The ice fiord, Kangia in Ilulissat, is the ultimate destination for many travellers to Greenland, and combined with boat tours among the icebergs and hiking trips along the edge of the fiord, flightseeing tours really prove their worth.
Ilulissat offers helicopter tours to the Ice fiord as well as large-scale adventures in fixed wing aircraft with extended range, providing an opportunity to see the world in even greater perspective when flying over the glacier at Eqi, and on out over the Disko Bay.
In Ilulissat there are very good opportunities to see whales from above, when they come up for air, breaking the water surface between the icebergs.
Although the following may sound like a weird nature experience, the presence of cruise ships will show the viewer in a very obvious way that even these massive floating hotels pale in comparison to the gigantic icebergs.
The world seems deceptively simple when viewed from above. The gigantic icebergs in the water look like ice cubes in a bath tub, the city like colorful Lego bricks and the mountains on the volcanic island of Qeqertarsuaq shrink in size resembling easy hills to run up on. Flying is not a bad idea at all.
RAW MOUNTAINS, ICE, AND SMALL COMMUNITIES IN EAST GREENLAND
In Eastern Greenland everything always seems a little bigger, wilder and more desolate than in Western Greenland. Especially if one chooses to believe the local population. Maybe there is something to it, because surrounding the airport at Kulusuk and the main town of Tasiilaq a raw world emerges with razor sharp peaks on the mountain ridges which stretch towards the north and the south, as far as the eye can see.
Going for a ride with Air Zafari in East Greenland, you will quickly get an appreciation of the logistical challenges that we live with, in our daily lives. The Ice Cap towards the west flanks the tiny belt of mountains and fiords, and from the around the middle of July, in the Denmark Strait towards the east, the pack ice descends straight down from the Arctic Ocean and mixes with the many icebergs from the Sermilik glacier in a tight belt around Tasiilaq.
The flow of broken pack ice, which the ocean currents push towards the south, affects life in East Greenland, and sometimes the heavy traffic of small boats with local people going to and from the small scattered communities, often have to slow down considerably while the passengers onboard assist in navigation, pushing the ice floes aside and looking for clear water between the icebergs.
