By definition, an expedition is an adventure in which the outcome is uncertain.The uncertainty in this part of the world is ice. Ilulissat was granted UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2004 because of just that—ice—the very substance that could have jeopardized our visit to this town of 5,000 if there had been even a fraction more in the harbor this morning during our approach.
The Ilulissat Glacier is the fastest moving body of ice on the planet, producing 10% of Greenland’s icebergs and draining 7% of its ice sheet. Normally this fact alone would be impressive enough, but to top it off there is a very shallow band of water at the mouth of this five-mile-wide fjord system which prevents any iceberg with a keel deeper than 600 feet from flowing out to sea.
The result is a corking effect which prevents all the ice up-fjord from drifting out as well. This has choked up the entire stretch of the fjord between its shallow terminal moraine (which stops the big pieces) and the active glacier face itself 60km to the east. Because of this natural phenomenon the Ilulissat Icefjord is visited by tens of thousands of tourists per year and brings in big bucks for the locals. No wonder our visit has turned out to be, and I quote, “the most incredible sights I’ve ever seen”; “breathtaking”; “a work of art.” These descriptions only scratch the surface of what attempts were made to describe the landscape we saw today.
Various approaches to the ice were available whether the preference was air, land or sea. The leg-stretchers in our group took to a kilometer-long boardwalk which snaked through boggy tundra and past some of the earliest remnants of Inuit habitation in Greenland, dating back 3,000 years. The looming masses of ice just beyond the ridgeline kept the pace high, however, as everyone was eager to see the byproduct of our planet’s fastest flowing glacier. The end of the boardwalk terminated in gaping mouths as a continuous sea of broken-up ice 5 miles wide and 30 miles long dominated our view. Icebergs 200 feet tall rose out of the brash like skyscrapers while delicate arctic hare bells were in bloom at our feet.
From this vantage point we were able to see those who chose to take in the Ilulissat Icefjord from sea level. A fleet of brightly painted local boats peppered the water below, providing an impressive sense of scale for those trying to get their heads around the magnitude of these icebergs. These ice cruisers took in today’s perfectly calm weather by skirting the edge of this imposing wall of ice while yet another group took to the air.
The flight seers took advantage of the clear skies by getting above it all and changing their perspective. With miles of ice beneath them, the boundary between the clogged-up ice fjord and the surrounding Disko Bay area was evident.
Not only was today a visit to one of the most impressive icescapes on the planet but it was paired with the finest weather Greenland could offer!
