Heather's travel stories 2022: August 14 Tasiilaq, Sermilik Fjord

Tasiilaq is marked with the red spot but scan right/east and you can see Iceland's Westfjords -it looks so tiny

Further south we anchored off the coast at Tasiilaq, east Greenland’s largest town with a population of approximately 2,000. Here icebergs often clog the waterways in the large Sermilik Fjord nearby which, incidentally, is the largest in southeast Greenland. The scenery was stunning – that will be a recurring comment I suspect, sorry. Greenland is truly breathtaking.

After breakfast, we loaded into zodiacs and headed for town where we just wandered as we pleased. The town boasted a wonderful museum manned by a delightful young man. He had recently finished tertiary studies in Denmark (all people wishing to continue their studies have to go to Denmark), but was home for a while before heading to New York. He has been selected as the Greenland representative at the UN. He was a wealth of knowledge so I have no doubt that he will be an excellent representative. What a future he has ahead of him.

This old church houses the museum

Kayaker wore 'garments' made from scaped seal skin; decorated 'thrust sticks'
for harpooning (much like our Aborigines' woomeras) ; the skulls of narwhal
and walrus; small bone carvings of strange imaginary creatures

We clambered down a cliff face to poke into a replica turf house which had been cut into the side of the cliff. It had been an interesting morning wandering among the brightly colour buildings. And also discovering bright wildflowers.

This replica house would have housed a few families. It was very cozy and would have been very warm.

This is an Umiaq under repair.

We came across a shed dug into the side of the cliff and of course peered inside. It housed an umiaq obviously in the process of being restored. This is a relatively large sea going vessel traditional made with a driftwood or whalebone frame pegged and lashed together over which walrus or seal skins were stretched. It is sometimes called a ‘woman's boat’ as they were used mainly as summer transport for women and children (it could carry an entire family), while men travelled by kayak. Without the history so much is beyond our grasp, fortunately we were travelling with an Inuit historian who knew of these vessels. Thank you Richard. All too soon is was time to get back to the mothership.

Local kids from the village were having a wonderful time leaping between our zodiacs

That afternoon we spent zodiac-cruising to explore iceberg fields and photograph the spectacular scenery. Icebergs surrounded us in all shapes and colours, large and small from mammoth tabular to brash ice – they were amazing. It was a day full of wonder so I will leave you with a collection of icebergs the shape, size and colours of which werequite phantasmagorical.