2019.6.29

Today’s plan was to visit Disko Island and stay there for a night. Many travelers leaving from Ilulissat choose to visit the Eqi Glacier. We thought about it for a while but ultimately decided on Disko Island because we didn’t want to miss the Kuannit hiking trail.

When we booked our stay in Ilulissat, it was for several nights in a row. The Hotel Icefiord kindly waived the charge for one night after learning that we would be staying on Disko Island. To get there, we had to cross Disko Bay, with our boat departing at 11 a.m. In the morning, I took a short walk along the yellow trail near the glacier, where wildflowers were blooming along the path.

At 11 a.m., we boarded the boat at the harbor and realized it was the same one we had taken the night before to see the icebergs. Among the boats traveling between towns in Disko Bay, this one was relatively large but moved slowly. The trip to Qeqertarsuaq took about four hours.

The weather was nice today—the sea was calm, and the sky was clear and blue. There were fewer than ten passengers on board. My wife felt a bit seasick and lay down in the cabin to rest. I stood at the bow, enjoying the sea breeze as we passed by icebergs floating in the water. These icebergs had already drifted in the bay for some time and had melted quite a bit, making them smaller than the ones still stuck in the glacier. Each had a unique shape, and in the sunlight, they glowed with a soft blue color.

Disko Island is the largest island in Greenland apart from the main island. From a distance, we could already see its distinctive flat-topped mountains and the glaciers covering their peaks. The island has a small population of about a thousand people, most of whom live in Qeqertarsuaq. In the past, Greenland was divided into northern and southern regions, with Nuuk as the southern capital and Qeqertarsuaq as the northern capital. It wasn’t until 1940 that all governance was moved to Nuuk, and Disko Island’s administrative role became a thing of the past.

“Welcome to Disko island, you can disco all night!”

The hotel arranged a car to pick us up at the harbor, though the ride was only a few minutes. Hotel Disko Island is probably the only official hotel on the island and is located in what used to be the governor’s residence. The hotel is quite large, with rooms spread out across multiple buildings.

Qeqertarsuaq, whose name comes from the local Inuit language, is a town filled with colorful wooden houses. The hotel receptionist patiently repeated the pronunciation of “Qeqertarsuaq” for us, and we realized that it wasn’t as difficult as it looked—just reading it as it’s spelled was close enough.

The town is small, with only one supermarket, a small church, and maybe just one restaurant, located inside the hotel. We walked to the other side of town, where we found a café that also sold some food. Along the way, we could see icebergs floating in the sea. The sky was completely clear, but in just a few hours, the weather would change again, showing us a different side of this Arctic landscape.