Scan Magazine – August 2018

62 | Issue 115 | August 2018

Scan Magazine | Special Theme | A Spotlight on Greenland

The town of Ilulissat, numbering 5,000 inhabitants and almost 2,000 sled dogs, is
Greenland’s third-largest city and most popular tourist destination. Situated at
the entrance to the festively-named Disko Bay in the Ilulissat Fjord on Greenland’s
western shore, the town is known for its vivid marine life and spectacular icebergs

• ‘Ilulissat’ means iceberg in the Kalaallisut language of West Greenland. The area’s
  almost otherworldly surroundings have made the town home to crucial climate
  change research – and to the world’s most northerly high-end hotel and conference
  centre, Hotel Arctic.

By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: Hotel Arctic

“The view here changes every sin-
gle day,” says Erik Bjerregaard. “And
every day, the surroundings take my
breath away.” Bjerregaard moved from
Denmark to Greenland more than four
decades ago and has been the manag-
er of Hotel Arctic for 27 years. Logistics
can be tough 250 kilometres north of the
Arctic Circle and yet the hotel has acquired
four stars, the conference centre five, and
the hotel’s gourmet restaurant has been
included in the White Guide, the Nordic

countries’ guide to the best restaurants.

Guests have included Ban Ki-moon, Sepp

Blatter, Angela Merkel, all Danish Prime

Ministers over the past 20 years and the

Danish royal family, as well as countless

high-ranking government officials from

across the globe, who come to see the

effects of climate change for themselves.

Nature

Ilulissat Icefjord became a UNESCO

World Heritage Site in 2004 and is the

A world beyond imagination

site of the 2008 Ilulissat Declaration by

the five Arctic Ocean coastal states of

Denmark, Norway, Russia, Canada and

the US, which pledged to consider the

environment and climate change amidst

territorial disputes and the planning of

new shipping routes. “The first helped

to put Ilulissat on the map,” says Bjerre-

gaard, “but it was actually the 2008 Arctic

Ocean Conference which really brought

awareness of Ilulissat and how special

it is up here.” Bjerregaard himself has

witnessed the retraction of the ice sheet

over the years – although a recent visiting

researcher told him that it has grown a

little this year.

The cracks and groans of the moving ice

make it a constant, pervasive presence

in the town. Whether you look out to the

icy sea or to the jagged mountains left

behind by the ice, you are reminded of

the awesome power of nature. Despite