On a journey through a remote part of Greenland, travel journalist Chloe Berge discovers a landscape at once fragile and awe-inspiring.
My eyes deceived me in the darkness. It was 2 a.m. by a bay in Greenland, and under the beam of my headlamp, our camp looked like an old black-and-white photo. An iceberg drifted past on the water, while the mountains were wrapped in an eerie, moonlit fog. Polar bears are a genuine danger here—every time I heard a humpback whale exhaling in the bay or a tent flap rattling in the wind, I’d startle.
Along with six other campers, I took turns keeping watch for bears through the night, flares and a whistle at the ready in case we needed to call our guides. Pacing the camp’s edge, I moved between our four neon-orange tents, every sense on high alert. The Inuit have a word for this mix of awe and creeping fear: ilira.
I was on a land-based expedition with Hinoki Travels, an ecotourism company. Our weeklong August trip started in Kulusuk, a Tunumiit (East Greenlandic Inuit) village of around 225 people. Kulusuk sits on an island of the same name, just south of the Arctic Circle. Of the 140,000 visitors Greenland gets each year, most stick to the west and south by cruise ship. Fewer than 5,000 make it to Kulusuk by plane. But with a new airport in Nuuk (Greenland’s capital) and United launching twice-weekly flights from Newark this summer, there’s growing concern about tourism’s environmental impact.
Greenland is ground zero for climate change—the Arctic is heating up nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet, and melting ice sheets are the biggest driver of global sea-level rise. To explore this fragile ecosystem responsibly, Hinoki had us travel by kayak and on foot, with only a small motorboat meeting us at remote campsites to drop off heavy gear and freeze-dried meals. Founder Bethany Betzler works with conservation biologist Jesse Lewis to create sustainability plans for each destination. For our trip, she teamed up with Pirhuk, a local mountaineering company run by Matt Spenceley, a Brit who came to Kulusuk 24 years ago to climb and ski the backcountry—and never left.
His bright blue house, shared with his wife Helen, doubles as a lodge. Our group stayed there two nights before heading into the wilderness. I woke to the sound of sled dogs howling at dawn. Outside, the houses seemed to glow in the violet light. Aside from a tiny airport, a general store, and a school, Kulusuk is pure wilderness in every direction. Pack ice drifting from the Arctic Ocean makes it hard for ships to reach the island, keeping it isolated. The community survives on fishing, foraging, and hunting seals and whales, with a few supply boats arriving in summer. “The ice, animals, and water are always shifting,” Spenceley told me when I arrived. Life here is tough, especially in winter, when snow buries the land and daylight lasts only a few hours.
As the morning sun warmed the village’s rocky slopes, we suited up in dry gear. Spenceley and a Tunumiit hunter, Jokum Heimer Mikaelsen (or Jukku), led us out in kayaks toward Apusiaajik Glacier, six miles across Tunu Sound. We paddled past an iceberg’s aquamarine glow. “Kayaks were invented here!” Spenceley called out. For millennia, Arctic peoples have used qajaq—hunting boats made of sealskin stretched over whalebone or driftwood, built for speed and stealth.
Spenceley gestured ahead. “Let’s head over there—maybe we’ll see some big whale action.” Our kayaks wobbled. “I’d settle for medium whale action,” joked fellow traveler Jonathan Baude. Nearby, a humpback’s sleek back arched above the water. We “rafted up,” gripping each other’s kayaks for balance. Another whale surfaced, misting the air with its breath.
That night, we camped by the water with Apusiaajik Glacier in view, its blue-and-white marbled surface gleaming. Guest Paul Piong stayed out in the cold, painting the scene in watercolors. I retreated to my tent, knowing I’d be up at 5 a.m. for bear watch. At dawn, the world slowly emerged from darkness. White boulders seemed to shift in the half-light, and the crack of a calving glacier echoed like a gunshot. I fumbled for the whistle under my down jacket (even in summer, temperatures dip below freezing). The sunrise cast a silver glow over the land, reminding me of paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and William Blake. For 19th-century Romantics, the sublime wasn’t just beauty—it was awe mixed with terror. Ilira.
The next day, we hiked up the glacier along an ancient Thule dogsled route. Walking single file, we listened to the crunch of ice underfoot until we reached a moulin—a glacial hole channeling meltwater downward.
Spenceley looked uneasy. “This is unsettling,” he admitted. The glacier had lost over six feet of ice since last summer. Warming temps mean more moulins, speeding up ice flow toward the ocean.
This moulin led to an ice cave. “A cave just collapsed on tourists in Iceland,” Spenceley warned. He stressed the need for a guide who could read the ice and weather—we’d move fast through the narrow entrance. Claustrophobic, I crawled under the low ceiling, running my bare hands over the slick walls. Inside, it felt like standing inside a glittering gem.
Later, we strapped on crampons to climb a slick slope, then picked our way down through the moraine. No trails, no trees—just a lone bullet casing on the ground. Pink niviarsiaq flowers (Greenland’s national bloom) dotted the rocks as we hopped across streams. We crossed spongy tundra, skirting a lake where red-breasted mergansers flew in perfect formation.
One evening, we feasted on fresh-caught cod. “Got a surprise,” said Jukku, who’d been quietly supportive all trip. He ducked behind a boulder and reappeared in polar-bear-fur pants, sealskin boots, and an Inuit drum made from a bear’s stomach stretched over wood. To its deep rhythm, he sang a mournful Tunumiit tale of a raven and goose fated to part. That night, the northern lights danced overhead like green flames.
We’d been lucky with clear skies, but Greenland’s notorious weather finally hit on our last hike. We took refuge in a mountain hut Spenceley built with friends, toasting the trip with tiny whiskey sips. Inside, it was cozy—but the Arctic’s icy grip stayed with me long after.