Wednesday 27 July - Arriving in Greenland... Kangerlussuaq

The only scheduled flights to Greenland are from Rekjavik or Copenhagen, which is lucky for me as I have family in Copenhagen. It is a member of this family which is one of the main reasons I decided to visit Greenland. My cousin Rasmus Wendt, who has been living in Greenland for two years, and is Head of Division, Ministry for Agriculture, Self-Sufficiency, Energy and Environment for the Greenland Government.  Luckily for me, a trip to Copenhagen for Rasmus coincided with my travels so I met up for dinner at my Uncle Peter's with both my cousins as well as Rasmus's family for a slap-up 3 course meal prepared entirely by Peter. I just hope that I can be that sprightly in entertaining a large dinner party at his age! Having walked the 7km into town from my hotel at the airport as practice for Greenland, I got the train home and the next morning was looking out for Rasmus as we boarded the 9:00am Air Greenland flight to Kangerlussuaq.  

Air Greenland's livery is easy to spot... (FYI features in 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty').  My travel agent (Charlotte and Jessie at Travelbee - highly recommended), had secured me a great window seat on the airline's only Airbus 330 to view the the ice sheet however unfortunately the weather didn't play ball.. 

(Below) The best view of the ice sheet, just a few minutes before landing..

As in Iceland, Greenland's largest runway was constructed as a US Air Base, established in 1941, but returned to the government of Greenland in 1992.  Kangerlussuaq is at the end of a long fjord, effectively 130km inland and therefore more accessible to the rest of the island. It also has some of the more reliable (hmmm.... more of that later) weather in Greenland so was a great spot for an air base. Unfortunately, being so far from the sea, makes it not very much good for anything else, such as fishing or freight, and therefore the population of the 'town' almost doubles each time a large jet flies in.  The majority of these passengers will have onward flights around Greenland via the airline's fleets of Dash 8 propeller planes.  When the weather in Nuuk or Ilulissat or Sisimut gets iffy, Kangerlussuaq becomes one big, crowded departure lounge..

Border control is also a bit more informal to handle the one or two international flights a day. Coming off the plane, a border guard simply asks: "EU or Danish passport?" - say yes and you'll walk straight through... Say no (bugger Brexit), and you are asked to stand to one side, so that the border officer can process you once everyone else has gone through...

My connecting flight to Nuuk wasn't until the afternoon and Rasmus had booked his connecting flight for the next day (big discounts available!) so, having dropped my baggage at the Greenland government's Kangerlussuaq airport 'office' to escape the chaos in the departure lounge , I headed across the road to telecoms provider Tusass to get a Greenlandic SIM (EU 'roaming' deals do not operate in Greenland...) and then went for a wander through the town.

The first thing I noticed was that a patch of road about 100 metres up from the airport was being re-tarmacked.  There weren't any signs or diversions, all cars are 4WD, so the few that need to go past, just go around, off road. 

Anyway - here are a few views of Kangerlussuaq... whilst I waited for the fog to clear at Nuuk.. 

Looking back towards the airport

A large meltwater river flows down from the ice sheet which is only a few miles away.

A brief description of the Sondrestrom Airbase in English and Greenlandic.

There are vast glacial silt deposits on banks of the river which give the impression of sand dunes (hence the 'Miami of the North' moniker), here being colonised by pretty wildflowers. 

For those with an interest in agriculture, these deposits are being seriously considered as fertiliser supplement and have been shown to increase maize and barley yields in Ghana and Denmark by up to 30%.

The main street in downtown Kangerlussuaq. The Polar Bear cafe is the main eatery outside of the hotel...