Upernavik Greenland
Greenland
Frequently Asked Questions
No pier can take ships: they anchor in the bay and Zodiacs handle the run ashore. The crossing itself sets the tone, between icebergs and dark cliffs.
Above 72 degrees north, on a rocky island in the middle of an archipelago of hundreds. It is one of the northernmost Greenlandic settlements open to visiting ships.
"The springtime place," because Inuit families gathered here in the warm season to hunt and fish. Human presence here is very old, long predating Danish colonisation.
A museum billed as the most northerly in the world: the old colonial buildings of the historic quarter — the old church, the merchant's trading post, period dwellings — visited one building at a time, with the bay and its ice as a constant backdrop.
A good hour for the open-air museum, more if you read every label. The town itself is one walk: the lanes climb between houses painted red, blue and yellow.
The whole archipelago: a maze of islands, black water and brilliant ice stretching to the horizon. Light changes fast at this latitude, which is why photographers could spend hours here.
No, at the height of summer it never sets here. The midnight brightness gives the façades colours you will not see anywhere else.
Yes. To the south stand some of the highest bird cliffs in the northern hemisphere, where entire colonies of guillemots nest. Some expeditions approach them by Zodiac.
About a thousand, living from fishing, hunting and community life.
No. Cruising among the ice depends entirely on the day's conditions, and that is as it should be: here, nature has the last word.
