Another instalment of the Greenland Expedition, this time from Ilulissat, the country’s third-largest town. Its nearby fjord manufactures a vast quantity of icebergs every day, sends them floating past the windows and thereby provides the ultimate form of television.
Ilulissat was the main destination—or at least one of the very main destinations—of our trip. It has around 5,000 residents and one enormous local landmark: the nearby glacier. Every day the glacier produces icebergs, the icebergs drift past, and you stare at them. Then you stare a bit more. Suddenly half the day has disappeared, but you do not mind, so you continue staring, because this particular programme does not become boring.
Beside town lies a UNESCO World Heritage area containing both the Ilulissat Icefjord and the archaeological remains of indigenous settlements. The village of Sermermiut was first inhabited by Inuit cultures around 600 BC. Not much of the village survives and there is not a great deal to see from the marked path, but the principal attraction—the procession of ice—remains within easy staring distance. One popular story claims that the iceberg which sank the Titanic came from this very glacier. Allegedly. The iceberg has declined to comment.
Ilulissat and its immediate surroundings
Ilulissat itself provides such civilised services as Immiaq brewery, Pisiffik and Spar supermarkets, several restaurants—most accepted cards—the Knud Rasmussen Museum, a harbour where boat trips to nearby settlements can be arranged, the luxurious Hotel Arctic (you can attempt a casual wander through its lobby; the view is rather good), and a local church where one may sit outside or have a look within.
Given its size, this is not somewhere you visit for a grand shopping expedition or an evening at the opera. The real show is all around you, and mainly on the water.
Several marked trails around town follow the coast and cross the historic archaeological area. They are colour-coded by difficulty, and two of the three are unpaved. Prospective travellers may appreciate the attached scanned 2018 trail map. We walked every route and, thanks to the icebergs, every one was splendid. An up-to-date paper map can be obtained from one of the tourist offices near the brewery, a location chosen with admirable logistical foresight.
The common junction for all routes is the old heliport, Heliportitoqaq, where a large number of dogs lie around. In these parts a dog is a working tool—it pulls sledges—and one should not scratch, stroke, feed or otherwise socialise with it. If one bites you, accidentally or otherwise, its owner may shoot it because a dog that cannot be trusted is no longer useful; absolute obedience is expected. The dogs you play with live at home. These are employees. Admire them from a distance, which also has olfactory advantages.
Hiking trails with icebergs attached
On our second day we set off in suitably damp and gloomy weather along the yellow trail. Halfway around we met Vojta, who was wandering through the UNESCO reserve, and together continued along the entire blue trail back into town—yes, towards Pisiffik and its bottled refreshments.
As loyal patriots of Trutnov’s Krakonoš brewery, we had carried one bottle of its twelve-degree lager north of the Arctic Circle. We chilled it at a bend near the point labelled Kuuniataaq at the bottom of the map, spread local pâté on local bread, photographed ourselves on the coast among the ice and continued onwards. It should be admitted that if a large iceberg had broken apart nearby, the odds of a wave washing us away would have been impressively high. Several signs along the coast warn of tsunami danger and suggest that standing close to the water may be a poor career choice.
The yellow trail runs from the local power station to the former heliport. Like the other two routes, it is well marked with coloured dots painted on rocks. On the left: local flora. On the right: drifting icebergs. After a while it is quite easy to spend more time watching the performance on the right than the ground directly ahead. Any resulting fall can at least be used for close scientific examination of the aforementioned Arctic flora, which consists almost entirely of moss with an occasional flower promoted to senior management.
The blue trail begins at the old heliport and crosses the UNESCO-listed landscape. Its first, fairly short section follows a wooden boardwalk with information panels about the archaeological site and warnings about the tsunamis that collapsing icebergs can create. The rest, like the yellow route, continues over ordinary unpaved ground. Times printed on the bottom of the scanned map are only approximate and were probably calculated with older walkers in mind, so do not treat them as a competitive target. There is no reason to hurry anyway; the floating-ice theatre continues on your right.
In its second half, the trail turns away from the coast and follows a stream towards the lakes above town. The water is drinkable, so there is no need to carry heroic reserves. The final descent into Ilulissat passes through a small rocky “canyon”, with a fine view of town and the icebergs floating behind it.
Although the sky was overcast during this particular walk, the raw weather fitted my entirely subjective picture of Greenland’s cold Arctic conditions perfectly. The routes begin close to town, so anyone with enough time can simply return when the weather improves. Every remaining day in Ilulissat was sunny, naturally, with not a cloud in the sky.
The next morning, while chasing decent light for photographs, we went to the church and found another pair of visitors doing exactly the same thing. Just to keep the coincidences tidy, they were Czech too. Pavel and his wife had come to Ilulissat partly to enlarge their collection of beer labels. We visited the brewery together and kept encountering one another over tastings during the following days.
I am developing a theory that the presence of a brewery increases the probability of finding Czech people nearby. As the number of breweries rises, that probability grows not linearly but exponentially. In any case, it was a splendid chance meeting, and greetings hereby travel to Pavel and his wife in Dobruška.
Across the wilderness for a little box—and a birthday
Day three in Ilulissat meant a walk past the airport and up into the hills, where the VIK-02 geocache was supposed to live. The weather could hardly have been kinder: polished blue sky, icebergs in the background. The practical situation was that no path led from the airport to the cache, so we followed the arrow. Blind obedience to the GPS bearing: onwards, towards Box.
The route crossed moss, rocks, leftover snow and little lakes through pure Greenlandic countryside. We saw only one other person and otherwise had the entire place to ourselves. After two and a half hours we reached the coordinates and, would you believe it, the cache was still there. We documented the magnificent discovery and pointed ourselves back towards town.
The return was equally pleasant until its final 300 metres, which consisted largely of swamp. Where there is a will, there is a way, and the way led straight through the water in the direction of the arrow, obviously. We rolled up our trousers and paddled onwards. Remarkably, my boots did not leak all the way through, so only my brother produced the rhythmic squelching noise on the walk home. After such a good trip, the final inconvenience could remain comprehensively behind us. Total distance: roughly 17 kilometres.
Before setting out, I had noticed a geocaching meetup—06.07 alle 06.07—scheduled that evening at Hotel Arctic. I messaged the organisers in advance to say we should arrive at six and that they could count on us. At six o’clock, however, we were standing at the beginning of the swamp with no sensible way to report a delay. Greenland belonged to a roaming zone where one megabyte of mobile data cost several hundred Czech crowns, and several hundred crowns in Greenland could also purchase three small beers. A message from a bog was therefore financially indefensible.
We arrived at Hotel Arctic about an hour late. Nobody in the lobby. Nobody in the restaurant. My brother’s squelching boots were leaving an increasingly informative trail across the red carpet in front of reception, so decisive action was required. We asked whether the staff could connect us with guests named Marco and Barbara. For the second time that day, the improbable thing actually worked: Barbara answered the telephone and the geocaching event could begin despite our swamp-induced delay.
Our grand hike therefore ended over a beer with a Swiss-Italian couple who had previously driven through almost the whole of Africa and were now celebrating Marco’s sixtieth birthday in Ilulissat. We talked about travel, a waiter photographed the four of us, my brother gradually dried out, and we thanked them for the invitation and wished Marco a happy birthday.
On the walk back through town we made the traditional stop for several bottles of Tuborg, then ended the day on the hostel terrace overlooking the floating ice show. The following morning would take us to the tiny settlement of Oqaatsut—Rodebay in Danish—and into the next part of this series.