Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland, 9/29/2022, National Geographic Endurance
Aboard the
National Geographic Endurance
Arctic
This morning we visited our first Greenlandic settlement on this incredible expedition. Ittoqqortoormiit, meaning “Big-House Dwellers,” has a population of roughly 345 people and is known for being one of the most remote settlements on the planet.
We were free to roam this colorful little town. We visited the local museum, a beautiful church where we saw thread spun from muskox hair caught by the local villagers, and the tourist information center where some of the braver amongst us sampled muskox meat and had the opportunity to buy souvenirs from the gift shop. We even got to see the local Greenland working dogs getting fed seal meat close to our wet landing spot on the beach.
A walk around this remote Greenlandic settlement allowed us to appreciate a very different way of living, which starkly contrasts to that of how most of us live and see the world.
Emmett developed his love of nature and the environment from growing up in the heart of the Sperrin Mountains in Northern Ireland. His passion for the ocean came from time spent on family trips to the wild Atlantic coastlines of County Donegal.
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We were woken up by expedition leader Russ Evans with the words, “Whales have been spotted! Dress warm and come join us on the outer decks!” The Navigational Officer expertly held the ship in position for all to see a pod of humpback whales feeding in the early morning light. We were all able to photograph these incredible animals and take ID shots of their flukes for Happy Whale, our citizen science project. After an amazing morning whale watching, we continued deeper into the Westfjords for an afternoon excursion at the iconic cascading falls of the Dynjandi Waterfall, also known as Fjallfoss. We stopped 3.5 miles from the waterfall to drop off a group of guests interested in a longer hike. They were greeted by eider ducks and black guillemots. National Geographic Endurance then proceeded farther into the fjord, where the rest of our guests and staff went ashore to photograph and explore the falls.
Our first day at sea led us through the fjord system Ísafjarðardjúp to Ísafjörður, the largest town in the Icelandic Westfjords. With 2,800 inhabitants, this town is the administrative and cultural center of the Westfjords. Initially, we planned to start our expedition by going straight from Reykjavík to Greenland, only spending some time in Iceland towards the end of our voyage. The beauty of traveling expedition style is that we can allow ourselves to change course if needed. Therefore, we opted for the Icelandic Westfjords while the ocean in the Denmark Strait calms down after a storm. In the morning, we split into groups. Some of us went driving through a tunnel to another fjord, Dýrafjörður, where we visited an old botanical garden, which was initially installed as an experiment by local people to see which ornamental plants could grow in the harsh Icelandic climate. Then we drove to the next fjord, Önundarfjörður, where we had a wonderful concert in the small Flateyri church, followed by a visit to Iceland’s oldest bookstore, which has been run by the same family since its beginning. The other group went driving to Álftafjörður through the Súðavík village. In the valley at the bottom of the fjord, a number of waterfalls stream down the mountain, and today they were dealing with the elements. As we walked towards the Valagil gulley, we had the wind at our backs and could see how the occasional gusts grabbed the river water as it fell from the mountain’s edge and threw it back up again. The waterfalls looked like they were smoking, or like a fair lady’s hair blowing in the wind. We hiked until we were able to view the waterfall in the narrow gulley up close. In front of it, a carpet of bog bilberry plants spread out in striking autumn colors ranging from yellow to orange to dark peach. In the afternoon, the Ísafjörður Maritime Museum and local brewery opened their doors to us. Some of us walked through the charming old town center with its beautifully renovated small houses clad with wood or corrugated iron before strolling back through the harbor area of this important albeit remote Icelandic fishing town.
Today we visited Isafjordur, the capital of the Westfjords of Northwest Iceland. It was wet and windy, but this did not deter us from a great morning. Guests were offered a range of activities. Some of us hiked to the Valagil Falls at the back of a huge valley filled with the colours of an arctic autumn, and some of us stopped to pick succulent blueberries along the way. Others went to explore one of the many large fjords in this part of Iceland and one of Iceland’s oldest arboretums at Skrudur, complete with a whale arch made from the jawbones of a large fin whale. Yet another group took a walking tour of the historic fishing port of Isafjordur, rounding off the morning in the local microbrewery. In the afternoon, we turned our thoughts to home and sailed south of Reykjavik after an amazing adventure in West Iceland and East Greenland.
