Arctic Journey: Kangerlussuaq and the Greenland Ice Cap

On the morning of July 28th we were at anchor off Kangerlussuaq, the site of Greenland's largest commercial airport. The airport was created in 1941 as the American airfield Bluie-West-8, part of the United States' activities in the Second World War before Pearl Harbor. The fjord is silty and shallow near its head from sediments carried down by a river originating in the Greenland ice cap.

Zooming in, we can see the modest docks where we will embark and disembark. Even the zodiacs must thread carefully between silt bars, hence the orange markers on the hill to guide craft in.

The forty-four of us who are continuing on board the Explorer for its next trip, Greenland and the Canadian High Arctic, will spend most of this day on an excursion to the Greenland ice cap instead of flying home.

As long as I'm talking about the airport, I'll show those photos now, even though they were taken hours later. In this first shot, our bus is approaching Kangerlussuaq (population about 500) from the south after a late lunch.

This is the hub for Air Greenland.

We had a couple of stops on the drive to the ice cap. The first was at the wreckage of a U.S. jet aircraft. During foul weather one day in the early 1950s three of four planes (probably Lockheed T-33s) couldn't the find Kangerlussuaq runway.

When the planes ran out of fuel the pilots ejected safely, and one jet crashed next to the road, scattering debris.

Of equal note to the berry lovers among us were low-growing blueberries with wonderful flavor.

The river has cut a broad, sedimented valley here, and there are miles to go to reach the ice cap. 

The gravel road between Kangerlussuaq and the ice is 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, the longest road in Greenland, and passes through the Issungua highlands. It was extended into the ice cap in 2000 as a testing ground for automobiles, but was abandoned a few years later. Since 2006 a padlocked gate bars entry into the further reaches except for tourist buses headed for the ice cap.

After passing through the gate we drove through an area with several lakes.

Photos of caribou taken through the bus window:

Shortly after seeing the caribou we stopped for a leg-stretch and a visit to the shore of one of the many lakes.



The sands of the lake were mantled with gently curving stripes.

Our guide explained that the dark bands were garnets. It's not impossible; there is a hill just south of Kangerlussuaq known as Garnet Rock.

As you can see from this window into Google Maps, the road winds its way past lakes and over hills until it arrives at a jumbled mass of rubble-covered ice at the edge of the ice cap.

View Larger Map

We walked the final few hundred feet of approach.

The rocks and dirt left behind by melting ice blanket the remaining ice, which is occasionally exposed.

Flowering plants have staked out a toehold in this forbidding landscape. This is probably Thymus praecox, a species of the herb thyme.

The roadway became a path which became a track. Here, almost at the point where we'll be walking on ice, an improvised bridge is set up. Summer is well along and there is a great deal of melt water.

On the way in I paused at a spot where a small melting was visible. This dirty ice face just off the road had a slow-motion, muddy stream trickling down its center. It's just two or three meters tall.

After taking a few steps out onto the ice, I took this photo looking back. The ice is rough and pocked with coin-sized craters wherever dirt has settled and hoarded the rays of the sun.

Looking outward we see the fissured blocks of this arm of the Greenland ice sheet. This sheet stretches 1500 miles north to south and up to 680 miles west to east. It is three times larger than Texas.

Here is my portrait on the ice. I am smiling in this picture. Really.

The ice, water, and particulates at my feet made a wonderful composition.

While I wandered, admiring the ice and taking photos, a few were curious to see how far they could go in the time allotted (not too far).

Very soon it was time to return to the buses. It was already noon and lunch and a pit stop were far away, back in Kangerlussuaq. This through-the-window photo turned out very well. It shows how many different micro-environments can exist within a stone's throw of the glaciers.

As we passed through the area with the jet wreckage, we stopped and were treated to a better look at a musk ox we had glimpsed through binoculars on our way out. He was on a ridge top while the bus was down in the valley, but this picture is worth showing to you.

We drove through Kangerlussuaq and, south of town, arrived at a lakeside restaurant that specialized in the beer of the Nuuk brewery Godthaab Bryghus (click to enlarge).

The first order of business was the restrooms. Water bottles had been handed out on the bus ride, but there were no toilet facilities on the way to, from, or at the ice cap. A very long line formed as soon as we got off our bus. Our group self-organized into a single queue that didn't worry about which of the two restrooms was "gentlemen" and which was "ladies."

The restaurant backs onto a large lake.

Some of us had even brought their own fishing gear.

A closer look.

The lunch was a Greenlandic buffet, with lots of meat dishes. Soft or alcoholic drinks were extra, but Joan and I had brought our own water bottles, so no kroner were spent by us.

We forty-four "back-to-back" guests returned to the Explorer before the newly arriving guests, who also transferred by zodiac. This was an authentic introduction to the character of their trip.

The luggage and produce for the kitchen were then brought out by a small barge.

Everything was transferred by hand, and nothing fell into the water.

It was a busy day for all involved. The Explorer set sail at 6:00, and after the mandatory safety drill, followed by an introduction to the ship, a buffet dinner was served at 8:00. (Dinner is usually served by waiters, and a little earlier, but turnover days are different.)

Sunset was not until 11:32, due to our location almost smack on the Arctic Circle. Joan stayed up until 11:00 admiring the many glaciers feeding into the fjord as we steamed past, but I couldn't keep my eyes open that long.

We were on our way to Sisimiut.