Ilulissat and the Disko bay in Greenland. A trip to the borders of the Pole

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Greenland is still a distant goal, to be understood not as a distance, but in a different and strange ... away from our society and landscapes we are familiar. The Great North begins at 66 ° 33 'latitude (Arctic Circle) and ends at 90 ° of the North Pole, so at least it's marked on maps, but in reality is a place without boundaries which recalls the mythical realm of the imagination to shipments and today offers the traveler exciting adventures, in areas frequented by few tourists.

Greenland. ILULISSAT. Winter. Early March. Spent four days at 69 ° 23'40''N, 280 kilometers far beyond the "Arctic Circle" in a remote place on the planet.
On board a Dash-7, the aero double helix that connects Kangerlussuaq to ILULISSAT, his eyes glued to the windows for all 45 minutes of flight, indifferent dell'assordante sound of two engines, Greenland appears for what it is: "an icy world." On the right, the direction of travel, the ice cap, white expanse that is lost in the distance, just below the ice floe, still covering the sea closer to the shore, broken here and there, signs of the arrival of summer, left the open sea, free from the pack, where huge floating islands of ice, icebergs. The fascination that the army is here confined Greenland: ice, landscapes and extreme weather conditions.
In this urban shred the ends of the universe, in winter, it came only with the plane, ... and not always. ILULISSAT, even before being a well-defined physical place (69 ° N and 51 ° longitude) is a place, according to the point of view, sublime and ruthless, immoderate and limited, auspicious and apocalyptic. A small village lost in the ice of Greenland with where people live their drab lives with dignity and strong sense of community. The winter darkness, cold and grim reaper annually its victims. The scourge of alcoholism at first and then, suicides, which are becoming more common to become the leading cause of death among young people suffering from forms of depression over the lack of light entertainment, oppressed by the narrow confines within which play their existence, frustrated the impossible reality environment. That's why January 13, every year, the small community seems to awaken to new life when the sun peeps back on after the long arctic night (2 months of total darkness). He rejoices and is celebrated on the hill of Sermermiut. What for us was a freakish oddity especially for young people is a sad state of life. If no one gives alcohol is' love. ILULISSAT is teeming with children and nursery schools. ILULISSAT, "the city of the iceberg", (in Inuktitut) is living in addition to the ice with a community of nearly 6,000 dogs, so large that they exceed the 4,700 inhabitants of the city. They are the parkas, purebred, since you can not take any dog in Greenland, just to preserve this species, strong enough to withstand the weather and climate to endure long fasts. Of vital importance in the city, serve to pull the sleds in winter, especially for hunting. The sled dogs are part of the landscape. Feel barking and howling all the time. They live attached to ropes about six meters and their living space is a poor piece of land. Only the puppies and females, waiting, is allowed to turn freely about the city. Dogs older, now useless, lie deliberately, without collar, to make them easy prey for local dogcatcher them to knock down shots. The houses are all bright colors: blue, blue, red, orange, yellow, green, and this to alleviate the long nights and dark days of bad weather. The roads are a continual up and finish the edge of town. The only paved outside the city limits, is what leads to the airport. The icy road surface throughout the day makes them dangerous not only for pedestrians (careful to walk), but for the cars themselves, many have the means to disband because of bruised slipperiness. There is only one industry and is on the port. This is the Royal Greenland, which works shrimp and other fish, employing the majority of the population. The port is semi frozen and there are boats still blocked by ice. Be considered among the most isolated city on the planet, visit ILULISSAT is not just for the art form of its lofty icebergs, which led nell'antistante bay, but for the unusual lifestyle, or simply because it think
Here then is the point: idyllic place or harmful? ILULISSAT What place in the global village? Is about to open to the world or is just the opposite? Each will have its own answer. That of Silver, whose real name is Silver Slides, former Ravens, "mythical" group of the sixties, the owner of the agency Tourist Nature, with her son Crhistian, charismatic, his answer gave it long ago ', he'll ... now lives thirty long years.

The bay in front of the city is famous disk, the pack that melts is the sign of the awakening of nature and the imminent arrival of spring, but above the sea is no longer trapped by ice and that means that you can make the boat trip to Iluminaq. To get there, one can not but pass on that stretch of sea that hundreds and hundreds of icebergs broke away from the icecap, reaching down after about 30 km, Kanga Icefjord, the ILULISSAT fjord. When the front of the glacier Sermeq Kujalleq, which has the highest production of icebergs of the northern hemisphere, is in contact with the seawater, the temperature warmer than the sea causing the detachment of ice blocks, creating a monolithic iceberg . Paradox of nature, water is a substance that weighs less than solid in liquid, which is why icebergs float. Once in open water currents drive them south ... right here departed the iceberg south of Newfoundland on the night between 14 and 15 April 1912, sank the Titanic.
These icebergs the size and extravagant forms, together, form the most weird and wonderful open-air museum, consisting of thousands of monuments of ice obelisks, rocks, pillars, peaks, pinnacles. Each iceberg is in itself a unique work. Here, for a moment, the ice age still seems true. One can imagine the greatness that joining; hundred meters high and over one kilometer long, and more. The waves of the sea will sweep down like breakers against the rocks. We spend close almost touching, I wonder if it is dangerous because it hides underneath the emerging mass seven times that visible. Claims thoughts come to me when we see in the distance a block of ice fall into the water, breaking what had hitherto been the only noise: the muskets of our boat. I understand, finally, because the Inuit have almost a hundred different words to define the ice, composed as a myriad of streaks and endless colors: white, gray, blue, indigo, blue, light blue, turquoise, light green, plum, lilac pink.
The ice pack (the pack) is still very united and often near the coast so that the boat can not move forward so we are forced to move further offshore.