Kalaallit Nunaat

Ok, now for the most exciting part of my trip. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a very long time. Late last night I flew up from Zurich to Copenhagen and spent the night at an airport hotel. This morning, I’m flying Air Greenland to Nuuk!

I had enjoyed a decent breakfast at the hotel but wanted another coffee so I visited one of the third party lounges – this one the Aspire. It did the job, but some of the seating was in pretty sad shape.

Here’s our bird that’s going to take us across the North Atlantic today. A very rare A330-800neo – I believe there are only 7 of these in commercial service. Air Greenland names all of their aircraft, and this one is named Tuukkaq, which means harpoon head in Greenlandic.

I booked a seat in the Premium cabin, which was somewhat of a combination of Business Class and Premium Economy. The layout was 2-3-2, with a console between each seat. The seats had pretty good recline, but were a bit narrower than your typical premium economy seat. The cabin was only about half full and I had no one sitting next to me so it was very comfortable.

The cabin bulkheads were beautifully decorated with Greenlandic murals.

Apple juice was served as a predeparture beverage.

A small amenity kit was offered – a surprise for a 4.5 hour flight. I almost didn’t want to open it because the package was so cute, but I wanted to use the socks contained within.

The safety video was of course, almost completely set in the gorgeous Greenland outdoors.

Here we go!

It was gloomy and drizzly in Copenhagen but after reaching the north coast of Denmark, the skies cleared.

The south coast of Norway provided some very interesting scenery.

The food and drink service started with a run of the drink cart. This was very interesting to me, as the locals loaded up with 2-3 of whatever they were having, and the flight attendant seemed shocked when I only wanted one prosecco (she came back a little later to make sure I didn’t want another one – which I graciously accepted).

There was only one meal choice, roasted turkey breast, with a smoked salmon appetizer, a roll and some individually packaged cheeses. It was a good lunch.

After the trays were cleared, chocolates were offered, which were delicious.

There was a clear break as we flew over Rekyjavik, Iceland; which was almost directly below us here.

Another thing that surprised me since inflight shopping offers are usually treated as an annoyance. Again, most of the locals ravaged the cart, especially for snacks and alcohol. I had FOMO and bought myself a souvenir of Greenlandic gin.

We approached the rugged east coast of Greenland and the scenery out the window was spectacular.

I generally don’t watch anything except the moving map on the IFE system, but there were several short “Discover Greenland” videos and I watched most of them. They were super cool.

I discovered too late in the flight that there were exterior cameras on Tuukkaq – both forward and downward facing. They were really high quality, as seen flying over an ice choked fjord close to Nuuk.

After flying over the featureless (and cloudy) interior ice cap, we descended into clearing skies to the northeast of Nuuk.

Just stunning views.

We landed into a strong southerly wind, meaning I was now looking to the east, which was much less rugged terrain.

Here’s the forward cam view of the runway at Nuuk airport – yeah, it’s about as small as it looks, and there’s a huge drop at the end.

We made it! Here’s the almost new Nuuk airport terminal. Most of the people on the plane clapped when the wheels touched down.

The full force of ground services are at the ready for our arrival.

There are no jetbridges here, you walk outside to the terminal building. The ground staff were super chill and plenty of people were taking photos.

On the other side there were a number of local residents standing at the fence waving at their friends and family arriving on the big bird.

Thanks for the sweet ride, Tuukkaq!

You arrive into the airside multi gate waiting area, about half of which is occupied by a duty free shop.

They even had a decent selection of champagne – and FAR cheaper than in town, as I’d find out later (no, I didn’t buy any).

On the upper level was a large waiting room with couches and chairs.

Some tables and beautiful art on the wall.

A nice view out to the apron from the north side.

A space for a future lounge (I peeked in through the windows and it was furnished, but nothing else).

Some very nice bench seating with multi power outlets (AC, USB-A, USB-C) contained within – except nowhere to plug them in!

No outlets along the glass wall by the stairwell!

After about an hour and half in the terminal, I boarded Suloraq, a Dash 8-200, for my flight to my final destination, Ilulissat.

This flight must be one of the most beautiful in the world on a clear day as you’re flying over glaciated fjords for 75 minutes. Sadly, the weather had deteriorated and this view of the Nuuk harbor, about 30 seconds after takeoff, was the last thing I saw until we arrived in Ilulissat.

On their domestic flights, Air Greenland does a basic service with decent coffee, and cookies.

Here’s how we “arrived” in Ilulissat.

Well, obviously we couldn’t land in that, so we pulled up again, and started circling. The captain announced that we had 30 minutes worth of fuel to circle and wait for a weather window to open for visibility to improve, and if that didn’t work, we’d have to go back.

Essentially right at the 30 minute mark, we started descending, and we started to see the town through the fog. Is it going to work??

It even got a little clearer as we passed over the harbor and got closer to the airport.

Yay!!

It was drizzling and gloomy here but visitors and residents alike were happy that we didn’t have to fly all the way back to Nuuk. The weather is extremely fickle in Greenland, even in summer. Many flights are diverted, outright cancelled; and the previous week had a weather system so bad that there were no flights at all for 2.5 days. This week, as I’m writing, people were stuck in various places in Greenland for up to 4 days! I’ll totally take a half hour delay!!

The almost full Dash 8 dumped its load of passengers into the tiny baggage claim area, which had a comically fast moving bag belt. It was short, as you can see, and people had to run to catch their bags before they popped back into the airside.

Some of the ads in the bag claim area were really cute, like this seal advertising optical services.

The shuttle service was shared between almost all of the larger hotels in town.

I arrive at my home for the next 3 days – Hotel Icefiord. It was very comfortable and had a great location for scenery. Not that there’s probably too many bad locations in Ilulissat for scenery.

Although it was still quite foggy, icebergs were already visible off the deck.

I treated myself to an absolutely delicious (and expensive) meal at the hotel’s restaurant, one of the best in Greenland. I thoroughly enjoyed homemade bread with half melted butter; snow crab bisque; and fresh halibut with an unreal cheese sauce complemented by a glass of wine, and an apple based dessert with a cappuccino for dessert. This all put me in good shape for an early night after my lengthy travels and busy last few days.

The room just had instant coffee but I was ready for it. I think this was the only day that I had it.

Much better was the French press stack at the breakfast buffet.

In addition to the usual items you’d expect with a smaller continental/American breakfast spread, there were some very local offerings. I tried all of them and enjoyed them, particularly the muskox salami.

It was still pretty gloomy and I had another coffee before heading out to explore some of the town. There’s no trees or bushes here to hide any junk, but the colorful houses on top of the hill made this spot still a pleasant scene.

There were surprisingly several grocery stores in town. Here’s one of them, the Spar chain.

There was district heating in Ilulissat! I was surprised but not surprised given the Danish influence. It seemed like larger places like apartment buildings and the community hall were on the district heating system, and individual homes and smaller buildings would generally have a self contained diesel fired hot water heating system. I saw the diesel truck filling tanks beside houses later in the week.

Walking up the hill, I entered the sled dog zone. Ilulissat apparently has about 4000 people and 3000 dogs. It sure sounded like it once one of them started howling and dozens chimed in!

These curious puppies followed me for a bit.

But no touching, they’re working dogs!

After the sled dog zone, I reached the Icefjord Center. Yes, you can walk up on to the roof, in the middle.

A soggy doggy even followed me all the way up here.

There were felt slippers for visitors to wear; a place where no outdoor footwear is permitted.

The center contained numerous pretty and interesting exhibits; I stayed there for about an hour and half. They even had a VR experience to show what it’s like at one of the research stations at the middle of the ice cap.

Looking back towards town through the dog area, still gloomy…but colorful.

There are a few established trails here: the blue route and the yellow route.

I walked up the hill on the yellow route, soon passing a cemetery which felt very cemetery-like in the fog.

But the fog was thickening the further uphill I went, so I turned back to the blue route which went down closer to the sea on a boardwalk.

The green mosses and grasses were so brilliant with the fog and rocky backdrop.

The icebergs appeared just about out of nowhere in the fog. So cool. These guys were flying around drones amongst the icebergs.

Although I couldn’t see much of the immense Icefjord, it was super relaxing, peaceful, and beautiful.

I was getting hungry so I walked back to town on the main street of Ilulissat. One of the first buildings you pass here is a large sports hall / event center.

I stopped in to what was probably the main supermarket – Brugseni – they seemed to have just about everything.

Here’s one of today’s flights – no problem with visibility now – flying over the tallest building, the Best Western hotel (!!)

I stopped for lunch at Hangout Bistro, attached to what I think was the only motor vehicle gas station in town (not counting the harbor). I had a local fish: ammassat, and chips. This was about $32 Canadian and was one of the cheaper places in town.

The cloud ceiling was rising after my late lunch so I walked back towards the other trailhead of the Yellow trail, beginning at a power plant, which is just a backup / supplemental power source as the town is now powered by a hydroelectric project to the north of town.

This end of the yellow trail became quite a bit more rugged after an initial excellent stairway up some rocky outcroppings. This was typical terrain. The route is marked by yellow dots painted on the rocks every so often. Good shoes or boots are a must!

I came up to the high point at this part of the trail and was instantly amazed at the view of the Icefjord opening up. The massive icebergs were still holding back some of the fog, and the view was breathtaking. It’s hard to imagine that what we’re looking at in these pictures is ALL floating ice – none of it is a glacier!

Some pretty flowers were doing their best to add color to the harsh Arctic landscape.

Another flight came in from Nuuk, the airport in full service now. Their views must have been awesome.

After over an hour just soaking in the scenery, and chatting with tourists from Denmark, the US, and Taiwan, I headed back the same way instead of doing the loop back to the Icefjor Center. Here is a look back towards the power plant and town.

I couldn’t really figure out what this statue was, except some sort of commemoration of the 275th birthday of Ilulissat.

Back at the hotel, one of the sightseeing boats pulled in at the small dock below the hotel.

And a large container ship was pulling into the harbor.

The local winter mode of transportation next door – a very typical sight at many homes in town.

The sun was coming out in force now and the sky was becoming blue. The hills looked gorgeous.

A restaurant that I never seemed to walk past when it was open – maybe next time!

The weather forecast that I’d been using (Wunderground) had consistently shown over the last few days that the skies were supposed to clear this evening, so I’d booked myself a late evening boat tour of the icebergs. I walked down to the harbor.

Saw a local luggage transfer service bringing some bags off one of the boats, presumably to a hotel.

Hey, here’s the fish that I had for lunch!

We headed slowly out of the harbor and then picked up speed in the open water towards the south.

Before we knew it, I was looking back towards the rocky promontory that I’d climbed in the afternoon on the yellow trail.

And in front of us, was simply magical.

The sun hitting the ice at the right angle made it glisten silver.

The water here was almost 300 metres deep. Icebergs are generally 10/90 above and below water, so that means these bigger icebergs we’re seeing are over 300 metres tall. Some of the larger icebergs further up the fjord are 1000 metres tall. Sermeq Kujalleq (Southern Glacier) that produces these monsters is the most productive glacier in the Northern Hemisphere and flows out of the interior ice cap at a rate of up to 50 metres per day.

The glacier front is 70 km away from the sea, but the large icebergs get stuck here as there is a sharp rise in the seafloor where the fjord joins the open water, and this causes the entire fjord to be choked with ice.

It was hard not to take too many photos out here on this absolutely perfect evening, so the photos will do the talking. We also saw a number of other sightseeing vessels heading out.