Today we revisited (we were here in 2022) Ilulissat which in Greenlandic means ‘icebergs’ - it is known as the ‘birthplace of icebergs’. The massive glacier there, Sermeq Kujalleq, is the most productive and fastest flowing glacier not only in Greenland but in the entire Northern Hemisphere. It produces 20 million tonnes of ice each day flowing at a rate of 40m per day hurling city-block sized icebergs into the sea. Glaciologists suspect that it was this glacier that calved the iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912.
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| Its a popular place - two other ships were already there. |
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| A huge iceberg floating past our ship - it is about half our size |
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| L: Passengers loading into zodiacs 3 decks below. R: kayaks being towed out for the kayakers. |
The kayakers huddled together to climb into their paddling gear and the rest of us divided into two groups – one lot boarded a couple of local boats to approach the glacier from the water and the other group were ferried into port to wander the town, visit museums and walk alongside the glacier. We were the first group and the boat’s captain took us as close to the mammoth glacier as considered safe – which wasn’t close enough for my liking.
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| In a little local boat heading for the ice-packed fjord |
It was a glorious day, sunny, still and quiet but for the cracking of ice and crackling of bubbles popping in the little ‘bergy bits’ floating around us. We tootled through humongous building-size ice blocks. Quite wonderful.
Clouds sky ice and light all came together to produce unusual effects. I went a little crazy with the camera!
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| Bottom left you can see the town between these two ice-monsters. |
After lunch zodiacs took our group, or anyone else who wanted, into port. where we either wandered or took the boardwalk alongside the glacier and/or visited the Ice Museum. The Museum is excellent! It is designed to fit into the landscape and for a large building it blends quite well. And you can walk up into the roof from the ground. Inside the displays were intriguing with small artefacts and local object encased within clear ice-like capsules.
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| Lindsay walked onto the roof last year but the museum wasn't opened then |
We had limited time to walk the boardwalk over the tundra alongside the glacier but it is such a stunning place that we took a hike out there for about an hour. Not surprisingly I photographed lots of plants from the boardwalk – you are not allowed to step on the fragile tundra so my pix weren’t great. But I managed to get close enough to identify 16 different species in that hour or so. The land looks a little inhospitable so it is easy to overlook the hidden beauty in this environment - you need to look closely. Needless t say I spent a lot of time squatting! The whole place is quite stunning. The fjord was packed with icebergs unable to reach the sea because large ones blocked the way.
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| The board walk goes for many kms tracking the glacier |
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| To me the tundra is beautiful |
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| An Arctic willow - they grow no higher than 20cm high |
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| Extraordinary to look across at this huge misshapen river of ice |
On our way back to the ship someone spotted a big flock of birds hovering in the distance and that means fish/food and that means sea mammals. So the boat was turned around and we went in search and found a few Humpback whales feeding. Such magnificent beasts. I got some shots of the fluke of one as it dived and uploaded the picture to the
HappyWhale site (follow this link). One of the ways whales are identified is by the markings on their flukes, like a fingerprint they are all different. This one has been seen a number of places - it is quite exiting to get reports about where your whale has been seen.
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| Whales surfacing and diving |
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