By now you
might have noticed that a trip to west Greenland involves seeing lots of ice. I
cannot get enough of these beautiful and fascinating icebergs. Many years ago,
on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, I stood and watched a tiny iceberg
floating by in July. This was the first iceberg sighting in my life and I was
pretty excited to think that this was a chunk of ice that had spent about two
years making its way from the Arctic waters between Greenland and Baffin Island
before coming so far south that it had almost melted completely away. And now,
many years later, I am visiting the birthplace of all these icebergs! Pretty
cool, eh?
Anyway, on
my last day in Greenland I take a full day boat trip out to Eqi Glacier,
approximately 90 km north of Ilulissat. It is a very pleasant 6-7 hour
excursion to a glacier that is famous for its frequents calvings. In fact, it calves
twice as we lie in wait for a couple of hours with the boat’s motor turned off,
enjoying the silence and cold air.
Although we
are bobbing in the water 1.5 km away from the face of the enormous glacier, it
looks much closer. Huge lumps and slices of ice crumble and slide off the
glacier. Then comes the deep “boom” sound. And then come the waves. Really neat
stuff.
Eqi Glacier
is about 200 m high, of which only 30-180 m stick up above the water. It is
about 2.8 km wide.
Enough of
facts and figures. In this final Greenland travel blog entry I am including a
link to a YouTube video I made with help of my smartphone: Images of Greenland July
2017.
Otherwise,
I hope you enjoy the following photos of Greenland’s dogs, flowers, lichen-covered
rocks and midnight sun.
