Danish queen on dog sleigh expedition!

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and her son, Crown Prince Frederik, set off on a dog sleigh expedition in northeastern Greenland.

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and her son, Crown Prince Frederik, on Tuesday set off on a dog sleigh expedition in northeastern Greenland, the royal palace said.

HT Image

"The queen has always wanted to go on an expedition like the one she's on now," palace spokeswoman Lis Frederiksen told AFP.

Frederik, 36, gave his mother the several-day-long trip for her 65th birthday on April 16, after she revealed in a recently published book that she was envious of his many trips to the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

During one of his trips to the frozen island, the prince participated in a four-month Sirius expedition, covering nearly 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of another Danish expedition of the same name.

"I envy you in a way," the queen told her son before he left on that trip in the winter of 2000, adding that she was "crazy enough to survive a similar experience".

Surrounded by their bodyguards, the queen and prince set off on their journey on Tuesday in Dove Bugten, in the northern part of a Greenland national park, inhabited by bears and Arctic foxes.

During their trip, mother and son will sleep in primitive hunting shacks that line the coast.

Frederik's wife, Australian-born Crown Princess Mary, 33, had been scheduled to come on the trip, but cancelled after announcing on Monday that she was three months pregnant with the couple's first child, Danish daily BT reported.