Kangerlussaug, Greenland
August 2024
Having exhausted myself yesterday, I had a pretty good sleep for an early start for the first day of my expedition cruise. It started with a walk to the Metro station, Metro to the airport and then joining a very long line to check in the charter flight to Kangerlussauq in Greenland. Thankfully, I managed to find a Rep for the company running the trip to confirm I was in the right line! Apparently, the majority of the people on the trip are Danish and I did not hear anyone around me speaking in English – I did second guess myself for a minute and had to double check that I had booked an English speaking trip … thankfully I had!
The ease of my arrival the day before had lulled me into a false sense of security. It took almost 1.5 hours to check in and check in only opened 2 hours before departure! There was then a huge queue for security. Thankfully, as it was a charter flight and the fact that I knew there were others still in the queue behind me, I didn’t panic too much – I was just hoping for time to go to the toilet and get something to eat! Still, I had to run to the gate which was already saying closed (though I did manage to get a cold coffee from a vending machine) before boarding the plane.
I also didn’t need to worry so much about hand luggage weight (the predeparture paperwork said you could only take 5kg for hand luggage) as they did not even weigh it! Once I got on the plane and saw how much hand luggage some others had, I really had nothing to worry about! If they had weighed them, we would never have got off the ground 🤣. As it was, we were only 45 minutes late taking off.
Boarding the plane also just confirmed my initial view that everyone on this trip are OLD! Does that mean I am old 🤔 I don’t think so 🤪. In fact, I think I drag the average age down by at least 10 years! I later found out that the company had run a big marketing campaign in a newsletter for an old peoples society in Denmark – it clearly was effective as I would say probably 85% of passengers were Danish people over 65!
To me, Greenland has always been a mythical place. When I made my first trip to England at the age of 8, my mum woke me on the flight between the UK and the USA to see the wonderful sight of the vast, ice covered island. It became a place you fly over and admired from 38,000 feet above if the weather is in your favour. So I was excited to get my first glimpse of Greenland – icebergs in the ocean, glaciers flowing down and snow/ice as far at the eye can see. Just 🤩.
The cloud cover them rolled in until we came out on the western side of the country, now with the view of braided rivers and bright blue glacial lakes – just like home 🤣. I hadn’t even got off the plane and the unique beauty of the landscape was blowing my mind.
Before I get too far in to the trip, let me regal you with a few facts about Greenland. Greenland is the world’s largest island at just over 2 million km2 and with a population of just over 56,000 makes it the least densely populated country in the world, although probably not technically a country as it is a self-governing autonomous territory of the King of Denmark. 80% of the island is covered in the Greenland ice sheet and what remains is pristine Artic tundra , where the subsoil is permafrost (i.e. permanently frozen) which causes challenges in many ways which I am sure I will touch on in future blogs.
There are only 20 towns in Greenland, 7 of which have populations of less than 1,000 and as there are no roads between towns, you can only travel between them by boat, airplane or helicopter, depending on where you want to go!
We touched down in Kangerlussuaq in the west of Greenland and despite this currently being the main airport in Greenland there were no arrival formalities. The airport appears to be home to a couple of Hercules and an odd NASA plane called POLAR 6, that has equipment to take photos through the ice cap. We went straight from the plane to a bus for a pre-booked excursion which I had complete forgotten about, I couldn’t even remember what it was 🤣.
Kangerlussuaq is the current gateway to Greenland and the airport and town was built by the Americans as a stopover point for the American Airforce during the Second World War due to the stable weather in the area. At that time, the town had a population of thousands (mostly American). In the 1970’s, the town was sold to the Danish Government for US$1, as is where is, and today the town has a population of around 550 people most of whom are involved in work at the airport. There is currently a new airport being built in Nuuk (the capital) and once that opens, the future of Kangerlussuaq is uncertain.
Despite being advertised as an English cruise, it seems my fears of all the Danes at check in was coming true as the initial commentary in our bus was in Danish. Thankfully there were some German’s on my bus who spoke up and asked that they also speak in English. We had to remind the again when we reached the BBQ spot as all the information was given in Danish! I hope this is not a ongoing issue!
The BBQ spot was on the shore of Lake Ferguson, where the town gets its fresh water and it was clearly the only place that caters for all the cruises that pass through to pick up passengers as there was a group waiting for pick up when we arrived and another group dropped off as we were finished. That said, they are good at what they do and the BBQ lunch was tasty and consisted of lots of meats and salads, including musk ox (tastes like beef) and reindeer sausages (which tasted like sausages 😝).
This was also my first taste of the Greenlandic mosquitos or maybe they were midgets or whatever the little bitey buggers they were. Of course, all my anti mosquito stuff was in my backpack on its way to the ship!
After a discussion with a couple of the Germans, I suggested to one of the guides that they make one of the buses English speaking so we don’t miss out like some did on the way up. I am not sure why I need to be making these suggestions as I would have thought they could have worked that out for themselves and yes, it seems like I am going to be THAT passenger 😂 as I am not prepared to miss out on information. As it turns out, they probably didn’t think about having one bus in English as they were too busy working out why a group that came up in 3 buses could now not fit in the 2 buses they had 🤔 . Finally, a 3rd bus turned up and we drove back through the town, into the low cloud and rain. Thankfully it was a balmy 9C – apparently it had been a fairly cool summer this year!
For this part of the trip our driver was a Greenlandic guy called Adam. Whilst driving the large, all terrain bus on the narrow, windy dirt roads with one hand, he held a microphone with the other hand and gave us commentary. Although it was in English, I really only managed to catch snippets of what he said. Some of what I did pick up (I think) is detailed below.
Naturally, Artic tundra tends to be treeless due to the underlying permafrost, but in this area they have been experimenting with planting trees from other countries in the area, including New Zealand. I must admit, some of the area was reminiscent of our sub Alpine and Alpine areas in New Zealand.
Musk Ox were introduced here from the eastern side of the country. They have thrived here as they are much better suited to the less snowy conditions of this area as they cannot walk in deep snow. The current musk ox population of over 30,000 all come from 27 introduced animals. Reindeer on the other hand thrive everywhere and have hooves designed to spread out like snow shoes. Both are hunted and often the hunters bury the bodies in the permafrost to keep until they need them.
As I mentioned above, there are no roads between towns and cities, and so, the road we were driving on is the longest road in Greenland at a staggering 50kms long! It’s dirt and basically only 1 lane! It took us through the almost ‘green’ landscapes to the UNESCO World Heritage area of Aasivissuit-Nipisat, a cultural landscape that is the traditional hunting ground of the local Inuit.
From here we could see across to what remains of the retreating Reindeer Glacier (no reindeers in sight). The landscapes on the drive were amazing, but please do excuse the crappy photos taken through the rain streaked windows of the bus! Apparently from next year, this area will become a National Park.
The Glacier was impressive despite the rain but we only had around 15 minutes there as it was already 4pm and we had to head back down the longest road in the country, in to a zodiac and out to the ship, moored in the fjord, just beyond the town.
Now, things got really good … Firstly, I recognised one of the guides from my Indonesian trip a couple of years ago and it was nice to see some I knew in the sea of non-English speaking faces. Secondly, my old waterproof pants passed the waterproof test after a rogue wave swept over the side of the zodiac on the way out to the ship and last but not least, I had my room to myself! When booking, I had the option to a have small single room with a window, or for the same price, share a larger room with a balcony. I had gone with the later, but as it turns out I got this amazing room all to myself – this really made my day and you can look forward to many balcony view photos 😂. This is by far the nicest expedition cruise ship I have been on!
We only had time for a short briefing and emergency drill before a buffet dinner and bed as we set sail into the mist.
Cockneykiwi takes flight 