Iceland and Greenland Day 7 - Ilulissat Ice Fjord

This morning we woke up, ate breakfast at our hotel, and headed out on our first adventure of the day. Our first stop of the day was Sermermiut, the ruins of an Inuit settlement. This settlement is located along the blue hiking trail. Our plan was to complete the trail after visiting the settlement.  

View of Disko Bay on our way out of the hotel

We made it to the settlement's location and realized there wasn’t much there to see as far as ruins go. We did have amazing views of the ice fjord from this location. So we sat and marveled at this area before continuing our hike along the blue trail. 

It was a beautiful day, a little windy and slightly cloudy, but it felt good to be outside enjoying the arctic. We found ourselves adjusting our layers throughout the day. Sometimes we needed our coats and sometimes we didn’t it depended on the sun and the wind. 

This hike was the only thing on our agenda today so we took our time. We stopped a lot to look at the ice sheet. I flew my drone over it a few times and marveled at the colors and detail in the ice below. 

A snow bunting is sitting on the rock to the left in this picture

Further along the trail, we saw a rocky beach area down by the ice fjord. We made our way down to walk along the beach. There were many beautiful icebergs in the water right off the beach. This area was particularly stunning. 

Alison pulled off her shoe and sock and dipped her toe into the frigid attic waters. Once her foot dried off we climbed up on some rocks and watched the icebergs and birds in this area. 

A northern fulmar, or qaqulluk, flying in front of an iceberg

When we were done we found a flat area where I could launch my drone. This was another fun area to fly over.

We continued along the trail. Not too much further we came to a glacial lake and from there the end of the trail was just around the corner. Coming out of the trail we had incredible views of Ilulissat and Disko Bay below. Unfortunately, this area was swarming with mosquitos. This was the worst area for mosquitos we came across during our whole trip. We put on our mosquito nets, but despite our best efforts to avoid these pesky bugs, we each got a couple of bites. 

Arctic wildflowers

The hiking trail ended in a rocky area where a bunch of sled dogs are kept. We happened to be walking by at meal time so the dogs were up and making a ton of noise to make sure they got their dinner. The blue trail path had us walk right through all of the sled dogs. 

After we finished our hike we headed back to our hotel to relax and change our clothes before our next activity. While we waited, we bought a couple of hot chocolates, sat back, and enjoyed views of Disko Bay. 

At 9:15 pm our tour company, World of Greenland, picked us up at our hotel and drove us to a nearby pier where we boarded a boat to go iceberg sightseeing among the Ilulissat Icefjord. If there is one thing that is a must-do in Ilulissat this is it. We were on a small boat with about 8 other people. We left Ilulissat and headed to the ice fjord. Once we were there we navigated through the ice. We were up close to the ice fjord. We spent about two and a half hours exploring the fjord. Sometimes there was so much ice in the water I wasn’t sure if our Captain could navigate the boat through it, but he would find a way. The ice felt like it goes on forever and is so insanely massive. Being this close to the ice you notice things that you can’t see further away. Such as the many waterfalls of glacier melt pouring off the ice fjords into the ocean. The massive size of the ice is almost overwhelming when you are this close to it. Around every corner, there were interesting shapes, colors, and sights. The ice felt endless since every corner exposed even more ice in brilliant white, blue, and green hues. The colors here are spectacular and something that we never got used to. 

This was the first time on our trip to Greenland when we were really cold. We were really bundled up, but the wind coming off of the ice was frigid and chilled us to the bone. Despite how cold it was we would not go inside the boat because we wanted to soak up every minute of this experience. Finally, at the end of two and a half hours as we were getting ready to turn around the cold was too much and we retreated into the warm cabin. 

By the time we turned around midnight was approaching. Because of the midnight sun, it was still light outside. It kind of looked like twilight. As we were navigating back through the ice fjord our captain noticed something in the water - whales. We couldn’t let this opportunity pass so we followed them through the ice. We saw a pod of whales, three in total. We were quite close to the pod. When they would surface and spout you could hear it and it was loud. We stuck with them and watched them surface a couple of times before heading back in. 

Today was a dreamy day. Greenland in general has been a dream, but today may have been the highlight. Just to spend the day surrounded by arctic beauty was unreal.