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During our stays in the Greenlandic towns you also will have the opportunity to meet the hositable Greenlanders and experience the unique Greenlandic culture, which has evolved and survived for thousands of years by adapting perfectly to the harsh Greenlandic conditions.

Don’t miss this opportunity – it is an experience of a lifetime that awaits you in Greenland!

Departures 2009: July - August

Day 1, Monday: Copenhagen-Kangerlussuaq; embarkation
You will be met by your tourleader at Copenhagen Airport. Departure by Air Greenland in the morning, and after 4 hrs and 40 minutes flight we will reach Kangerlussuaq, the hub in Greenland’s transportation. Kangerlussuaq is the larger of Greenland’s two international airports for civilian transportation. From here, there are connecting flights to the rest of Western and Northern Greenland. Kangerlussuaq – lying within the municipal of Sisimiut – is not a town as such, and actually didn’t receive this status until 2001. Approximately 4-500 people live and work here; most of them work in connection with the airport. In this small town, you will find a supermarket, a post office, a hotel with a restaurant, a couple of cafeterias, a bowling alley and a swimming bath inherited from the Americans.

The airport is a relic from the American forces, who during the Second World War established an airbase with the name of Bluie West Eight at the end of the 170 kilometre long Sondre Strom Fiord / Kangerlussuaq. The base was strategically very important, both during the Second World War and the following Cold War. 1400 persons were stationed here when the airbase was at its height. But the base lost its military significance along with the growing technological development, and in 1992 the Americans abandoned the base and handed over the facilities and buildings to the Greenlandic home rule.

After you have reclaimed your luggage, Albatros’ excursion busses will take the tour group on a combined sightseeing tour and musk oxen safari. We cross the former American base area and climb the Black Ridge. At the top of the ridge we are rewarded with an outstanding view over the valley and towards the permanent ice cap. Normally, this is where the musk oxen linger, but they may keep some distance from the road because of increased hunting activities. It is a good idea to bring binoculars. On the tour, our guides will tell you about the area and inform you of the program for the coming days.

The rest of the time before we board the cruise ship is at your own disposal. Approximately 12 kilometres west of the airport our ship, the M/V Ocean Nova, lies ready for departure. Zodiacs will transfer the guests in smaller groups the few hundred meters out into the fiord, where the ship lies at anchor. Cabins are allocated, safety procedures gone over, and whilst you enjoy your dinner in the restaurant with the truly magnificent view, the voyage commences out of the long fiord.

Day 2, Tuesday: Sisimiut
The ship reaches Sisimiut early in the morning, and after breakfast we are ready to get an impression of modern Greenland. Sisimiut is Greenland’s northernmost town with a harbour free of ice during winter, and at the same time the southernmost town for dog sledding (that is, when the snow settles in November-December). With 5,400 inhabitants Sisimiut is the second largest municipal in Greenland, only surpassed by Nuuk. People have lived in the Sisimiut region for approximately 4,500 years. The people of the Saqqaq, Dorset and Thule cultures all came from Canada. In the 17th century, the first European whalers appeared in the Sisimiut region. In 1756 a colony named Holsteinsborg (Danish for Sisimiut) was established, and the houses in Sisimiut’s historic part of town date back to the colony’s first hundred years. Today Sisimiut is an important industrial town and place of education. A major factory, that should be pointed out, is the Royal Greenland fish factory, the largest of its kind in Greenland and one of the most modern in the world.

We are going for a walk around town, primarily visiting the historic colonial section, its museum and the beautiful church. But we also step by the busy town centre with an array of modern stores and shops . The tour guides will inform you of possible explorations on your own and of the additional guided excursions that you can purchase. In the afternoon we return to the harbour, board the ship again and proceed on our northbound voyage. In the course of the bright night we enter the southern part of Disko Bay, pass by Aasiaat, and on our portside the famous Disko Island will come into view with its characteristic 1,000-meter tall, layered mountains.

We are far north of the Arctic Polar Circle, and the midnight sun     shines all night long, at least until the end of July. If you rise early, you can enjoy the sight of icebergs – the Giants of Disko Bay – being squeezed out from Jakobshavn Ice fiord.

Day 3, Wednesday: Qeqertarsuaq    
In cover of Disko Island’s 1,000-meter tall mountains we put into port in a protected natural harbour. The place is aptly named Godhavn (“Good harbour”) in Danish, while its Greenlandic name “Qeqertarsuaq” simply means “The Big Island”.

Up to 1950, Godhavn was the most important town north of Nuuk, solely because of the many whales that the whaling boats towed here after catching them in Disko Bay. This bestowed the town with much wealth, starting already in the 16th century. Now the town is on its way to oblivion as it gets harder and harder to find work here, and the island is poorly connected to the mainland. We walk through town to the characteristic, octagonal church, nicknamed “the inkpot of God”. During our stay in Qeqertarsuaq, we will visit Greenlandic families treating us with traditional Greenlandic “kaffemik” (a get-together in the home with coffee, cake and story-telling).

The flat mountains on the island are volcanic and belong to the youngest of Greenland’s geological formations. The mountains contain some special occurrences of pure iron and coal. For a number of years, the coal was mined from Qullissat on the northern coast of the island. In 1972 the mine and the town was closed by Danish decree, which awoke a strong political consciousness amongst the Greenlandic youth. This ultimately led to the forming of Greenland’s own parliament in 1979. When the day wanes, Ocean Nova again heads into the bay on a northbound course. In the evening, the ship sails through Vaigat Sound between the tall mountains on Disko Island and Nuussuaq peninsular. Early in the morning, we round the small cliffs at the tip of Nuussuaq and enter Uummannaq Bay. On the whole trip we will pass numerous icebergs, one more dramatic and extraordinary than the other. 

Day 4, Thursday: Uummannaq
When you wake up this morning, you will find yourself roughly 590 kilometres north of the Arctic Polar Circle, in one of Greenland’s most beautiful and sunny regions. The ship has reached Uummannaq. The town is situated on a 12-km2 island, and the impressive 1.175-meter tall heart-shaped mountain that has given the town its name dominates the view (Uummannaq means “a place where the heart is”). From the town there is an extraordinary vista comprising the island’s 1,000-meter tall rock faces, the snow-covered peaks on Nuussuaq peninsula to the south, and out across the fiord. In the fiord, icebergs of all shapes and sizes majestically float by on a course set by wind and current. As much as 5 active glaciers at the bottom of the fiord ensure that we can observe plenty of icebergs. dsfsdf

Uummannaq was founded as a colony in 1758 on the Nuussuaq mainland, but shortly thereafter, in 1763, it was moved to the nearby island, as seal hunting was more bountiful here. On our walk along the town’s steep streets we visit the historic train-oil building, built in 1860. Inside its yellow walls, whale and seal blubber used to be stored. Because of the horrid stench, the blubber was not boiled here, but well outside town! Behind the train-oil storage we will find a peat hut, which was still in use a few years ago.

We spend most of the day in Uummannaq, but the more agile may want to hike to “Santa Claus’ house” – another traditional Greenlandic peat hut, that has taken part in some Christmas television shows. The dry and settled arctic climate has around 2,000 hours of sunshine and 100 millimetres of precipitation per year, and Uummannaq can rightly call itself the Greenlandic Riviera! In the early afternoon, we all meet up at the harbour and after boarding, the ship heads back south.

Day 5, Friday: Eqip Sermia, Disko Bay
In the morning, the cruise ship has reached a magnificent highlight of nature, the enormous Eqip Sermia glacier in Disko Bay’s northeasterly corner. Approximately 50 nautical miles north of Ilulissat, this glacier-front is somewhat renowned, and many tourist boats come here every day. Also the legendary arctic explorers had their base here; the Frenchman de Quervain built a winter hut here as a base for his expeditions onto the inland ice cap.

We sail as close to the edge of the ice as possible – but in safe distance from the plunging blocks of ice and violent waves caused by the calving glacier. In the afternoon, we head for Ilulissat, where we berth in the evening.

Day 6, Saturday: Ilulissat
Ilulissat is possibly the most marvellously situated town in Greenland. Ilulissat means icebergs in Greenlandic, and the nickname of the town is rightly “the iceberg capital”. In Disko Bay just off the coast of Ilulissat, gigantic icebergs linger. The icebergs come from the Ice fiord – located a good half hour hike south of Ilulissat – and they are born 32 kilometres deeper in the fiord by the enormous Sermeq Kujalleq glacier. This 10-kilometre wide and 1,000 meter thick glacier is the most productive glacier outside of Antarctica. Whereas most glaciers only calve at a rate of approximately 1 metre per day, the Ilulissat glacier calves at a rate of 25 metres per day. The icebergs produced by the glacier represent more than 10% of all icebergs in Greenland, corresponding to 20 million tonnes of ice per day. These facts have together with the fiord’s extreme beauty ensured the Ice fiord a spot at UNESCO’s World Heritage List, an honour the fiord and town of Ilulissat share with Mount Everest, Yellowstone and only 166 other nature sceneries in the world.

For more than the 250 years that have passed since the foundation of Ilulissat, the town has steadily grown and today it is Greenland’s third largest with more than 4,300 inhabitants. Most of the inhabitants make their living by fishing or otherwise in the fishing industry. The town is very vibrant and welcoming, with a wide range of cultural attractions – according to Greenlandic standards. The polar explorer Knud Rasmussen and his good friend Joergen Broenlund were both born in Ilulissat. Joergen Broenlund was an eminent dog sledge driver who perished during The Denmark Expedition. In the town itself we will take a closer look at the wonderfully located church, at Knud Rasmussen’s beautiful old house, and at Emanuel A. Petersen’s collection of paintings. A little hike will take us to the Sermermiut plain, about 2 kilometres south of Ilulissat. Sermermiut means “the people by the ice”, and the plain has been inhabited since 1400 B.C. When the first Danish merchants arrived in the Ice fiord in 1727 and “discovered” Sermermiut, approximately 250 people lived here, making it the most densely populated area in Greenland at the time. Today the old settlement appears as a row of grassy square pits, which are the remnants of the foundations of the houses, the inhabitants lived in. Everywhere in the surrounding earth-slopes, plenty of bones from seals, birds, fish and whales stick out – it is not difficult to figure out what their diet was made up of. A little further north of Sermermiut, where the conditions for docking were more suitable, the Danish squire, Jakob Severin, founded the colony Ilulissat in 1741. The Ice fiord, the coast along the fiord and the Sermermiut plain are laid out as a conservation area, and hiking in the area is restricted to the marked paths. Also in the old settlement area, no walking outside the paths is permitted. We say goodbye to the iceberg capital in the evening.

Day 7, Sunday: Itilleq
Going southward, the ship has made good headway, and it reaches the village Itilleq, in Sisimiut municipal, around noon. Previously we have visited the “major” town of Sisimiut and now we get an impression of a typical Greenlandic village for comparison. Itilleq is delightfully situated in a hollow (called “itilleq” in Greenlandic) on an island without any fresh water. Therefore, an osmosis water system, which converts saltwater into potable water, was built a few years ago. Previously, the town’s inhabitants fetched their water on the mainland by means of a barge. The village has approximately 130 inhabitants. A local resident will give a talk on the history of the village and on everyday life in a small, Greenlandic trading station. In the evening, the voyage continues towards Kangerlussuaq.

Day 8, Monday: Kangerlussuaq, return flight
During the bright night, the ship passes through one of the world’s longest fiords and arrives at Kangerlussuaq in the morning. We sail by zodiacs into Kangerlussuaq’s harbour. Buses will be waiting to take us back to the airport.

Day 9. Tuesday: Arrival in Copenhagen
We arrive in Copenhagen early morning, Danish time, after approximately 4½ hours of flying.