A statue of Hans Egede - photo by Sony Stark

GoNOMAD Stories About Greenland

Greenland: Island of Melting Traditions

Illusions, apparitions and figments of our imagination are commonplace in murky waters, especially among icebergs. No truer is this bizarre phenomena than while navigating calving glaciers. It’s during an Ilulissat boat trip later on in my journeys that my own eyes play tricks on me as well.

There’s a fabulous sense of wonder and awe as we navigate hundreds of rocky islands that dot the bay. I feel like a 10th century Norwegian Viking exploring an empty liquid moonscape.

Our Guide, Bjorn Bjornskov, recites the historical timeline of exploration that eventually lead to a Lutheran missionary by the name of Hans Egede to colonize the Inuits and establish Nuuk in 1721. Read more

Cod Fishing in Greenland

Bo Lings, the owner and skipper of the boat Sirius, a rugged Tagra 35 also known as the 4x4 of the sea, is like a kid in a candy store.

I am in Sisimiut, Greenland, heading out for a day of fishing for cod and can think of no one I would rather have at the helm. He is radiant with confidence. His knowledge of the sea is unparallelled. The boat is unsinkable.

Outfitted with survival suits, advanced communications and a sonar system so detailed that he has been hired to chart the ocean floor of the harbor and fjords around Sisimiut, he knows every inch.

Greenland is not a place to mess around with. The weather changes are dramatic and they happen fast. If you get in trouble, you had better know what to do and have the gear to do it. Read more


Granny Goes to Greenland

Connie Maria Westergaard and her grandmother, Birthe Ewertsen, dogsledging in Greenland - photo by Connie Westergaard

Our first encounter with Greenland happens through the airplane’s window. My grandma, whom everybody else knows as Birthe Ewertsen, and I are desperately trying to look out at the same time on the snow-white landscape below us.

"Is this your first time to Greenland?" The female flight attendant asks. The answer is yes. Most of our lives grandma and I have dreamt of going to Greenland, or the Country of the People as the Greenlandic call it. Funny name for a country whose population could fit into a large stadium.

Granny’s 80-year-old birthday is just around the corner. And to celebrate it we have decided to defy the freezing cold, old age and a generation gap of 50 years and go to Greenland for eight days. It is a trip that will demand vigor on grandma’s part. Luckily she’s an active old woman, who travels regularly and keeps fit by dancing twice a week. Read more

Navigating the icy waters of Greenland - photo by Max Hartshorne

Greenland: The Greatness of Silence

There aren’t many places like Greenland left on earth. The world’s largest island presents the traveler with unparalleled opportunities to observe nature and that rarest of modern commodities, silence. There is simply nothing like the experience of getting out on the ice, as we did in November 2006, near the community of Kangermusset, once home to a US Air Force base.

The ice is exquisitely expansive---miles and miles of it stretching out in all directions, undulating like a winter desert, rippling, curving, into what seems like infinity.

Today this windy village of 800 is the standard jumping off point for travelers who want to visit the three most popular cities and towns on the country’s western coast — Ilulussat, Sisimiut, and the capital, Nuuk. Read more

A totem pole in Greenland - photo by Max Hartshorne

Blogging from Greenland: Sharing a Trip to a Place No One Goes

We landed in Greenland's biggest airport called Kangerlussuaq, above the Arctic circle, and stepped onto the windy tarmac. Inside the small airport, four youths stood in a row, as if waiting for us, they had features of eskimoes, the high cheekbones and Asian eyes.

We had a late dinner of reindeer, smoked halibut and salmon, and in the middle of the plate, a little bowl of 1/4" long white squares with black at the ends. This was whale blubber, chewy, indistinct taste, but the flavor stays with you the next day. We were shown to spartan rooms, (this is a former military base), with common bathrooms and I fell deep asleep while the wind howled outside.

The next morning I got a glimpse of Greenland. It was stark, barren, absolutely treeless, and the only snow I saw was a dusting on a faraway mountain.  Our first excursion was into a huge 16-wheel tundra buggy that took us 38 km out onto the inland ice cap, that covers about 85% of this home-ruled Danish territory.

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