Greenland Travel Tips

Fishing (shrimp, cod, halibut, salmon) is the main industry, and dozens of processing plants have been constructed in the southern and southwestern areas. Some of the world's largest shrimp beds are in Disko Bay. In the north and east seals, foxes, and polar bears are hunted. Seabirds are hunted for their flesh, eggs, and down. There is extensive sheep breeding in the southern area.

Deposits of cryolite, iron, zinc, and lead, which were important to Greenland's mining industry, have been largely worked out. Uranium, copper, coal, and molybdenum have also been detected, but are difficult to extract.

Greenland has gradually modernized its economy but still depends heavily on its fishing industry. Tourism is being developed. Significant financial support from Denmark, however, remains essential. Greenland has benefited from greatly improved air transportation and telecommunications in recent years.

Eighty percent of the people that live in Greenland were born there. The people in Greenland speak Greenlandic (an Inuit language with some Danish words).  They may also speak Danish.  They hunt seals and other animals. They eat the meat and use the blubber for fuel.  They build their own winter houses.  They build their villages out of wood.  Seals are still an important food to people in Greenland.  They also like vegetables.  Most Greenland families have around six members.  Three -fourths of the  people of Greenland live in towns. Greenland's capital is Holsteinsborg.  Children between the ages of 6 and 15 must go to school. 

Getting there

Budget travellers will find that their most expensive outlays will be their return tickets and the cost of flying between destinations. There are tour companies operating out of Canada that fly to Greenland in the summer months. International travel is through one of six major airports in Greenland: Nuuk, Kangerlussuaq, Pituffik, Kulusuk, Nerlerit Inaat and Mesters Vig. The last two serve chartered flights landing in northeast Greenland. During the summer months (July-August) there are three weekly flights from Copenhagen direct to Kangerlussuaq or Pituffik. One of the more popular routes is from Reykjavík in Iceland to Kulusuk, although if you do this trip with Icelandair it must be remembered that they terminate at Kulusuk and do not carry transit passengers. You will need to book with a different carrier if you wish to fly to another Greenland destination after Kulusuk.

Getting around

Most of the settlements are linked by Grønlandsfly (Greenlandair), Greenland's national airline, but the weather can always play havoc with the best of the airline's intentions. The airline has sometimes been referred to as Immaqa Air, loosely translated as Maybe Air, and it's wise to bear this in mind when booking. Leave plenty of leeway to account for grounded planes and other weather-induced delays. Planes may also be chartered from Greenlandair; most of them are five-seaters.

Travelling by boat is a good option; a fleet of coastal ferries run up and down the west coat from Aappilattoq in the south to Uummannaq in the north. They're not the QEII by any stretch of the imagination, but they're safe and go where the Queen's ship would fear to tread. The exception to this is the grand old dowager, the M/S Disko, which has been upgraded and pressed into service as a tourist cruise ship on five-day or eight-day cruises. For those inaccessible villages and towns, or places off the usual ferry route, charter boats are available.

If you're thinking car or motorcycle, forget about it. Glaciers and ravines tend to make road-making a thankless task in Greenland and there are only two settlements connected by tarmac; Ivittuut and Kangilinnguit. You can pootle around the settlements if you really feel like driving - most Greenlanders do - but the 4WD hasn't yet been made that can cope with Greenland's rugged and icy conditions. Dogs, on the other hand, are capable of going anywhere, anytime, although legally dogsleds are only allowed in towns north of the Arctic Circle.

Visa information

Citizens of Nordic countries require only an identification card; citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, the US and EU countries require a valid passport but no visa for a maximum stay of 90 days. Most other countries require a visa as per the same regulations as Denmark.

Greenland is 1,659 mi (2,670 km) long from Cape Farewell (lat. 59°46'N) to Cape Morris Jesup (lat. 82°39'N) and has a maximum width of about 800 mi (1,290 km). Geologically, the island is part of the Canadian Shield and, therefore, of North America; more than 50% of its ice-free area consists of rocks of the Precambrian era, mostly granites and gneisses. Mountain chains parallel Greenland's east and west coasts; Mt. Gunnbjørn (12,139 ft/3,700 m) and Mt. Forel (11,024 ft/3,360 m), both in SE Greenland, are the highest peaks. The entire coastline of Greenland is deeply indented by fjords. There are many offshore islands, of which Disko, in W Greenland, is the largest.

Except for about 158,430 sq mi (410,450 sq km) of coastland and coastal islands, an ice sheet and numerous minor ice caps and glaciers cover the island. The extreme northern peninsula (Peary Land) has no ice sheet but does have local ice caps. The thickness of the ice sheet reaches c.14,000 ft (4,300 m) in some places. Two drilling operations on the highest part of the ice sheet (“Summit” in N Greenland) in 1992 and 1993 both reached bottom, with the deepest core measuring 10,016 ft (3,053 m) from surface to bottom. Studies of the compositiom of the ice cores have permitted new insights into the climatic history of the last 200,000–300,000 years. The ice moves outward from the center, entering the sea in walls or debouching in glaciers, of which Humboldt Glacier is the largest and Jakobshavn Glacier the most calf-ice productive. These rapidly moving glaciers calve tremendous icebergs, notably into the Davis Strait, through which they frequently reach Atlantic shipping lanes. Surveys conducted from 1993 to 1998 showed the ice sheet in southern Greenland to be shrinking by about 2 cu mi (8 cu km) each year, but ice cores collected in the area suggested that such changes may be similar to those that occurred in the past. From 1996 to 2004, however, the amount of ice melting each year in Greenland increased by 2 1/2 times, leading to concerns that the sea level could rise significantly during the 21st century.

Cold winds rush out from Greenland's interior, making the weather uncertain and foggy. A polar ocean current flows south along the entire east coast and around Cape Farewell, carrying immense ice floes that make the sea approach to E Greenland hazardous. The North Atlantic Drift gives the southwest coast of Greenland a warmer climate and heavy rainfall.

There are no forests in Greenland; dwarf trees are found in the southern coastal areas. Natural vegetation also includes mosses, lichens, grasses, and sedges. The polar bear, musk ox, polar wolf, lemming, Arctic hare, and reindeer are the chief land animals.

In addition to the capital, other important settlements are Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg), Aasiaat (Egedesminde), Qaqortoq (Julianehåb), Maniitsoq (Sukkertoppen), and Ilulissat (Jakobshavn). More than 90% of the island's population live along the west coast. About 85% of the people are Inuits or Greenland-born Caucasians; the balance are mainly Danish. The major religion is Evangelical Lutheran. Inuit dialects and Danish are spoken.

The range of goods available in Greenland differs greatly from town to town and in the case of North and East Greenland also depends on the time of year. Generally speaking, the range available in larger towns is much the same as that available in smaller towns of Scandinavia, though prices do vary. For example, fruit and vegetables are expensive while dairy produce is cheap. Prices are generally on a par with those in Scandinavia.

In most towns, there are opportunities to buy items of Greenlandic homecraft. The most common homecraft products are objects carved from bone and reindeer antler (jewelry and tupilaks, etc.) and soapstone, hidework, pearlwork, Greenlandic stones shaped into jewelry, models of Greenlandic hunting implements and so on.

Souvenirs can generally be bought in the local shops, at the tourist office, at the Seamen's Home, at hotels, privately and in some smaller towns at the post office. There is no haggling or bargaining over prices. When buying hides or hide products, always make sure the skins are tanned. Untreated Greenlandic hides will not keep in the European climate.