That point got proven fast. Even before I reached Saqqaq, which required an hour-long airplane hop from Greenland’s pint-sized capital, Nuuk, Mother Nature had already made her terms clear. A choppy sea had turned the two-hour boat transfer from the airport into a half-day ordeal, and we didn’t pull into camp until 2 a.m., the midnight sun still low on the horizon. The next morning, we followed caribou trails into the mountains, scrambling over precariously steep ledges on all fours. In Saqqaq’s small harbor, I got an unvarnished glimpse of daily life in this harsh and remote corner of the Arctic: whale guts lay strewn across the rocky beach, and the limp body of a seal leaking blood on a boat’s bow. Unsettling, maybe—but for city slickers like me, a much-needed reminder of life at its most elemental. “In most of the world, mankind is constantly molding nature,” Krogh said. “But here, it’s Mother Nature who molds us.”
Photo: David De Vleeschauwer
Photo: David De Vleeschauwer
And while a similar closeness to the elements shaped Saqqaq Camp, I was far from roughing it. Its six tents are pitched up on wooden platforms along the bay, each one furnished with sealskin pillows, electric blankets, and hot showers in plywood en-suites. Just up the hill, there’s a teepee-shaped dining tent, where meals fuse local staples like caribou steaks and arctic char with fresh produce ferried in from more hospitable climes. The fjord out front was choked with icebergs, some as tall as cruise ships, others barely larger than a Volkswagen Beetle.
Photo: Olle Nordell
#Visit #Greenland #Cruise
