Greenland

Illulisat & Saqqaq

From September 8th to September 10th, 2024

Our 8am flight from Reykjavik to Illulisat was cancelled after being delayed a few hours. We then walked from the Reykjavik airport to Hotel Aurora across the street and ordered Domino’s pizza to the hotel room. We stuffed our faces with a bit of comfort food from back home, took a snooze, and woke up to re-group on what our next plans would be. We decided to scrap Greenland entirely, and just fly straight to the Faroe Islands instead - to enjoy more time there.

Day 1

Woke up early, walked back over to the airport, made it through security, and then decided that we would stick to our original plan and go to Greenland. So, while at the airport, we took our rescheduled flight to Greenland instead of our newly purchased flight to the Faroe Islands. 

We texted the tour operator to make sure they would still be able to accommodate us for the trip and with their confirmation - we were on the flight! 3 hours later we landed in Illulisat. 

At 10:30am we met our guide, Beda from Switzerland, who would be looking after us for the next few days. At first sight, Greenland is beautiful with their colorful looking a-frame homes sitting atop the granite grounding with moss growing on top. We drove past the main harbor, past a parking lot of husky-looking barking dogs, and then arrived to the visitor welcome center to learn a bit about Greenland before taking our journey to camp. The visitor center had a short film to watch, an auditory room that played music of icebergs and the ocean, books about the Inuit people, and other unique facts about Greenland, “the worlds largest island”. 

We then walked down to Disko Bay, a Unesco World Heritage site that was packed full of icebergs. The walk down to Disko Bay was chilly, slippery, but beautifully natural. 

We stopped for lunch at Restaurant Icefiord. Max ate a reindeer burger, Hailey ate the fried catch of the day. 

We took a walk around the harbor and then stopped off at a museum that highlighted the history of Denmark’s hold and influence over Greenland. 

We headed back down to the harbor and started putting on all our layers for our upcoming “2 hour” boat ride to Saqqaq, our camp spot for the evening. We were given an extra pair of socks, an extra fleece style jacket, an extra fleece style pants, ski goggles to protect our eyes, and an entire waterproof snowsuit. Outfitted with Beda’s shoes, we were then loaded onto the boat for our ride to camp. We have never worn so many layers and Max’s feet almost froze off. The bay where camp was was breathtaking with all the mini icebergs positioned seemingly in their perfect place 

After the (actual) 4 hour boat ride, we made it to camp and it was difficult to walk because of all the laters, and also having been frozen stiff for 4 hours. We finally made it to our tented home and cuddled up next to the space heater for the next little while. An hour later we walked to the eating tent where we had dinner of cod, whale, and dessert. 

We were in bed by 9:30, but hoping for a middle of the night wake up call to see the northern lights. No such luck, but we weren’t complaining as all we wanted was some sleep and to not be freezing. 

Day 2

Wake up call was at 7:15am, went for a walk at 8am, ate breakfast at 8:30am, left at 9:15am, and were ship wrecked at the shores of the deserted coal mining village by 11am. We cleared the ship of the shore by 11:30am, then spent the next 2 hours drying out by the fire, exploring the coal-mine ghost town and eating our BBQ lunch from a hot stone. Lunch was scallops, reindeer meat strips, lamb meatballs, smoked salmon, leftover cod from the night before, scallops, and more.  

We made it back to camp at 3:30, needed an hour of rest to decompress from the adventure and excitement, then geared up in a drysuit to paddle board in the bay next to the icebergs. After an hour of paddling, we headedd back to shore to take a walk through the village and see the Greenland husky-looking puppies that will eventually one day take over the pack on the dog sleds. We must have pet over 40 different puppies, and there were hundreds of other full grown dogs all around. One found my dropped glove and was running around with it like a trophy. I eventually got my glove back. 

After an hour through town, we made our way back to our camp, took a brave shower (wasn’t as cold as we were thinking), and then sat for our last dinner at camp. 8:30pm dinner consisted of a salmon or scallop carpaccio with egg yolk on top, reindeer steak on labrador (plant) seasoned potatoes, and a panna cotta for dessert. 

Sunset around 9:15 was beautiful. We sat in the main tent for an hour, listening to the other campers poke fun at each other and tell stories before heading to bed at 10:30, again, with the thought that we may get woken up in the middle of the night to see the Northern Lights. No such luck again! 

Day 3

6:30am wake up call, headed to breakfast at 7, packed up in our spacesuit winter clothing again for a departure of 7:30am. This was an actual 2 hour drive straight to Illulisat, but because we took a different path, the water was choppy and we were drenched within 30 minutes. We were seated in the front of the boat, so we caught all the wind and all the splashes. We were soaked head to toe, and all you could do to stay sane was laugh. We made it to the harbor at 9:50am and couldn’t wait to get all our layers and wet clothing off. We boarded our flight with wet feet, ate some Cup O Noodles ramen on the plane (anything to help us get warm), and made it to Reykjavik 3 hours later. Happy Anniversary to us!