Our ship is in Disko Bay, which is huge, and today we spent our afternoon in Ilulissat. This is the third largest city in Greenland and the home of the Icefjord and the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier.
The town has a population of about 4,600, and it is said that there are as many sled dogs here as people. The Danish series Borgen has had some episodes filmed here, as was the movie Simlla’s Sense of Snow.
But the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is the show stopper. The Ice Center makes for a very welcoming way to approach the fjord to see the glacier. With several hiking trails, it is not hard to get a high vantage point on the rocks to see the immense scope of the glacier.
The fjord itself runs 25 miles inland. The glacier starts at the ice cap and runs to the sea thorough the fjord. This is the largest glacier to run from ice cap to sea, outside of Antarctica.
It is fast moving and the view changes almost moment by moment. Even from far away on the rocky ledges, you can hear the ice groaning. The flow can move from 65-115 feet per day.
Core samples have been taken from the ice to study climate change over eons. The oldest ice is 250,000 years old.
It is easy to walk the mile or so along the boardwalk to a good viewpoint. Climbing up on the rocks makes the view even more breathtaking. We also watched a pair of arctic foxes scamper and frolic between rocks and growler sized icebergs.
We spent time in the Ice Centre museum after viewing the ice. The building is a beauty: a low and curved building that was designed so that visitors could ascend the roof to see the glacier in the distance.
The displays are austere and artistic, with just morsels of information. One gallery held an exhibit with recordings from the ice sheets around Greenland in real time. Some ice sheets are groaning loudly while others are all but silent.
We walked the couple of miles back to town which gave a chance to see another sled dog “city,” with its acres and acres of dogs chained near their dog houses for the summer.
Once again, we saw so many boats in the marina.
We returned to the Vega in the early evening and as we were warming up and changing, an annoucment to come on deck for whales came over the speaker. We watched humpback and especially fin whales blow and dive for a good fifteen minutes.
Glaciers will make you feel small. But, they are extremely vulnerable. The ice we watched flow into the ocean today is more than would have flowed into the ocean a generation ago. This is how the sea level will rise as climate change continues.
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