The reasons for this surge in visitors are many. Of course, there’s Trump. Since returning to the White House, he has continued to assert that the US should be in control of Greenland, which is currently semi-autonomous and part of the Kingdom of Denmark. This massive geopolitical attention has boosted tourism, according to some reports. Locally, there has also been a concerted push to increase visitors through improved infrastructure. Just last year, Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, opened a highly anticipated International Airport and United began offering a twice-weekly direct flight from Newark. Technology has also gotten better: Ships like Viking’s Octantis, which is specifically designed as an ice-strengthened vessel for polar regions, were not traditionally accessible to tourists.
Departing from Nuuk, our itinerary took us across Greenland—starting in the capital and making stops in the Itilleq Fjord, Ilulissat, and Uummannaq—then traversing through the Canadian High Arctic, before swinging back to Greenland for a visit to Sisimiut, and returning to Nuuk. The stop on Beechey Island was part of the Canadian leg of the journey, and to complement it, Viking offered an onboard lecture the night before from the ship’s official historian to give us the tea—to use the term I taught some fellow travelers—on the Franklin Expedition.
The Ilulissat Icefjord in West Greenland is a UNESCO World Heritage. Full of icebergs from the Jakobshavn glacier, it is located approximately 155 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
But this trip isn’t just for history buffs. The Northwest Passage has enough natural beauty to overflow any aesthete’s cup. I kayaked in the Davis Straight, a southern arm of the Arctic, paddling along the shore of rocky islands and land masses. About 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle, I hiked to the Ilulissat Icefjord and saw the Jakobshavn Glacier, one of the most active in the world and responsible for 10 percent of all of Greenland’s icebergs. I felt like I’d traveled to a different planet in Disko Bay, which was dotted with brash ice in deep blue waters that reminded me of a celestial landscape. And yes, I even saw a polar bear camouflaged against the snowy terrain as the ship drifted safely by an uninhabited island.
Disko Bay looked like a galaxy one morning aboard Viking’s Octantis ship.
Photo: Katherine McLaughlin
Alongside natural wonders came plenty of fodder for a design lover like myself. In most settlements, colorful homes with high pitched roofs sat mere feet from the ocean and were often the first signs of life we’d see after a night at sea. Not surprisingly, they were designed for that exact kind of easy visibility. Tied to Greenland’s colonial history, these homes were historically built by Dutch settlers in the 18th century and were color-coded for passing ships and visitors. Red signified churches, schools, or the homes of teachers and ministers; hospitals and doctors’ houses were yellow; power, auto mechanics, and similar trade professionals used green houses and buildings; blue structures designated the fish industry; and police stations were black. Today, this system is no longer in use, though the culture of brightly painted, wood buildings remains.
At the Uummannaq Museum, visitors are able to tour a recreation of a traditional Greenlandic home.
While less common, there are also remnants or re-creations of native architecture. In Uummannaq, I toured a peat hut, a traditional Inuit home built from rock and turf. Inside, the interiors resembled what a traditional home would have looked like on the island: large sleeping platforms made from wood planks and covered in animal pelts, and a wood burning stove in a corner. Demonstrating Greenland’s spirit of self-sufficiency, the survival-first, practical homes were often used primarily in winter by a largely nomadic society.