North Greenland’s Giant Icebergs under the Heart-shaped Mountain

8 days in Kangerlussuaq, Ilulissat and Uummannaq

Get close to the ice sheet in Kangerlussuaq and continue your trip to Disko Bay for three days in Ilulissat, located by the world-famous Ilulissat Icefjord. Here, you can see the huge icebergs reflected in the water – but there are more giant icebergs to come, as you also will have three days in Uummannaq, located on an island in the huge Uummannaq Fjord.
You’ll embark on an exciting journey to northern Greenland and feel the amazing wonders of nature. Up here, far north of the Arctic Circle, you’ll experience our traditional way of life juxtaposed with the influences and conveniences of modern life.

The ice cap welcomes you to Greenland

Kangerlussuaq is the gateway to Greenland and the first stop on this journey. The vast hinterland is home to stunning scenery, with the enormous ice sheet dominating the landscape. Therefore, an excursion across the tundra to the ice sheet is part of the program, where there is a good chance of spotting musk oxen and reindeer. And that’s even before we reach the main attraction of the area: the huge Ice Sheet, which we’ll be walking on! The next day, we head north to Disko Bay, where great adventures await on water, land, and ice.

Ilulissat and the Icefjord

Ilulissat is one of Greenland’s most famous destinations, largely due to its location at the mouth of a huge ice fjord. Ilulissat Icefjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been since 2004. Paradoxically, this huge ice fjord, with its many icebergs, has been life-giving for both humans and animals for millennia. The icefjord can be experienced in many ways, and you can enjoy beautiful hikes in the area. There is also the option of going to Eqi, a calving glacier 80 kilometers north of Ilulissat. Here, you can watch the large pieces of ice fall off the glacier into the sea.

Uummannaq – the town and the heart-shaped mountain

The enormous Nuussuaq Peninsula frames the northern part of Disko Bay. North of this peninsula, we find a large and beautiful fjord system, with the Uummannaq Fjord at its center. This huge and beautiful fjord system has many glacier tongues stretching to the sea. We will go on several boat trips in this amazing area and continue to experience Greenland. Many say you have not seen Greenland before you see it from the sea, and you’ll get to do just that here!

Itinerary

Below, you see an itinerary for the tour. This is based on the excursion package you can purchase along with the tour. The program offers plenty of contact with Greenlandic nature and culture through the varied excursion package.

Highlights

  • Take a walk on the ice sheet
  • Stay in a small house under the heart-shaped mountain at Uummannaq
  • Experience the capital of the icebergs, Ilulissat, and the Ilulissat Icefjord
  • Go hiking at Eqaluit in Uummannaq Fjord
  • Experience authentic town and village life
  • Fly in a helicopter in North Greenland

Included

  • Return flight Copenhagen – Kangerlussuaq
  • Return flight Kangerlussuaq – Ilulissat
  • Return flight Ilulissat Qaarsut
  • Boat trip Qaarsut – Uummannaq
  • Helicopter trip Uummannaq – Qaarsut
  • All Transfers in Greenland
  • 1 night at Hotel Kangerlussuaq with private bath/toilet
  • 3 nights at Hotel Icefiord with private bath/toilet
  • 3 nights in the “Blue” or “Red” House in Uummannaq with shared bath/toilet
  • Welcome dinner at Hotel Icefiord on Day 2 (drinks and beverages NOT included)
  • Food and beverages onboard the Air Greenland flight Copenhagen – Kangerlussuaq
  • Breakfast on four mornings (in Kangerlussuaq and Ilulissat)
  • 3 information meetings with local English-speaking tour guides
  • Town walks in Ilulissat and Uummannaq
  • Hiking to Sermermiut, the abandoned settlement at Ilulissat Icefjord
  • All flight/transportation taxes and fees known to Greenland Travel at the time of publishing
  • 20 kg baggage and 8 kg hand luggage

Not included

  • Lunch and dinner
  • 3 x breakfast in Uummannaq
  • Travel insurance
  • Excursion package

Day program

Peter Schörner
Day 1:
Flight Copenhagen - Kangerlussuaq, welcome meeting and optional excursion to Point 660

Air Greenland flies from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq, located in a world of its own. On the flight, you can enjoy a light meal, a movie, and your first sight of nunataks – mountain peaks jutting up through the ice sheet. From up here, you really get a sense of how big the ice sheet is. It takes almost an hour to fly across the ice!

Welcome and accommodation

Upon arrival, you will be met by one of our local partners who will help you check in to your hotel. You will stay at Hotel Kangerlussuaq, located in the airport complex and just a glance away from the great outdoors. An information meeting will be held where you will learn more about the area and its excursion possibilities.

Kangerlussuaq is located near the ice sheet

Kangerlussuaq is located between beautiful rolling mountains and close to the ice sheet. Here, you can experience and walk on the legendary ice sheet, which covers approximately 80 % of Greenland, so the forces of nature have flexed their muscles.

If you purchased the excursion package, you are ready to embark on your first wonderful excursion.

Excursion to the Ice Sheet, Point 660 (optional)

If you have purchased the excursion package, it is time for an excursion. The ice sheet, which we also call the ice cap, is located about 25 km from the town, and we drive in a 4-wheel drive vehicle through the stunning moraine landscape on a gravel road that takes us all the way to Point 660. Here, we stop and walk up onto the ice sheet itself. The walk onto the ice sheet varies, as the ice is “living” and constantly changing shape. Some years, you can easily walk onto the ice, and other years, it is a bit more challenging – but there is always a local guide with you who knows everything about the area. Along the way, there’s a good chance of seeing reindeer, musk oxen, and the beautiful moraine landscape.

In the evening, you can relax at the hotel or take the bus to Restaurant Roklubben, located at a lovely large lake six kilometers outside Kangerlussuaq.

Lars Andersen
Day 2:
Flight to Ilulissat, information meeting, town walk, and hike to Sermermiut

On day two, your trip continues by plane to Ilulissat and the Icefjord. The Greenlandic name of Ilulissat means ‘icebergs,’ which is, of course, related to the beautiful Icefjord and the large amounts of ice floating around at its own pace at the Icefjord.

Arrival and accommodation

After arriving in Ilulissat, you will be transferred to Hotel Icefiord. This hotel is located close to the waterfront in central Ilulissat and offers a beautiful view of Disko Bay.
A guide from World of Greenland will hold an information meeting at the hotel, where they will tell you a little about the town and the many excursion options. Like Greenland Travel, World of Greenland is part of the Air Greenland Group, so we work closely together. After the meeting, you will be well prepared for a fantastic stay in Ilulissat.

Cultural and historical town walk in Ilulissat

You’ll start your experiences on a cultural and historical town walk, where you’ll gain a deeper understanding of Greenland’s culture and history, adding perspective to all your other experiences in Greenland.

Ilulissat was founded in 1741 and is Greenland’s third-largest town, with over 4,500 inhabitants. The guide will tell you about the town’s history, Greenlandic culture, and modern life 300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. Along the way, we visit the fishermen at the harbor and the sellers on the local market. We also pass Knud Rasmussen’s birthplace and the old wooden church, Zion’s Church. It’s a lovely walk, and we’re not done walking for the day!

Hike to the abandoned settlement of Sermermiut by the Icefjord

The beautiful icebergs of the Ilulissat Icefjord form the backdrop for the former settlement of Sermermiut, located one and a half kilometers (1 mile) south of the town. For 4,000 years, various Inuit cultures lived here, and today, you can still see many remains that testify to their presence.

Sermermiut is located in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, so a footbridge has been built to protect fragile nature, making hiking much easier.
Ruins from when the Inuit lived here can be seen, and if you walk to the end of the walkway, you’ll also come to the Old Women’s Gorge. This place became very famous after the fourth season of the TV series Borgen, much of which was set in Ilulissat.

We have our dinner at Hotel Icefiord, which serves a delicious welcome dinner (drinks not included).

Mads Pihl - Visit Greenland
Day 3:
Ilulissat on your own or boat trip to Eqi Glacier (optional)

After waking up, you can enjoy your breakfast at Hotel Icefiord. You have the day at your leisure unless you have purchased the excursion package, in which case you will go on a boat trip to the calving glacier Eqi today.

Boat trip to Eqi Glacier (optional)

Head down to the harbor and hop on one of the comfortable boats that cruise around Disko Bay. With the ship’s crew, you will now head north on a boat trip to the calving glacier, Eqi Glacier. The glacier flows into a wide fjord 80 kilometers north of Ilulissat. With the boat, it is possible to get relatively close to the glacier, and, at a safe distance, you can experience the glacier calving large chunks of ice. The ice-safe ship lies approximately two hours in front of the glacier waiting for calving, and here you can also enjoy your lunch.

The trip to and from Eqi Glacier can take two to five hours each way, depending on the type of boat used that day. At approximately 2 p.m., the ship docks at Port Victor, the ‘port’ of Glacier Lodge Eqi, to drop off some passengers and pick up others who have spent the night in the camp. Then, you set the course for Ilulissat again. The boat trip itself is also exciting, with beautiful scenery and ice.

You can dine at the hotel in the evening or try one of the other lovely restaurants in town. Tomorrow, the trip continues north to Uummannaq, but you will spend another night in Ilulissat at the end of the trip.

Jessie Brinkman Evans - Visit Greenland
Day 4:
Flight to Qaarsut and boat to Uummannaq and town walk

After a good breakfast at the hotel, we head out to the airport to experience the next part of this tour: the flight to Qaarsut. To be honest, Qaarsut Airport is a strange construction. It’s basically in the middle of nowhere, but it was here that a runway for fixed-wing aircraft could be placed near Uummannaq. You’ll find yourself on the northern side of the Nuussuaq Peninsula and are rewarded with a stunning view of Uummannaq.

From Qaarsut, you sail towards Uummannaq, located on an island 22 kilometers out in the fjord. It’s a beautiful boat trip, crossing the fjord towards the island with the iconic heart-shaped mountain.

Uummannaq

Once you arrive in Uummannaq, you’ll place your luggage in a small, cozy house, where you’ll stay for the next few days. You’ll also find out where to shop, as you’ll be self-catering for the next three days.

You will then go on a town walk of Uummannaq. Both the town and the island are called Uummannaq. Uummannaq is very much a traditional Greenlandic town. The pace of the town, infrastructure, and culture are so different from what you’re used to back home. It’s summer, and the days are very long—in high summer, there is no night because the midnight sun never sets.

Uummannaq is 590 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle and is home to just under 1,300 people. Most people make their living from fishing and hunting. Several settlements are spread out in the area around Uummannaq, including Qaarsut, Saatut, Ikerasak, and Ukkusissat. There is also a desert near Uummannaq, which you rarely see in Greenland.

Sergei Gapon - Visit Greenland
Day 5:
8-hour fjord tour by boat and hike to Santa's House (both optional)

On the fifth day, you will embark on an 8-hour boat trip in the large fjord system. You will first sail to Qilakitsoq, located on the north side of the Nuussuaq Peninsula. Here, you will have a history lesson. In modern-day Greenland, the name Qilakitsoq has an almost magical ring. This is where the most exceptional archaeological Inuit finds have been made.

In 1972, two brothers, Hans and Jokum Grønvold, were grouse hunting in the area when they came across some stone-covered graves. They looked into the graves and immediately realized they had found something extraordinary. They didn’t tell anyone about their find, except for the National Museum of Denmark (this was before Greenland had its own national museum). It turned out that the graves were 5-600 years old and contained eight very well-preserved, clothed mummies and much extra clothing. For archaeologists, this is by far the most valuable find that can tell us about Inuit culture around the middle of the last millennium. Today, four mummies are displayed at the Greenland National Museum and Archives. There is also a really good exhibition of mummies at the local museum in Uummannaq.

We then sail on to the desert, located on the island of Salliaruseq, also known as The Big Island. On the east coast of this island is a very peculiar desert. This lunar landscape is created by the minerals in the soil, especially sulfur and iron. The sand has reacted with these minerals, so the desert is yellow. In this desert, it is possible to find rare and ancient rocks, such as quartz and garnet stones, and minerals, such as iron ore and mica schist. Some rocks are around 1.5 billion years old. After being in the desert, we sail around the island along the more than 1,000-meter-high vertical mountain on Salliaruseq. Before heading home, we head north and visit the small settlement of Saattut.
We walk to Santa’s hut in the evening at nearby Qasigissat Bay. The hut was built when DR (the Danish equivalent to BBC) filmed a televised Christmas calendar written by a man who had been a teacher in Uummannaq.

Paaluk Kreutzmann
Day 6:
Boat trip to Eqaluit and hiking (optional)

Today, you’ll be sailing again, but on a different type of trip, focusing on a bit of hiking. You’ll sail from Uummannaq to Eqaluit (“The Place with Trout”), located southeast on the Nuussuaq Peninsula’s north side.

Along the way, we pass many huge icebergs that have calved off from the Great Glacier at the bottom of the fjord. There’s also a good chance of seeing humpback, fin, minke, and, if we’re lucky, sperm whales.

After about an hour of sailing, we arrive at Eqaluit. It’s a great place to hike, and the boatman brings a fishing rod, as there are trout along the shore and in the lake. From the fjord, we hike up to a beautiful lake – it’s about a 30-minute hike, so it’s manageable. Before returning to the boat, we sit near the lake and drink coffee or tea.
Back in Uummannaq, you can take a walk around town. The town is located in very hilly terrain, so many great vantage points exist. See if you can find time to visit the town’s museum. There are exhibitions about the mummies from Qilakitsoq, and you can also learn more about Alfred Wegener and his world-famous theory.

Alfred Wegener

Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist, was part of the Danish expedition to Greenland in the early 1900s. He was responsible for determining and measuring geographical fix points. During his expedition, he was surprised that another German had already made the same measurements but with completely different results. This led Wegener to form a groundbreaking idea: the continents move.

Wegener later led the German Greenland Expedition, also known as the Wegener Expedition, from 1930 to 1931 to study the Greenland ice sheet systematically. Wegener’s contribution to our understanding of continental drift and Greenland’s geology and climate has been crucial. Much of Wegener’s work took place at Uummannaq (and also at Eqi Glacier).

Jette Schwarz
Day 7:
Helicopter to Qaarsut and flight to Ilulissat. Boat trip on the Ilulissat Icefjord (optional)

Today, we head back to Ilulissat. When we arrived in Uummannaq, we sailed across the fjord, but today, we’re going to try something different, taking the trip back to Qaarsut by helicopter instead.

In the past, Grønlandsfly (Air Greenland’s original name) had the world’s largest route network of helicopter flights. This was costly and cumbersome, so they built fixed-wing runways in many larger towns along the coast. Because Uummannaq Island is so hilly, the airport couldn’t be built there, so instead, it was built on the mainland at nearby Qaarsut, and you still have to fly the rest of the way to Uummannaq by helicopter.

You’ll fly from the heliport in Uummannaq to Qaarsut, switch to one of Air Greenland’s Dash-8 aircraft, and then fly back to Ilulissat, where you’ll once again stay at Hotel Icefiord.

If you have purchased the excursion package, a boat trip on the Ilulissat Icefjord is on the program in the evening.

Boat trip among icebergs (optional)

The rays of the midnight sun give the icebergs a unique color that people return to Ilulissat to experience again and again. Almost all visitors to Ilulissat choose this boat trip between icebergs: every day, more than 40 million tons of ice flow from the Ilulissat Glacier into the Icefjord.

The result is enormous icebergs that can be hundreds of meters in each direction and extend almost 70 meters above sea level. These giants are stranded at the mouth of the Icefjord, and we have the opportunity to sail among them. Remember to bring warm clothes for the trip because even in summer, it’s cold out here on the water among the icebergs.

Sergei Gapon - Visit Greenland
Day 8:
Flight Ilulissat via Kangerlussuaq to Copenhagen

With views of the Icefjord and the last sight of icebergs, the journey back home after many eventful and intense days. Air Greenland flies you from Ilulissat via Kangerlussuaq to Copenhagen, where you arrive in the evening.

We guarantee that you will return home with luggage filled with memories that will stay with you longer than other vacation memories—at least, that’s what our travelers tell us.

Map

Hotels on this tour

Excursions (Optional purchases)

Practical information

Flight schedule (local times)

  • Departure from Copenhagen 09:00 AM.
  • Return flights arrive in Copenhagen 8:25 PM.

Departure times are subject to change by the airline.

Minimum number of participants

The minimum number of participants is 4.

Packing list

Find the packing list for your trip here.

Baggage included

20 kilos of checked baggage
8 kilos of cabin baggage (max. dimensions of cabin baggage: 55 x 40 x 23 cm).

Travelers with reduced mobility and wheelchair users

We do not recommend this tour for people with reduced mobility and wheelchair users. Greenland Travel’s advice regarding difficulty levels on our excursions is intended for travelers who are not disabled. We are always happy to provide you with information on the suitability of the trip, taking into account the specific needs you may have. Please note that our advice is not based on medical knowledge, and ultimately it is YOUR responsibility to decide if a tour is right for you.

North Greenland’s Giant Icebergs under the Heart-shaped Mountain

8 days in Kangerlussuaq, Ilulissat and Uummannaq

Visit the Greenland Ice Sheet, experience glaciers and giant icebergs, UNESCO World Heritage at Ilulissat Icefjord, and the beautiful heart-shaped mountain that rises above Uummannaq.

From
per person in double room
June-September 2 days  | 1 nights Travel id: 9052 Departure from Copenhagen
Optional experiences
Ice SheetIcebergsWhalesCulture

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