On Saturday, National Geographic Explorer pressed her way through the low-lying fog of the Davis Strait and into the Nuuk fjord. Arriving just at the opening of the fjord, the fog cleared, giving us blue skies and a stunning view of Greenland’s capital and largest city, Nuuk. An Arctic urban environment held in check by some of the oldest known geology in the world, guests set out to explore what Greenland had to offer by way of city life.
But there was more than vibrantly colored homes, welcoming shops, and sun-deck coffee shops. Nuuk’s nearby nature was also worth beholding. Guests experienced the expanse of Nuuk on a bus tour led by a local guide. Meandering through roundabouts and up and down hillsides, we saw firsthand the urbanization of the city. The tour began in the colonial harbor where the history of Nuuk was first recorded, but we then quickly made our way through Nuussuaq, which in Greenlandic means ‘the new place’. Our guide remarked that while the neighborhood of Nuussuaq was only built in the last 30 years, it was already beginning to show signs of aging. As we moved into the newest expansion of Nuuk, called Qinngorput, we could see how rapidly Greenland is modernizing and expanding.
Both before and after, many guests were also treated with a cultural history lesson of not only Nuuk, but of Greenland and the Inuit culture. The National Museum of Greenland has in recent years also expended its exhibits, which cover the colonial history of Greenland, traditions within Inuit culture and a special emphasis on kayaks, larger boats, and other seagoing vessels. Importantly, the museum also houses the Qulakittsoq mummies. Nearly perfectly preserved in snow and icepack, the mummies from North Greenland were on display as a fair and somber reminder of how difficult it must have been to live a subsistence livelihood in Greenland several hundred years ago.
While some of us found great joy in exploring the shops and cultural center of Nuuk, others sought to see a little bit of Nuuk and the Nuuk fjord from above. We traveled by charter bus through the town and its neighborhoods to the Nuuk Airport, a modest and cozy airstrip where daily flights come and go from the capital. There, we were met by our local guide as well as the two Greenlandic pilots of our charter flight. They described the path that we would take from takeoff to landing. Their enthusiasm and excitement was infectious. And before we knew it, we were boarding the twin prop plane and taking off with the cockpit door open.
Cruising at about 4 to 700 meters between the mountains of the fjord, we saw the beauty of Greenland’s geology up close. We flew south to one of two of the hallmark mountains in the Nuuk fjord, called Jordetakken, after which we headed into a somewhat infamous fjord. Ameralik fjord is known for its waves, wind and swell, and as we banked around Jordetakken, we certainly felt the crosswind as our Dash 8 shook and stabilized. With the tailwind, we traveled eastward to the mouth of the fjord. The water turned from a cerulean blue with whitecaps to a milky, turquoise blue. It was there that the silt from the glacier was entering the water column, painting strokes of white in the mouth of the fjord. We went lower and over the very valley where the famous Norwegian explorer Fritjof Nansen came along the land of West Greenland following what was the very first ski across the Greenland Ice Cap. What a sight it must have been for him–and for us–to see this stunning landscape.
The views were only just intensifying, though. Within a minute, we were at the foot of the Greenland Ice Cap where we watched in awe the patterns and crevasses of this magnificent Arctic wonder. We saw ice melt pools of water so blue and clear as well as darkened patterns of minerals that gave the glacier its stripes. Moving northwest, our local guide pointed out the small settlement of Kapisllit where a genetically-unique Atlantic salmon run in the late summer months. With our memory cards nearly full and our minds overwhelmed with the landscape, we came in on our approach to Nuuk, touched down and snapped a few photos with our plane. After a full day of adventure back in time, around town and up high, we disembarked from Nuuk with a deeper appreciation and amazement for life in an Arctic urban environment.
