Northwest passage, Day +8

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Disko Bay, Ilulissat, Icefjord

Unbelievable magnificence

As we opened the blind of our cabin, the ship was making its way gingerly into the harbour of Ilulissat, a fishing village with a population of 4,600, famous for its haddock.

Too large to moor, MS Fram provided zodiacs for a pontoon dry landing, passing some large industrial looking ships, many charming fishing boats, and a vast number of smaller boats, with powerful outboard engines. All in all a very pretty and pleasing harbour, with a no-nonsense working air.

We were led to a quay not far away, to await our sightseeing boat to arrive and disgorge its passengers, allowing our group of about 20 onboard. Our voyage was to view the outlet of the 2004 World Heritage protected Icefjord. The fjord is 65km long, 8km wide and 1000m deep, excepting at its mouth, where the depth reduced to 250m. This geological feature collects ice inside the fjord, and with the pressure of the glacier calving, higher up, produces huge icebergs when they escape the bay. This one bay is the source of the majority of icebergs produced in Greenland, which float northwards into Baffin Bay, before drifting southwards down into the North Atlantic.

We were allowed to go on deck and the viewing platform above, after having left the harbour, so premium positions were taken up with alacrity. Impressive telephoto lens cameras, mobile phones, pocket cameras and binoculars bristled, as the boat sailed past vast walls of ice, each with intricate and absurd shapes and crevasses, creating absolutely awe- inspiring alien ice mountain ranges. It is impossible to convey the sense of power and serenity of these vast edifices.

And then it got even better.

Camera lenses focussed – a whale sighting, forward, a bit left, just before the blue glinting iceberg! And another one! A mother and calf humpbacks, we were told. They dived, came back up, dived again, and then made the effort for a deep dive, with their enormous flukes arcing into the air before vanishing into the deep.

Over there, another one, and two more! And there blew one – and a second. How lucky were we. The sun was out, the icebergs glinted, the dramatic edges and outcrops created fearsome shadows. This must be right up there in feeling the awe of nature.

After leaving the boat we caught a shuttlebus for the short ride to the Icefjord Centre, where, after a lunch picnic (coffee and croissants from the ship, if you ask…), we took a half-hour walk along a wooden boardwalk, over a boggy marsh, taking us to a viewpoint of the Icefjord.

We were not prepared for what we saw.

After a short climb up a rocky outcrop, the violently jumbled mad insane icescape was like imagining what it would be like on another planet. This vast area, locked into a frozen, tortured landscape, characterised the whole of the World Heritage fjord. Nobody viewing this could not feel humbled and small in the face of such power.

Returning to the Icefjord Centre, we took our shoes off (as is polite in Greenland) and spent a pleasant hour or so there. Starting off with a short immersive video and soundscape show explaining the cycle of water from evaporation through crystallisation to precipitation to ice-forming to glaciers calving and ultimately melting.

The X-Room provided a number of loudspeakers where, when you put your ear to it, you could hear ice moving and melting from various places in Greenland.

Declining to take the shuttlebus back, we walked through Ilulissat, a mixture of charming and brutal buildings, passing fields where sled dogs were kept, sometimes breaking out in concerted symphonies of howling and yelping.

After dinner, we witnessed a magnificent sunset as we passed through the narrow Sullorsuaq Vaigat sound, on our way out to Baffin Bay for our two day crossing towards the Canadian Arctic.

We grabbed a couple of thick blankets from the cabin and sat out on deck in the darkening night and reflected on the day, which we will always treasure.