When you first see Ittoqqortoormiit, you won’t believe your eyes. No, not quite. It will seem like a mirage. Set on a sharp rise, backed by bald mountains, the bright, multicolored homes seem completely out of place, a storybook village set in one of the fiercest environments (and climates) on earth.
Getting here isn’t easy. Set at 70 degrees North—roughly four ticks of latitude above the Arctic Circle—winter is long and harsh. I arrived by icebreaker, and the “fast ice” still covered Scoresby Sound for miles in front of the town. By the calendar, it was almost summer. But despite a brilliant Far North sun, snow remained on the ground and the temperature hovered near freezing.
I had the privilege of spending two days in the Greenlandic town of Ittoqqortoormiit (or just “Itto” to visitors like me, who struggle with its multi-consonant pronunciation), walking the slanted streets and learning a little more about life in one of the remotest villages on earth. Cruise ships do call at this community of about 350 during the very brief weeks of summer, when the ice finally melts in July and August before re-forming in the fall.
But for most of the year, just getting in or out of town takes a heroic effort. Flights come arrive twice a week, from Iceland. But the airstrip isn’t close to town, due to the undulating terrain. When there’s water in the Sound, you can boat it over, and when there’s snow, you can take a skidoo. Any other time, you need a helicopter transfer to traverse the 24 miles, just to reach your plane and begin the journey. (If you can believe it, getting to the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, is even more complicated.)
It’s a valid question: How did people come to live in such a far-flung place—a long way north, yes, but also hundreds of miles from the next-closest community, Tasiilaq? (The latter, by comparison, is a bustling metropolis, with a big hospital and a couple three-star hotels.) While archaeological evidence shows Inuit ancient settlements here, the modern town wasn’t established until 1925.
Today, Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. But back in the 1920s, the Danes considered this vast island a colonial possession. Looking to affirm their power further up the northeastern coast, the polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen and about 80 Inuit settlers (mostly from Tasiilaq) sailed north and set up the town. Initially called Scorsebysund, they found rich natural resources that weren’t as available further south, including abundant animals to hunt. (It was later changed to its current, Greenlandic, name, which means “big house dwellers.”)
Living in Itto
In many ways, life in this part of the Arctic takes on traditional patterns. Ittoqqortoormiit is remote even by Greenlandic standards. Locals speak about Nuuk as if it were New York City. Even the language is different. East Greenlandic is a very distinct dialect, and used by just a relative handful, only a few thousand native speakers.Keeping true to tradition is especially strong when it comes to hunting and fishing. Food deliveries from the south can be few, and very far between—many months pass between the last cargo ship in autumn, and the next one in early summer. So people do what they’ve done for many generations, harvesting and eating “country food”—seals and birds and walruses and narwhals.
And, polar bears. It’s something I saw as I looped up from the main thoroughfare: skins hanging out beside and above homes. The hunt is carefully controlled, and Greenlandic people use every part of the animal, eating the meat and wearing the pelts.
As I walked in town, traffic buzzed by, mostly ATVs but also a few cars. (The furthest they can drive is less than two miles.) I popped into the bright supermarket and the little art shop and the tourist office. Up on a hill next to the town, I saw a weather station, one of the loneliest in the network, but key for reading conditions and relaying them on to the jets that pass over Greenland between North America and Europe.
Accompanied by a local tourism rep, Mette, we climbed up above the town core. She showed me the hospital, staffed by one doctor and two nurses. Any serious medical treatments are carried out in Nuuk, a two-to-three day journey away. The dentist only comes to town once a year. Walking into the garage of the small fire station, we had a look at their ATV fire truck.
There’s a gym, where kids mostly play indoor soccer and can borrow cross-country skis in the winter, and a swimming pool built from a basketball court, although it was blown apart in a fierce winter storm and will need to be reconstructed. Mette also pointed out the many storage sheds used by the supermarket. While things like canned tomatoes and dried pasta are no problem, fresh produce is a rare luxury. “Apples cost two or three dollars, each.”
My last stop was the local museum, where two local kids in traditional garb welcomed visitors. Displays included sealskin boots and old stoves and sewing machines. And a whole wall of black-and-white photos, showing a past life that perhaps wasn’t so different from the present. Kayaks and ice floes and big smiles, despite a day-to-day existence that must have been indisputably difficult. And, I thought, with some satisfaction, a life that will continue on, strong, long after I’ve boarded the ship and sailed off to my next destination, here in the remotest reaches of Greenland.
If You Go
Fly: Flights from Iceland arrive twice weekly at Nerlerit Inaat Airport (CNP), one from Reykjavik and the other from Akuryeri. From there, the 24 miles to town can be traversed by snowmobile, boat, or helicopter, depending on the season. (Arriving by cruise ship in the summer is a much easier way to visit.)
