Meet Team Qajaq USA

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In this special episode of The Dubcast with Dubside, we introduce two members of Team Qajaq USA—Andy Thon and Erin Sunseri—who will be joining us this July in Nuuk, Greenland for Qaannamik Unammersuarneq 2026, the Greenland National Kayaking Championships.

Dubside sits down with Andy and Erin to hear how they each found their way into the world of Greenland-style kayaking—from carving their first paddles to learning to roll, attending Delmarva, and catching the bug that leads all the way to Greenland. Erin reflects on her previous trip to Aasiaat and what she’s looking forward to doing differently this time, while Andy shares his training approach and his deeper motivation: connecting with and supporting a living cultural tradition.

The conversation ranges from training routines and cold-water realities to borrowed kayaks, whale stew, team logistics, and the importance of showing up—not just to compete, but to participate in something much bigger.

This is the beginning of the journey to Nuuk—and the formation of a team united by curiosity, camaraderie, and respect for the roots of kayaking.

Transcript

[ANDREW]
Hello friends and welcome to the Dubcast with Dubside. We've got a really special episode today. We're going to introduce the brave souls who will be traveling to New Greenland this July to compete in Qaannamik Unnammersuarneq, the Greenland National Kayaking Championships.

As you all know, this is one of the most remarkable kayaking events in the world. Competitors from across Greenland gather to demonstrate traditional skills rolling, harpoon throwing, races and ropes gymnastics, techniques that come directly out of the Inuit hunting culture. And this year, a small group of paddlers from the United States will be traveling there together as Team Qajaq USA.

To introduce the team, I'm going to turn things over to the man who probably knows this competition better than anyone else in the United States. Here he is, the official Qajaq USA ambassador to Greenland, Dubside.

[DUBSIDE]
Thank you very much. This is Dubside. And so, if you've been to any of the Qajaq USA events around the country in the past year, you've probably heard me give some little shtick about, you know, we want to get a real team together this coming year and make a good showing and support kayaking in the way we've been doing for the last 20 years.

And so, it has come together, I'm happy to say. And I've got, what do we got, like six, seven, eight people, something like that. Good size team.

And we have here today to talk to, directly on the podcast, two people who are going with us this year. So, that is Erin Sunseri.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Sunseri.

[DUBSIDE]
Sunseri. And Andy, I don't even use last names, but…

[ANDY THON] 
Thon.

[DUBSIDE]
Thon. So, let's start with Andy. Tell me, what was your, what made the decision for you to go to Greenland this year?

[ANDY THON]
There were a lot of things that kind of came together, timing-wise. You know, work and family and things like that. But, you know, the direct flight to Nuuk, I think, made this work for me.

So, ultimately, I wasn't worried about losing a week of travel time. Like some of your stories that you shared.

[DUBSIDE]
I almost forgot. I've been hyping that up. This is the first time ever you can fly directly there from the U.S. So, yeah, that's a plus. So, Andy, how did you start kayaking?

[ANDY THON]
So, I spent a lot of time in Florida growing up. And, you know, canoeing on a river, a local river. And then into kayaking.

But really only about four years ago did I start to want to sea kayak. I live in an area now in North Carolina that just has a lot of sea kayaking opportunities. And, you know, the weather changes.

And I just wanted to get better at kayaking. And that kind of led me to needing to roll. And I carved my first paddle.

And after that, I ended up at Delmarva four years ago. And I caught the bug, I guess.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. And so you've been to four Delmarvas? 

[ANDY THON] 
That's right.

[DUBSIDE] 
Sounds like you caught the Delmarva bug, too. I have. When you first started kayaking, did you start with a Greenland paddle?

[ANDY THON]
Oh, no. Just a Euroblade, probably a heavy metal Euroblade, you know, years ago. But, you know, probably graduated to a carbon fiber shaft at some point.

But I really haven't gone back since carving my first 2x4 into a Greenland blade.

[DUBSIDE]
When did you first become aware of Greenland paddles and the whole Greenland thing?

[ANDY THON]
Probably 2021. I was making my daughter a kayak. And I was like, you know, I think they've already figured this out, you know, how to fit a boat around a person.

So I started looking up and found, you know, some plans online for paddles and started understanding, you know, how the Inuit built their kayaks.

[DUBSIDE]
And so tell me about your development of rolling, like how that went, progressed.

[ANDY THON]
The first year, I just wanted to get any kind of roll. I was hoping to get a balance brace. And I just wasn't very flexible at the time.

And the kayak I had was huge. And so the first Delmarva, I really wanted to learn to roll. I also wanted to figure out what my next kayak would be.

I was looking for a lighter, smaller, possibly longer, faster kayak. And fast forward to, I think, the summer after Delmarva, I was practicing and practicing. And finally, I got a layback roll, a standard layback roll.

And probably wasn't doing it as well as I should have. But following year, somebody fixed me at Delmarva. So I'm, you know, doing it correctly.

And, you know, my shoulders don't feel tender after doing a lot of them and things like that. So last year, I started working on a forward finishing roll. So I started working on really chest scull, chest scull recovery.

And when I started doing that pretty well, I tried the reverse sweep.

[DUBSIDE]
Tell me your specific goal in going to Greenland.

[ANDY THON]
I'm really excited to see a culture that, you know, I guess continues to find itself or re-find itself. I think it's a fascinating story. And you see this all over the world where, you know, Native peoples' culture disappears when, you know, they've been taken over by Europeans or whatever.

And I think, in my mind, Greenland is more successful than so many because they were able to get their culture back in so many ways.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. So sounds like helping the Greenlanders to celebrate their culture, which is really what the competition is all about.

[ANDY THON]
Absolutely.

[ANDREW]
So how's your training schedule? What have you been doing to prepare for the competition?

[ANDY THON]
I told myself, you know, a month ago that I would stretch more and maybe do some more core exercises daily. But I haven't yet. I'm probably two, three times a week.

And then weekly, I try to get out and kayak. It's been about eight miles, but usually, depending on the timing of the day and things like that, I'll go six to 12 miles once a week. And I try to do a pretty fast, you know, cadence and speed.

And then I usually find a spot to roll in that, either at the end or in the middle. So I might work for 15 minutes just rolling and then go back to paddling again.

[ANDREW]
Basically, what I've been doing is just going out and paddling and spending a lot of time rolling. Although I did make up a list of names, a list of names of the rolls here. I want to be able to know what roll I'm supposed to do when they call it out.

And so I laminated one of these, and I'm going to be putting it on the deck of my kayak. But, you know, if we do a group rolling with Dubside, then he'll be able to translate for us.

[ANDY THON]
That's right.

[DUBSIDE]
Let's transition over to Erin. So, Erin, this will be your second time going to Greenland. So tell me how that influences this trip.

Is there anything you want to do that you didn't do or anything you especially want to do again that you did? Being the second time, how is that going to be?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah, I mean, I'm never one to turn down an adventure. So the opportunity arose to go to Greenland with my friends. And, of course, I was going to say yes.

As far as anything different, I think my goal this time is to have my ropes routine down. Last year or last time I went, Nate Apgar had to coach me through that. And I know you're allowed to have a coach when you do ropes.

But ideally, I would like to have my routine worked out as far as which ones I'm going to do and in the correct order.

[ANDREW]
So when did you go to Greenland last time and where was it?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I went to Aasiaat. It was in 2017. There was a big group, two sets of people.

I came kind of with the first group for a big paddle. I don't know, six days around Aasiaat Island with Maligiaq. And then the GearLab guys came in from Taiwan.

And then we all kind of participated in the competition together. I don't know, there's maybe like 10 to 15 of us. And then some of the first group left.

And then the GearLab folks went out on the next trip around the island with Maligiaq. I think I was there for 25 days or so in Aasiaat back then.

[DUBSIDE]
So you stayed at the school then, didn't you?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
We stayed at the... I might have stayed. I showered at the school because showers were real hard to come by in Aasiaat.

But we stayed in the cross-country ski house. Maligiaq had arranged. We slept on the floor in there because we had a couple bathrooms and a kitchen.

And most of us stayed up there.

[DUBSIDE]
Maligiaq had arranged that to happen.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
So that was nice, but showers, not a common thing.

[DUBSIDE]
Are you planning to do the races?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I could be convinced into a short race, but that's probably about it. I'm more of a flexibility, acrobatic kind of human and less of a speed human. But if there's a group of people in a kayak, I mean, I could be convinced to go do the short race.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, well, the short race distance is also the relay race. So the relay race, usually the last day of the week, they do that. That's a lot of fun.

But yeah, I'm with you on the long races. I'll watch those.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Like the portage race? No, thank you.

[DUBSIDE]
No. Is there any particular food you're looking forward to eating again?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Well, I mean, I've had my fair share of whale at this point and seal and I think muskox as well. I can't say that I was super jazzed about any of them. But once you put whale into a brown stew with some potatoes and some rice, that's fine.

It's kind of the standard fare that we got at lunchtime there. But what's the muktuk, the frozen narwhal skin? That was actually not too bad.

That was probably like my most favorite of all the different whale dishes that I got to try while I was there.

[DUBSIDE]
You didn't find muskox distinctly different from seal and whale?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I found it more acceptable than seal and whale, but still different than, you know, chicken. I think the first night we arrived, Maligiaq made his like childhood seal stew for us at the ski house. So that was interesting.

Seal meat is black.

[DUBSIDE]
It's very dark. It's an acquired taste.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah, it was good to try things.

[ANDREW]
Erin, what did you do for kayaks during the competition last time?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah, so we just borrowed kayaks. For some of the races, if there was none available, people would just take it. We had big plastic boats that were rented for the touring part of it.

So there was always a boat around or kayak around if absolutely needed. For the rolling, we had talked to Jan David, I guess from Sweden, but he had come with Anders. And he had like a really beautiful rolling kayak that he was very gracious to let all of us use for the rolling comp.

We just kind of switched in and out of it, all the folks who were doing the rolling. And so I was really generous of him and really great. So I'm just kind of borrowed.

And sometimes you're five minutes late because you were trying to figure out your kayak at the last minute to the race. But it works out.

[ANDREW]
What do you plan to do differently in the competition this year?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Not be on time. Don't show up at 0930. Not ever.

You will be very cold standing there all day long. I don't know that I would do anything different as far as the competition goes. I mean, it's a little bit stressful in the moment.

But really, you're just there for fun and just to support the Greenland people and to be a part of a really cool experience.

[DUBSIDE]
So. I can tell you, Erin, that in Aasiaat, the way they had it set up, the staging area was on the far edge of town. Half an hour to walk there.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
So far.

[DUBSIDE]
That's going to be totally different this time because your place in the house we have is just right up the hill, like five minutes and you're there. So that'll make it a good deal easier.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah. Because once you walked all the way down to Aasiaat, you walked an hour to get there. And then you're like, well, I'm not going to make this trip multiple times a day.

So you just kind of like huddle in the little tent they had there. Do the best you can.

[DUBSIDE]
Erin, are there any people that you remember, Greenlanders, you remember from when you were there that you. I can give you an idea whether if they may be there again.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Oh, my God. I do not remember a lot of names.

[DUBSIDE]
Describe them for me.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Oh, my God. I don't even know. I, I, I connected with definitely some Greenlandic folks when I was there, but maybe not as many at the competition.

So, I mean, it'd be good to connect with a few more people because I was there for 25 days, I think, in Greenland. So I had like a lot of time that was not competition time. And so I kind of made some friends around town and spent some time with other folks hanging out.

But they were not a part of the competition at all. So they were just other Greenlandic folk who lived in in Aasiaat. So it would be nice to hang around.

[DUBSIDE]
If they lived in Aasiat, then you probably won't see them in Nuuk this year. But that's the way it goes.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah. No, it'd definitely be good to connect with a few more of the competitors. And I know that's a benefit of living at the school. But also the disadvantage of living at the school is maybe like your sleep and your sanity.

I don't know. Pluses and minuses.

[ANDREW]
So when you were at the school then, were you sharing a classroom with another team?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
It's like a classroom with like 20 or 30 people in it. And they had like kind of mattress, cot kind of things on the floor for people. That's what the Aasiaat setup was.

So I don't know. Dubside has a lot more experience in how the school setup goes. But I think we all decided that we'd like to have a kitchen, you know.

Because I think they were definitely doing like, you know, food was part of the competition. So I don't know. We weren't super jazzed with whale three times a day.

So we needed a little bit of reprieve.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I don't know if they had whale three times a day.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Just for dinner?

[DUBSIDE]
The breakfast would usually be, there'd be like a couple boxes of cereal and oatmeal and orange juice. And then I don't think they had any real eggs. Did they?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I don't. I remember there was a line. I remember it now like I'm thinking like, yeah, the breakfast line.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Yeah. Last year, as I mentioned on the podcast, they really threw me for a loop.

Because the Sisimiut people, the Sisimiut local team suddenly decided that they were not going to supply breakfasts and lunches during the competition. Just the dinners. I was all calculated at least to have enough breakfast, you know, for oatmeal or something.

So I had to go to the store a little more often. But I dealt with it.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I'm actually surprised how much options they had for like fruit and vegetables at the store near Aasiaat.

[DUBSIDE]
Oh, yeah. And Nuuk's got two big stores and a lot of little stores. And you got all the fresh food is there.

Now, it's not cheap. 

[ERIN SUNSERI] 
Well, I know. Yeah,

[DUBSIDE] 
See, at the school…

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Do you think there will be whales? Are there whales outside of Nuuk?

[DUBSIDE]
Not nearly as many as Aasiaat. But you may see one. You may see the fluke coming up in the distance if you look fast enough.

But if you don't see any of that, don't expect it. I wasn't sure.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Obviously, in Aasiaat, that was the only thing we did every day.

[DUBSIDE]
Watch whales. Yeah, humpbacks all over the place.

And then the icebergs in Nuuk, there aren't quite as many. If the wind blows, they might come in. But it's not near like Ilulissat.

Yeah, they're not close to the glacier. if you get one to come in, you can paddle out there and have somebody take a picture of you rolling in front of the iceberg because you got to do that.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Very fun. I have not done any sort of training because I live in Minnesota, and it is very frozen and very cold. We do have pool sessions with the local clubs, so I do go to those occasionally.

But that's about where we're at. It'll warm up at some point.

[ANDREW]
Well, isn't that the time when you want to go because, you know, you want to be in the really cold water to get used to it?

[DUBSIDE]
If you have to break through the ice, that's going to be a problem.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah, I mean, whatever. I survived between the dry suit and the neoprene bonnet and the tuilik. And honestly, the coldest part was the hands because it's hard to put enough coverings on your hands to keep them warm and still be able to hold on to the paddle.

So that was probably the worst. The worst cold was the hands for rolling.

[DUBSIDE]
If you get lucky, I believe that was in Aasiaat that day, they moved it to the harbor because it was too windy at the other place. But it was it was a chilly day. The water's still cold.

If the sun comes out enough and it's calm, it's a whole different, not entirely different, but it's considerably easier. I mean, you come up and you sort of recover from that chilly water and then you go back down again. And the hands aren't quite so bad.

So we'll see if we get a sunny day. It's calm. It may not be as difficult.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah, we shall see. But I think you said this before. It's always good to have a team there when you get out of the water and someone is waiting with your fleece pullover and something to dry you off and pull your tuilik off for you.

And it's good to have friends on the rolling deck waiting to undress you and get you warm.

[DUBSIDE]
If we've only got like, you know, what is it like 300 yards to get up the hill to the house there with a shower, that's that's really nice. I've seen in the other teams from other towns, they'll have their shipping container. Often they'll in the back, they'll make that their dressing room to put stuff in.

And I saw one place that they had like a kerosene heater back there, which is a carbon monoxide disaster. But nobody died yet. 

But there was one woman. She's from Nuuk. She should be there this year. And she had hooked up because, you know, you get off the water rolling and you are cold. And she had one of the it's like one of those little stand up dressing room tent things with some sort of special heater in that thing to fire it up. It was like a portable sauna or something like that. She wasn't fooling around.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I'll just make sure Jon's there to hand me a towel and a coat.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. And then also having being able to even the walk that we have to get down to the competition. You're walking around there and this stuff's going to race to watch or whatever.

And you can never tell if it's going to get colder, if it's going to start raining or the sun's going to come out. So if you bring all your stuff, you know, your your your cold weather gear and your rain gear and your bug spray and your sunscreen and the extra battery free camera. You got this backpack that you're lugging around.

So with the actual team, we can all say, OK, here's our little spot here to put your backpack here and somebody can watch this stuff and then you can walk around. So that makes it makes a lot easier that way.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
So, yeah, I think I have like an IKEA bag with like a backpack kind of straps on it. And pretty sure that thing went with me everywhere. And I'll see.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. You have to be a pack horse.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah.

[ANDREW]
So so we're missing one other person. Well, actually, we're missing a couple of the people, Jon Raybuck and Joshua. Now, Erin and Andy, you know, Jon, how do you three all know each other? You're in different parts of the country.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah, I met Jon. He used to he used to live in Minnesota. So we learned to roll together like ’20.

I probably met John in 2016 or 2017 for the first time. He came out to some rolling clinics that I was at learning to roll and we connected there. And then Jon, Andy and I are kind of all around a similar age.

So we kind of, Jon and I connected to, like, practice rolling and stuff. You know, he helped me, like, get ready for the competition. And then he ended up moving out to New Jersey.

So now I go out to Delmarva to hang out with Jon. Because the only time I get to see him now and kayak with him is at Delmarva. And then we met Andy.

And somehow he likes to hang out with us.

[ANDY THON]
They've accepted me into the group. They've been very helpful in getting me to improve my skills and just an awesome camaraderie. The three amigos.

[ANDREW]
So, Andy, how did you first end up going to Delmarva?

[ANDY THON]
I honestly think it was a fluke. I think social media happened to be on at the right moment when I saw a Delmarva thing pop up through one of the kayak things that I'm on on Facebook. And I was like, oh, I could learn to roll.

It's not too far away to drive. And so I signed up and it opened me up to a whole new world and culture. I was looking at skin on frame.

I was curious about skin on frames and things like that. And so it was kind of originally an all for one kind of thing for me to really go check out and see. There was a lot of things that I was curious about.

[ANDREW]
Had you built a skin on frame kayak before you went or did you learn about it afterwards?

[ANDY THON]
I have not built one yet. I've been fortunate to be able to find somebody that was close to my size and buy a West Greenland. It's the Cape Falcon West Greenland 2.0. Probably a little undersized for me, but it works well.

[ANDREW]
Nice.

[DUBSIDE]
So in order to be fully prepared, where am I going with this? We need to know how to sing the Qajaq Song. 

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Oh no.

[DUBSIDE] 
I hope you've been practicing. I put up multiple videos years ago with the words coming up and everything. So they will be impressed because it will be sung probably daily for the entire time we're there.

They'll be playing it on the speakers. You'll hear it over and over. Learn at least the first line.

[ERIN SUNSERI] 
I promise I will learn.

[DUBSIDE] 
All right. That's good. The other thing is, we're going to look like a team because we have the team jacket.

Can we see the team jacket right now?

[ANDREW]
Yes. Here it is.

[DUBSIDE]
Let's see the team jacket. Drum roll, please.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
I believe Andy and myself have ordered our team jackets.

[ANDREW]
That's the front.

[DUBSIDE]
Here's the front. Let's see. Just put it on.

[ANDREW]
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Look at that. It has the Qajaq USA logo right there. It has my name right there. Right here. And on this sleeve, it says...

I'm trying to get it to focus here. Qaannamik Unammersuarneq Nuuk 2026. And on the back, it has the printed logo.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

[ANDREW]
Yeah, it's nice. It has a little microfleece lining and a cadet collar and is water resistant.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. We'll need that too. It gets chilly out there.

[ANDREW]
Yeah. Great for layering.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Some of the other teams have their team chant thing. Like, Erin, if I were to say, “Yupi Yai Yai, Yuki Yuki Yai Yai, Yuki Yupi Yai Yai, Yuki Yuki Yay”, does that ring a bell?

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Yeah. It does.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. That’s the Nuuk Team chant. And you’ll heart that until you are sick of it. You think it’s just the way the Greenland… but it’s the Nuuk, it’s their team chant thing.

And then the Ilulissat, no I’m sorry—the Qaqortoq, some years back they wanted to come up with their own thing, so theirs goes, “Hoo Ta Ta Hoo Ta. Hoo Ta Ta Hoo Ta. Hoo Ta Ta Hoo Ta Ta.” Something like that.

So, I’m not saying that we have to have something, but if somebody has got any good ideas, something catchy, then we could really sound like a team as well as look like a team. So just be thinking about that.

[ERIN SUNSERI]
Maybe Andy and Jon and I will workshop something.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[ANDREW]
Yeah, great, looking forward to seeing what you come up with. 

Should we wrap this up? This has been great. Good talking to you all, and we'll keep in touch. 

And if any of you out there are listening to this and thinking, “I wish I could be part of something like that”, well, here's the good news. You still can. There's still plenty of time between now and July to arrange your travel and start practicing for the competition. 

And there's still room in the Black House in Nuuk where our group will be staying. You don't have to be an expert paddler. What matters most is that you're interested in the tradition, willing to learn, and ready for a remarkable adventure. 

If you're interested in joining the team, reach out to us through dubcastwithdubside@gmail.com, and we'll tell you how you can be part of it. Until then, thanks for listening.