If Greenland isn’t on your expedition cruise bucket list, it certainly should be. We delve into the icy landscapes of this unforgettable island in search of icebergs, remote communities and spectacular wildlife.
“Now that’s one view I never tire of,” says our Danish captain as the first serrated black peaks of Greenland resolve themselves from the clouds far below. In a rare privilege in post-9/11 aviation, I have been invited to the flight deck of our Atlantic Airways charter midway between Copenhagen and Kangerlussuaq on Greenland’s west coast, arriving in time to watch the ice floes of the south-east coast drift past before giving way to the three-kilometre-thick ice sheet that blankets the vast interior. It is an arresting sight, and all 53 passengers are pressed to the windows as we descend towards the former US airbase below.
I have always wanted to explore Greenland. As a child studying a world map pinned to my bedroom wall, I would marvel at the sheer scale of Kalaallit Nunaat — its Greenlandic name — and attempt to pronounce places called Kangilinnguit, Eqalugaarsuit, and Ittoqqortoormiit. Decades later, we touch down at tiny, dust-blown Kangerlussuaq, a wartime settlement that is home to Greenland’s largest airport. In the distance, the ice sheet holds its ground against mid-twenties temperatures and the fleeting Arctic summer, when a growing number of expedition travellers make the journey to this remote and humbling land.
At the end of the runway, packs of Greenlandic sled dogs howl at a departing US Air Force transport as it climbs into the sky. Confined behind fences for the summer months, the wolf-like dogs pace and yap as our overland vehicles pass — a first intimation of the wild and ancient rhythms that govern life in this extraordinary place.
“Greenland is a destination that regularly humbles travellers by its sheer scale — the ship a tiny speck of blue, dwarfed by high valley walls on either side.”
Whale Carpaccio and First Ice: Kangerlussuaq to the Sea Explorer
Before boarding, we lunch at Restaurant Roklubben — a local institution on the banks of mirror-still Lake Ferguson — on whale carpaccio, whale blubber sashimi, cured musk ox, and small glasses of fiery cloudberry schnapps. Wild flowers bloom in the surrounding heather; the sky above is a pale, flawless blue, latticed with trans-Atlantic contrails. It is not the frozen desolation I had anticipated.
We catch our first glimpse of the Sea Explorer from a high bluff: a small blue vessel, dwarfed by ancient valley walls on either side, a visual reminder of the scale that Greenland imposes on everything within it.
The ship is the ideal vessel for this landscape. Her ice-strengthened hull proves its worth when edging through the ice fields at the base of glaciers, and her 114-passenger capacity keeps the experience intimate. Staterooms are spacious and elegantly appointed, with panoramic windows that invite the long Arctic twilight inside; timber accents, generous bathrooms, and thoughtful common spaces — a well-stocked bar, library, and dining room — make her a genuinely comfortable base for ten days of expedition cruising.
Sisimiut: Greenland’s Second City and Its Living Traditions
The following dawn finds us at Sisimiut, our first port of call as we cruise north towards Disko Bay. Greenland’s second-largest town clings to steep hills above a bustling harbour lined with vivid red, blue, and green stilted homes, a small timber church from 1775 standing guard at the port entrance.
On the waterfront, a family mends traditional kayaks outside a harbourside workshop, their younger children making the most of the summer warmth. A boutique nearby sells garments made from qiviut — the fine, extraordinarily soft inner fleece of the musk ox.
At a nearby artisan’s studio, whale bone is shaped into traditional Greenlandic jewellery. The local supermarket, meanwhile, carries fresh seal, whale, walrus, and musk ox — straight from the hunt.
It is a town where the ancient and the everyday coexist without tension, and where the traditional way of life feels neither performed nor precarious, but simply and quietly lived.
Disko Bay: Icebergs, Elders, and ‘Our Lord’s Inkwell’
I am on deck at 5am the following morning when the first icebergs appear. Under a cloudless blue sky, against the backdrop of Disko Island’s thousand-metre peaks, jagged chunks of ice drift past — some the size of family homes, others no larger than a car — blazing white and turquoise in the early sunshine.
We anchor off Qeqertarsuaq, a town of around 800, and make our way to its unusual octagonal church, known locally as ‘Our Lord’s Inkwell’. Massive chunks of ice have grounded themselves in the shallows around the settlement’s brightly painted cottages, waiting out the season on the sand. I follow a village elder named Akku to his home above the harbour.
Dressed in white fur with black boots and with a cheerful face behind a neat moustache, Akku shows me polar bear skulls from a hunt in his youth and a collection of traditional harpoons, before serenading our group with Greenlandic love songs in a clear, gentle voice.
“Tourism is all we have now that the young people have left,” he says, strumming his guitar and sipping coffee. “The winters are hard in this place, but we still find beauty in all the seasons. Being this remote, you have to.” The visit is quietly unforgettable.
Niaqornat: Life at the Edge of the World
Like lifting the lid on a set of Russian nesting dolls, each community on this coast is smaller and more remote than the last. Niaqornat — a settlement of just 60 people on the tip of a narrow peninsula — is reached by Zodiac, the inflatable craft crunching up onto a beach of smooth, tangerine-sized stones. In the distance, sled dogs on chains bark and wrestle beside an inlet lake that mirrors the settlement’s colourful homes.
We walk dirt paths past stacked sleds, drying seal pelts, and the village’s fish and whale drying racks, down to a narrow beach where the men of the village are butchering a freshly caught seal. It is my first time witnessing such a scene, and one that carries the full weight of what it means to live as these communities do. Every part of the animal is used; the sled dogs howl in anticipation. The blood is washed from the stones almost immediately by the incoming sea. For the passengers of the Sea Explorer it is an awakening; for the people of Niaqornat, it is simply Tuesday.
The Eqip Sermia Glacier and Ilulissat: The Iceberg Capital of the World
The following morning we nudge and grind our way towards the dramatic calving face of the Eqip Sermia glacier in the north-west of Disko Bay. Through the morning, icebergs accumulate around the ship until the captain must slow and manoeuvre through a mosaic of blinding white and deep turquoise that stretches to the glacier’s distant cliffs. We press on as far as conditions allow, then take lunch on the open deck surrounded entirely by ice — one of the more surreal dining experiences imaginable.
That evening, threading south through the floes, we arrive late at night in Ilulissat — a town of 4,000, and the self-styled iceberg capital of the world. The entrance to the harbour is so congested with drifting bergs that the captain must wait for a departing ferry to carve a path through the ever-shifting obstacle course before the Sea Explorer can ease alongside the pier. It is nearly midnight by the time we disembark for a guided walk, but the sky remains a luminous golden-grey, children still playing football on a community pitch as their mothers watch from the sidelines.
Ilulissat’s UNESCO-listed Ice Fjord is the mouth of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier — one of the few places where Greenland’s ice sheet reaches the sea. The 95-kilometre-long fjord is so choked with icebergs that have run aground at its shallow mouth that it resembles a glacier in its own right: an immense, fractured landscape of gullies, chasms, and towers of blue-white ice. The glacier calves approximately 20 billion tonnes of ice each year, more than any glacier outside Antarctica. We reach the coast along a boardwalk, past signs warning of tsunami waves generated by calving events, and settle in the wild grass at the edge of the fjord to watch the midnight sun gild the ice a deep, burnished gold. Someone opens a bottle of champagne. Nobody speaks for a very long time.
“We settle in the wild grass at the edge of the fjord and watch the midnight sun gild the ice a deep, burnished gold. Someone opens a bottle of champagne. Nobody speaks for a very long time.”
Navigating the Ice Fjord: A World of Floating Giants
The following morning we navigate the ice fjord by converted fishing boat — a small and manoeuvrable craft that allows us to thread between the bergs at close quarters. Trawlers sound their horns as they pass between us and icebergs the size of city blocks, their vast white faces reflected perfectly in the sea below, creaking and rolling with a slow, geological patience. The silence between the ice is absolute, broken only by the occasional crack of a settling berg or the throb of a passing vessel. It is, as someone on board observes, like cruising through the world’s largest gin and tonic.
Sarfannguit: The Most Beautiful Village at the End of the World
Our final stop on the return to Kangerlussuaq is Sarfannguit, a small settlement at the base of mist-wrapped mountains, and immediately my favourite place on the entire journey. A cluster of weather-worn, brightly painted cottages perch on steep cliffs above a sheltered bay; falcons and kites trace slow circles in the thermals above. At the village school, the local children regard us with a mixture of curiosity and delight, small Greenlandic dogs nipping at their heels.
Looking back down at the Sea Explorer from the clifftop, the ship appears tiny in the shadow of the surrounding mountains. A cold wind funnelling up from the valley carries the first suggestion of the winter to come. We descend to the pier and our waiting Zodiacs, and the village is quickly swallowed by the sea mist.
Final Reflections: Why You Should Cruise Greenland
Greenland is a destination of welcoming people, extraordinary living traditions, and scenery of a scale and strangeness that no amount of preparation quite readies you for. After ten days on its west coast, as the ship sailed south down the valley and Sarfannguit dissolved into the mist, I found myself understanding perfectly why those sled dogs howl against their summer confinement.
For travellers considering an Arctic expedition cruise, Greenland’s west coast offers something distinct from Svalbard, Iceland, or Norway’s fjords: a rawer, more remote, and more culturally layered experience, in a landscape that feels genuinely frontier. Albatross Travel’s expertise in this particular corner of the world, combined with the Sea Explorer’s comfortable intimacy, makes this one of the finest ways to experience it. Go before the word fully spreads.
Essential Information: Cruising Greenland with Albatross Travel
Operator: Albatross Travel specialises in expedition cruises to Greenland’s west coast and other Arctic destinations. The company charters the Sea Explorer, a 114-passenger ice-strengthened expedition vessel.
Itinerary: The west coast cruise runs from Kangerlussuaq south to Disko Bay, visiting Sisimiut, Qeqertarsuaq, Niaqornat, the Equip Sermia glacier, Ilulissat, and smaller settlements including Sarfannguit. Duration is typically 10 days.
Best time to visit: June to September, when the west coast is ice-free and accessible. July and August offer the warmest temperatures and the most reliable wildlife sightings. The midnight sun is visible from late May to late July.
Getting there: Fly to Kangerlussuaq via Copenhagen on Atlantic Airways. Charter flights are typically included in the Albatross Travel package.
Key experiences: Iceberg navigation in Disko Bay, the UNESCO-listed Ilulissat Ice Fjord, village visits to remote communities, traditional Greenlandic culture, and exceptional wildlife including Arctic fox, musk ox, and seabirds.
Ideal for: Expedition travellers, wildlife enthusiasts, photographers, and anyone with an interest in indigenous Arctic cultures and extreme landscapes.
If you’re contemplating a polar cruise, check out our guides to Arctic expedition cruises, Antarctic expedition cruises, and the best expedition cruise destinations and cruise lines, as well as a few that have strong green creddentials. Also, don’t forget to brush up on your polar photography and polar videography skills, and to pack the polar essentials with our in-depth guides.
