Greenland | travel

Arctic contrasts

Most tourists travel to the picturesque Disco Bay. We went to the capital of Greenland, Nuuk, in July 2016 to revisit the place where Nick and his family lived 20 years ago.

Nuuk is also known for its many inuit arts and crafts artists creating soapstone figures and mythic Tupilak spirits from caribou antler. Each artist has his/her own style. When an artist dies, the style and type of figure dies with him/her.

In a cold bunker on one of the utmost points of Nuuk, overlooking the ocean, we visited one of Nuuk's most famous living soap stone artists, Anton Berthelsen, who kindly let us purchase his latest figure of a woman reading in a book. We also discovered that we had common acquaintences!

Nuuk town

We felt that we were at the end of the world when we arrived in Nuuk 'town center'. The silence in Greenland's capital is deafening and the sunny nights make you lose the grip of time, and you feel surprisingly energized even late night. Nuuk is one of the few places in the world where time still goes by very slowly. It was completely alien to us, but it felt really great!

Compared to a few decades ago, Nuuk has expanded both horizontally and vertically with modern tall new buildings with large glass terraces to make the most out of the sea view everyone seems to have. Inbetween, you still find the old structures from the 70s and 80s worn down by the arctic climate with dried halibut hanging from the balconies.

We spent most late evenings watching the midnight sun in the cozy Old Nuuk neighbourhood (Kolonihavnen), a collection colorful early Danish settlement houses. On the other side of town in Sana Bay (Sanabugten, still within walking distance), we would spend hours enjoying the silence and watching slush-ice colored icebergs float by.

Wooden houses in Old Nuuk

Take-away in Sana bay

Anton Berthelsen (left) with soap stone artist friend outside their bunker.

The Nature

Greenland is raw arctic nature at its most pure, untouched and dominating and during the very brief summer it is covered by a beautiful carpet of heather and arctic flowers.

Arctic Poppy meadow in Nuuk

The national flower of Greenland "River Beauty Willowherb" outside Kangerlussuaq

Arctic Cotton Grass at Lille Malene mountain

While staying in the centre of Nuuk, we were able to explore the surrounding wilderness on foot and boat.

By boat

Everything is far away in Greenland. We sailed for 3 hours through stunning mountain scenery and walked through the dense heather to reach one of Nuuk's neighbouring towns and the icefjord: a glacier draining the Greenland ice sheet, flowing into the fjord. The fjord is spectacular, but perhaps even more intriging is the constant movement of ice that you can hear as the creaking and thunder of the calving glacier.

Eating lunch at the Ice Fjord

I (the lady bee) had never seen icebergs before and went into a picture bonanza everytime ice floated by our boat. Icebergs can be found further out in the fjords surrounding Nuuk and often float by the city during summer. Despite their beauty, they are also a result of a accelerated melting of the ice cap and a very visible consequence of the global warming. The glacier of the ice fjord had also pulled back significantly than when Nick's family had last seen it two decades ago. All by itself, Greenland can raise sealevels by 7m worldwide if (and this year it is melting record-breaking fast) its entire icecap melted.

A few days later we sailed around the iconic mountain Sermitsiaq (meaning "Eternal ice") which can also be seen from downtown Nuuk. In the fjord, at the foot of the mountain we came a cross a humpback whale feeding on a school of fish. Rumour had it that it was 3 weeks since last time a whale was spotted close to Nuuk and we felt very lucky to also be able to cross this off the bucket list.

BACK

The waterfall behind Sermitsiaq mountain

A couple of icebergs floating by

On foot

The Greenlandic wilderness can be found just outside Nuuk and the 7km hike around the mountain Lille Malene and through Paradise valley is a must!

View of Sermitsiaq on foot around Lille Malene

Making the most out of a stop in Kangerlussuaq

It is not possible to fly directly to Nuuk (or Disco Bay) due to the length of the Nuuk air strip and the wind direction. Every visitor from abroad needs to stop by the small airport town of 500 inhabitants, Kangerlussuaq, before changing to one of the smaller domestic airplanes. Local tour operators can offer a variety of acitivities while you wait for your next flight which enabled us to experience both a glacier emerging from the Greenlandic ice sheet and go on a musk ox safari!

Glacier near Kangerlussuaq

Stunning Greenland has a bleak backdrop of significant social issues, poverty and economic inequality. Little has changed during the past 20 years, but we hope for a better future for the indigenous peoples of Greenland.

We were completely enchanted by Greenland and we are already dreaming of going back, this time to see the Disco Bay

Thanks for tuning in!

TIPS

Bring layers of warm clothing: Visiting Greenland during the summer, we were prepared for any kind of weather and temperatures ranging from 0 - 20C and we walked around either cold or sweaty with 6 layers of clothing .

Wear a mosquito net: More importantly, going anywhere outside town demands that you wear a mosquito net and cover up any bare skin.

Buy your soapstone figures and Tupilaks directly from the artists: The shops charges a 100% price premium on the inuit art. On the other side of Sana Bay, in a green house, is the artist workshop where you can buy the latest figurines and see how they are made.

We visited several times and got the chance to speak with many of the artists. Keep in mind that each artist makes a certain type of figures: one person making the soapstone whale tales, another one a certain type of Thule men.

If you are going far, make sure to book a boat with a warm cabin: The fjords are beautiful, but the wind reminds you that you are in the arctic even during the sunny summer days