

While in the toilet, I heard a short thump noise and when I came out Klumben was now very much dead and Lauge was very much covered in blood. I stood there open mouthed as he looked at me and said “I’m getting very hungry now – let’s go home”.

Story Teller: Lauge Christensen

Story Writer: Astrid Refstrup

Each month we post one of the true stories, that we used to create Welcome To Elk. If you follow them, playing Welcome To Elk will be like hanging out with old friends. Reading the stories will give you no hints on how the game will end or how we will use the story in the game





I was around 20 years old when Rosa (a good friend of mine) and I had rather spontaneously decided to go to India. It turned out to be a backpacking trip made of nightmares. Rosa lost her passport (or didn’t have one), we missed a plane in Istanbul and I ate something which gave me such a running stomach to the point where I had no clean clothes and was walking around in only my swim trunks.

India was not the sunny, yoga beach loving place I had expected it to be, maybe I just did it wrong? Not only that but have you ever accidentally promised someone to smuggle diamonds? Because Rosa did! This is that story:

I can’t remember what city it was, it was a big and dusty one with a big train station. Rosa and I arrived there on our way to the beach. Our plan was to only stay a night and then travel on, so we just wanted to find a hostel close to the train station, take a shower, eat some food and sleep. Our Lonely Planet guide book did not say much about the place, so when a scooter taxi driver told us he knew a hostel close by, we agreed and went with him there.

Rosa and I climbed on his scooter with both backpacks, the three of us were sitting really close. At the beginning of the ride, I was trying to keep track of our direction so we could easily find our way back to the train station the next morning, but I was soon distracted by the nice driver who was joking and telling us about the places we drove by and about India in general. I had the feeling that I had finally actually met someone from India, after traveling for weeks and mostly just speaking to fellow western travelers in hostels.

The hostel was not close by the train station, I think it maybe took us an hour to get there, I don’t know – we had a really good time the three of us on the scooter. When we arrived, he offered us to go see some old ruins the next day. This sounded like a real adventure, we agreed the beach could wait another day and arranged to meet with him outside the hostel the next morning.

He took us outside the city, it was actually a really exciting place to visit and we spent the whole day there. On the drive, we had brought beers and food and had a great time talking about his country, Denmark, politics and all the big questions – you know those conversations you often have when traveling and meeting new people on the other side of the world. In the evening he invited us to hang with his friends at their house, it was a great party, they had beer and cigarettes and considering our small backpacker budget, we certainly enjoyed their hospitality.

The next morning, we were so hungover, in India it’s real tough in all the heat and dust, so we spent most of the day enjoying the air conditioning of the hostel. When the sun was starting to set and Rosa and I started to feel a bit more alive, Rosa with a rusty, hoarse voice told me half laughing that one of the people at the party yesterday had asked her if we were up for smuggling diamonds for them. Rosa being in a fun and games drunk mode had said yes, just to see what would happen. I was a bit more nervous, but hey it was a big city and we had already started packing to leave the day after – they would not find us, and I was really looking forward to that cold beach.

But not long after someone knocked at our door – it was our friend the driver. He was less chatty, more sombre I would say, he asked us to go with him to settle the agreement.

We both had the feeling that it would be best to go with him. He took us to the same place as the evening before. There were a lot of men in the house, they all carried weapons, some even machine guns. Rosa and I were both very quiet, not really knowing what situation we were in, and definitely not knowing how we would get out of it.

Our driver “friend” took us to a room which contained what I would best describe as a gangster boss. He had a calm, slow voice and he explained the job “opportunity” to us. We would fly back to Europe, with diamonds in our luggage, and in Germany we should hand them over and receive our payment, which would be more than enough money to have a significantly better backpack trip if we ever wanted to return back to India. Even though he presented it as a job offer, and it kind of sounded exciting, I had never smuggled diamonds before, I felt that Rosa and I were not cut for this kind of job. Actually I was starting to get scared, I had never had a job interview with guns included before. The gangster boss expected us to say yes, although I vaguely tried to say thank you but no, but he got very angry and no longer spoke slowly, he told us that a deal is a deal and Rosa had promised to do the job. The door behind us was closed.

I tried to speak to Rosa in Danish so we could make a plan on how we could get out of this job offer, but Rosa was nervous and swearing in English and the boss type did not like us speaking in Danish together. So I started instead to negotiate with the boss on the terms of our job offer. After some time we came to an agreement, the boss and his friends, including our friend the driver all looked very happy, and offered us a beer to shift into a friendlier mode. After the recent developments I could really have used a beer, but instead could only think about getting back to the hostel and hopefully find my way to the train station.

They wanted us to sleep at their place before we should start our job the next day, but I convinced them that we needed to go back and get our things.

As soon as Rosa and I entered our room at the hostel we very quickly and silently packed all our stuff, opened the one tiny window and crawled out on the flat roof at the hostel. I felt like part of a game but somehow more nervous cause of the actual real-life consequences.

We found a small ladder on the wall and climbed down into a small alley between the buildings. I was not sure which way would lead us to the front of the hostel – with our captors waiting, or even how to find the train station. We started to walk without saying a word, trying to be as invisible as you can be when you are a tall, almost blonde danish man with his pale redhead best friend walking beside him. We walked for most of the night, I was constantly nervous that one of our colleagues would find us, but we made it to the train station.

The station was bigger and louder and more crowded than I remembered it. The line for a ticket seemed endless, but we had no other choice but to stand there and wait. I was very aware that the gangsters would be searching around the train station to find us. We were vulnerable standing out in the open, waiting in the line covered in both dust and paranoid sweat. Oh how I would have loved to be at that beach instead of only now just buying a ticket. We managed to make our train without seeing the diamond smugglers, but we decided to extend our journey across India to make sure we threw our possible pursuers off the scent. We couldn’t remember how much information we had shared with the scooter driver, so it was better to play it safe, luckily we did get to see much more of India in the process.

Story Teller: Lauge Christensen


Story Writer: Astrid Refstrup