Ilulissat at Dawn

An early morning and late night

As expected, today started early. With the airport shuttle expected at 6AM, I awoke just before 5 to ready myself for the day to come. After packing my things and having a quick bite of the hotel’s breakfast, I went out into the dark and chilly morning to await the bus where it dropped us off the day before.

Given the other delays I’ve encountered, it was no suprise that the bus was a little late picking us up (15 minutes - but it felt much longer!). Thankfully, the rest of the morning went as planned and I boarded the flight for Ilulissat on-time.

Boarding the Dash-8 to Ilulissat

The safety manual includes cold-climate specific survival instructions

One silver lining of my flight being pushed back a day was that my rebooked flight was direct to Ilulissat. If things had gone accordding to plan yesterday, I would have had short stops in Maniitsoq and Sisimiut. This saved me about an hour on the plane!

Most of the flight was dark, but the sun came up in time to see Ilulissat from the plane.

The Ilulissat airport is rather small.

From the airport, I took a short taxi to the hotel where I checked in and found that my luck had improved to the point of getting a corner room with a spectacular view of the bay.

My hotel room has windows looking to the west and north.

After settling in, I set out on foot for an exploration of town. Everywhere I looked I was met with stunning views.

The view to the west from my hotel room

One of my favorite locations was the harbor. Coming from a land-locked state, I find looking at all of the various boats and coastal infrastructure to be immensely interesting.

A seabird framed by a whale jawbone at the entrace to the Ilulissat harbor

The harbor was filled with ice, but it seemed to be no problem for the boats here.

To cap off the day, I went on a guided excursion to view the aurora borealis (AKA northern lights) just outside of town. The moon was full and bright, so conditions were not ideal, but I did end up seeing them and a shooting star!

The orbs/aura of light at the center of this image was how the northern lights started. It was a ghostly apparition that drifted across the sky for a while before eventually transforming into the more traditional line of lights that are so common in photos. Our guide said he had never seen the lights appear quite this way. Unfortunately I don’t have any other pictures.

Now it’s a bit after 11PM and exhaustion is starting to set in. It has been a LONG day. I look forward to tomorrow, but I think I’ll sleep in a bit.