On a clear day, flying over Greenland is astounding. My spouse took a couple of these photos as he had the window seat, but then I got my better camera and took a few more.
It is easy to know when you are flying over mountains that they are mountains - but was that a frozen river?
I wondered how thick the snow and ice is. The mountains led me to believe that this was not yet the huge glacier that covers so much of Greenland.
Although there are parts of Greenland along the coast that are inhabited, this looked quite inhospitable - but magnificent nonetheless.
Even from this height it was possible to see the patterns created in the ice and snow. An awe inspiring sight.
A walk around town - it felt deserted at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. We went into a gift shop but goods are very expensive – they had hats made of muskox wool that were hundreds of dollars. It is the softest wool I have ever felt – softer than angora.
Ilulisaat
At 10:00 we joined the hiking group – through town, past an area with many dogs tied up, some with puppies. There were sleds scattered around as well. Uphill some more and past a camp ground.
By now we were on a long boardwalk over terrain that was at times boggy and at times dry – with the same cushiony grass. We turned a corner and saw huge icebergs in the bay framed by hills with a grassy meadow leading up to it. Incredible! This is where the icebergs start – calving from the large glacier.
We saw more evidence of sod houses and were told that in a nearby bay people had lived in sod houses until the early 20th century.
We hiked up a rocky hill and were able to look over the edge of the glacier from which the icebergs calve. A hike back the way we came and then onto the ship where we ate our bag lunch on the deck.
Then onto the zodiacs for a trip through the icebergs – awe inspiring – no words as we slowly floated by ice towers shining in the brilliant sun.
The air feels wonderful to breathe – big lungfuls of fresh clean air.
We got into zodiacs and headed for Assaqutaq, a mainly abandonned island community. This village was vacated in the 1960s when there was a voluntary program to relocate people to larger settlements, in this case - Sisimiut, where there were more services. Part of the island is used for a summer fishing camp. One house had solar panels and a wind turbine on top. It was fascinating to roam the island – many arctic flowers, the ground soft and resilient. The island was covered with soft cushiony grass – it feels as if you are walking on a very thick spongy carpet. There is evidence here of sod houses from the Thule period– houses built into the earth. It seems there was some wood in the arctic – driftwood that travelled on ocean currents. They may have used it for building. But whale bones were also used as timber – holding up the roof of the house.
Some of the European style houses from earlier days have sod insulation. There was a wonderful feel about the island. - bits of history and culture to try to understand. And the scenery is at the same time barren and rich. The dark skies and mist added to the mystery of the place. There are rocky cliffs/mountains. An old graveyard sits up the hill with fenced in mounds as graves.
Many arctic flowers and trees no higher than 6 inches. Berry bushes creep along the ground. On the top of hills you could see cairns – used by the Inuit for navigation or to designate a cache of food. This is a mystical place.
It is something to fly north on a clear day. We saw icebergs, Baffin Island – with snow capped mountains and then crossed Davis Strait. Flying over Greenland was amazing. Closest to the coast it was quite barren. Rocky ranges of mountains plunged down to fjords. In some the water was blue, others a turquoise green. As we got closer to the airport we saw some green on the hills.
Not a tree in sight. We followed the fiord to the airport at Kangerlussuaq. What a thrill to land there. Our plane was so big we stopped fairly far from the terminal and had to be bused to it.
Once we went through immigration we drove up a winding and at times steep dirt road to go to the area where muskoxen graze. We passed over a river heavy with silt. The water rushed through a narrowing and plummeted down to a lower part. A raven sat on a post surveying the land below. There is nowhere to hide – even bushes are barely 6 inches high. We stopped fairly high up with a view that went on forever – no trees to block it. The main sound was a light wind. The air was so clear – a pleasure to breathe. We hiked for over an hour – leisurely – stopping for photos and just to admire the view. In the distance we could see the edge of the glacier, shining in the sun (it was about 16C). Someone spotted a muskox and we were able to look at it through a scope. As some people hiked nearer it suddenly bolted. I didn't know it could move so fast. They look large, but apparently weigh only about 300-350 kg. The herd here was introduced from northern Greenland. 27 animals were brought here in the 1960s. There are now about 25000 in the herd which is scattered over a wide area.
Everywhere you look you see rock. It is actually part of the Canadian Shield – the same rock we will see in Baffin Island – some of the oldest in the world. Some of it is polished by the glacier's retreat – amazingly smooth – polished by the silt the glacier pulled with it. Some of the surface is smoother in one direction – the polishing happening in the direction the glacier was moving.
A bumpy bus ride through the terrain – with some wild flowers and many boulders, and then our first view of the ship – the took us to the dock where we put on our life jackets and got on the zodiacs – lovely to be on the water. And then onto the Clipper Adventurer.
We sailed out the fjord with towering cliffs, rocky landscapes (see photo at the top). Here's a view from our porthole.
