Western Greenland’s colossal glaciers wow visitors
The bow of the Ocean Endeavour expedition ship is packed with camera wielding tourists as we sail up the Kangerlussuatsiaq Fjord in Western Greenland. This is the Arctic landscape that people have been waiting to see.
I have been travelling for 11 days now on the Heart of the Arctic tour and now we are in the most picturesque place I have ever photographed.
As we sail up the narrow 75-kilometre fjord, it seems implausible that this body of water could be 700 metres deep.
Travellers don’t know which way to point their binoculars or their cameras. The scenery is breathtaking and overwhelming.
From the deck we watch as the sharp jagged mountains rise sharply on both sides, crashing into the clouds. Fishing boats that seem large when docked are dwarfed by the expansive uninhabited scenery.
And at the end of the fjord, blue in the cool morning light sit the glaciers draining the Maniitsoq ice sheet.
On this weather-perfect day, adventurers sunning themselves on the bow of the ship get an exciting glimpse of the retreating glaciers. Glaciers warming up in the morning sun begin the process of calving into the water, whereby huge chunks of ice splash down into the water.
A massive burst of spray explodes into the air, to the gasps of those watching from the safety of the ship.
A buzz starts as amateur photographers try and see if they captured a record of the event.
Once loaded in Zodiac boats, guests are treated to a closeup tour of the glacier face. From the deck of the ship it seems big. From up close in the Zodiac, the face of the glacier is simply massive, as big as a 10-storey building.
Our Zodiac is surrounded by pieces of the thousands-of-years-old glacier floating in the water from the recently calved ice field.
Our guide of the day, naturalist George Sirk, reaches down and hauls in a piece of the glacier. “Tonight, we will have ice in our drinks from thousands of years ago," he says.
After the glacier tour, we stop off for a quick hike at a postcard-worthy little bay. Tourists ask each other for photos of themselves with an idyllic lake and mountain peak as a backdrop. In each further step it’s easy to see in their faces this is a tour of a lifetime.
On the way back down to the landing zone I hike and talk with Evan Wilson, a 30-year-old teacher from Dawson City, Yukon. “It’s way more dramatic visually than I expected,” she tells me.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s so gorgeous. If I look back at this trip, Greenland blew me away,” says the teacher. We hike back down together, jump in a Zodiac for the quick ride back to the ship. In the warm afternoon sun, the smile never leaves her face. Todd Korol