Situated far north in grand, untouched ice landscapes and sparsely populated by Inuit people, the Thule region is for many people synonymous with ‘the true Greenland’.

On board the small, brilliant cruise ship, Ocean Nova, we sail the inshore waters close to the Greenlandic coast through Disko Bay and Melville Bay all the way to Thule, or Qaanaaq which is the town’s Greenlandic name. From July, the ice in Melville Bay starts receding, and in the late summer we can sail through the bay’s clear waters. Magnificent nature and great chances of seeing seals, walruses, humpback whale and narwhal await us. If we can go as far as Nares Strait, we might observe the most outstanding animals of them all, the polar bear.

The fabled name Thule occurs in ancient Greek and Roman mythology as the name of a country or an island far north at the end of the world. The word Thule has allegedly also been used as a name of some foggy, inaccessible islands off the coast of Scotland. The Danish explorer, Knud Rasmussen, chose 100 years ago Thule as the name of his trade station by the settlements northwest of Cape York. Today, the name still clings to Greenland’s northwesterly corner, even though the main town is actually called Qaanaaq and the municipality is called Avernarsuaq, ‘The Great North’.

More than 100 years ago, the first expeditions on dog sledge worked their way through Disko Bay and on towards Melville Bay and Thule. Today the region is still rather inaccessible. This is true not least for the area between Upernavik and Cape York, which is completely desolate except from the small, isolated town, Savissivik. In recent years the amount of ice around Greenland has generally been decreasing, and Northwest Greenland right up to Siorapaluk has been free of ice most of September. These conditions grant the possibility for completely unique cruises, but we have experienced how a storm or merely a continuous wind within a short period of time can pack the ice together forming an impenetrable barrier along the coast. But these are the terms and the charm that you have to accept when travelling in the arctic and this is also true of our expedition in 2009.

Albatros has through several years developed a type of cruise that has been especially adapted to the arctic conditions, where a combination of ice-covered landscapes, limited infrastructure and inaccessible wilderness yields a journey of a more demanding character, but yet with the opportunity for unique travel experiences.