Once again, I was up at 6, well before Steven, as I wanted to witness our arrival in Maniitsoq, described on the Visit Greenland site as "a whale watching paradise and home to rich bird life, pristine rivers, and the Eternity Fjord." Maniitsoq means “uneven place” in the Greenlandic language.
I was ready to walk off the ferry as soon as it docked because I didn't want to miss another opportunity to walk around the community, even though there was just a 30-minute stop.
Lest you think I've become a marine biologist in my spare time, Google Lens identified the skeleton on the walk into town as one that had belonged to a Minke whale! I didn't stop long enough to check whether they were both the same.
I darted past the local cafe as it was too early for it to be open.
With such a brief stop, I sure didn't climb to the top of any of the staircases in Maniitsoq for a bird's-eye view over the town! Interestingly, all staircases in Greenland are open to the public even though they lead to private homes.
In what appeared to be the former colonial area, there was an old church. When I peered through the windows, however, it looked as if it had been converted into a meeting house, as the pews and altar were missing.
Yes, it's the same building, but from different angles.
I took a last shot of what was likely the new church before rushing back to the ferry.
The next stop was Kangaamiut in another four hours.
Sarah: Knowing of your fondness for photographing rusted items, I thought of you when I spotted this discarded vessel on the shore as we left Maniitsoq.
As Maniitsoq is the gateway to the tallest and most impressive mountains on the west coast of Greenland, it is world-renowned amongst heli-skiers.
I oohed and aahed at the magnificent scenery and the glimpses of snowy peaks as we headed further north, about 9 a.m.
Nearing Kangaamiut and what constituted civilization, close to 11 a.m.:
As Steven said, so many of Greenland's settlements looked much alike from the ferry, with predominantly bright-colored houses clinging to the hillsides and close to shore.
That fog bank looked threatening.
There was no shore excursion for us this time, as the ferry had to transport the two departing passengers and four arriving passengers by motorboat, because the harbor was too small to accommodate our ferry.
The ferry's crew had the passenger transfer and the loading of the boat back on board down to an art, with no wasted moments.
The next stop was Sisimiut, located just north of the Arctic Circle, where we were due to arrive at 6:30 p.m. for a 2.5-hour stopover.
I don't know if this was a summer camp near Kangaamiut or just a lot of trash littering the shore. How sad, if the latter.
It was unusual seeing so many bids all of a sudden - I wonder if there was some marine life underwater?
What a shame that Steven missed out on so much of the gloriously sunny weather earlier. Shortly after he came up on top, there were periods of intense fog with little to see.
That afternoon, we whiled away hours reading in the ferry's lounge
When the weather was poor, a good time-waster on board was to eat in the ferry's café! Dinner was once again not a fine dining experience, but the meat and potatoes were warm and filling, as I recall. At $10 a pop, the meal was inexpensive. However, how is it that carrot growers have yet to perfect making edible frozen carrots instead of rubbery ones?!
After so much downtime, the day's big excitement was arriving at Sisimiut at 6:30 p.m.! I'd read that the second-largest city in Greenland was a contrast of modern culture and ancient traditions, with people encouraged to take advantage of its hiking opportunities by day, and attend a modern artistic performance at the Taseralik Culture Centre at night.
Oh - the things we take for granted. This was the only bridge that I believe we saw anywhere in Greenland!
Sisimiut means “the people living in a place where there are fox dens” in the Greenlandic language.
No whale skeletons this time on the rock walls as we walked into town, but rather depictions of marine life!
Why can't small towns in the US and Canada also think of doing something similarly artistic that might represent their communities?
Close to the harbor, the Sisimiut Museum, encompassing several buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, occupied most of the town’s historic center.
A whalebone arch welcomed people to Sisimiut's historic area.
I loved learning the story behind Sisimiut's first dedicated church building, the Bethel Church, also known as the Blue Church. It was the first church in Greenland that was paid for by its Greenlandic congregation on its own. 1771 was a lucky year for the hunters in Sisimiut, as they caught four large whales. That was enough to fill 60 barrels with blubber, which was sufficient to order and pay for the church they dreamed of. Blubber was in demand in European cities, where whale oil was used as fuel in their street lights.
In the letter written by the congregation in Sisimiut to the trading company in Denmark, it said that if there was not enough blubber to pay for the church, they only had to ask for more. The church was first erected in Copenhagen, where all parts of the building were numbered, before it was disassembled and shipped to Greenland. The planned year for consecration was 1773. However, due to bad weather, the ship had to overwinter in Norway. When the church finally reached the Holsteinsborg colony, later renamed Sisimiut, as an assembly kit with a Danish carpenter, an epidemic broke out, further delaying the church's construction. The weathervane still bore witness to the delay, as its inscription was 1773. As the building was finally consecrated in 1775, it is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year.
It no longer functions as a church; instead, it is part of the Sisimiut Museum, which is working on restoring the church so that it can serve as a museum exhibition of 1700s religion and the history of the church's construction. It was a shame that the church building's hours didn't coincide with the ferry's evening arrival in Sisimiut. I can't be the only one who would have been interested in its interactive exhibition, where people could meet an 18th-century Danish missionary and a traditional Greenlandic shaman.
With no signage out front, I had to guess that this was likely Sisimiut’s oldest building, the Old House, which housed the museum’s permanent collection from 1756.
If, like me, you might have thought that all snow was generally the same and that dog sleds were likewise almost identical, you would have been in for a surprise. These sleds on the far side of the Old House were all built during an event organized by Arctic Nomads in Sisimiut in 2016. Eighteen sled builders from different regions took part in the event. Some of the sleds were small, and others were large. The differences in the sleds reflected the specific conditions of nature and hunting that have shaped sleds' construction through the centuries. The dog sledding culture is currently under pressure from new technologies, such as the snowmobile. As a result, old knowledge and know-how are in danger of being lost for future generations.
The dog sleds came from different areas of Greenland, Russia, and Alaska.
What was probably the Colonial Manager’s House, dated to 1846.
The turf house, used until 1993, was a reconstruction of a typical early-20th-century Greenlandic house.
The roof of the adjacent tent house was sewn with sealskins.
We crawled into the tent house, where I took these pictures.
An innusssuk or cairn on the museum property:
We also noticed a taloq or shooting hide.
Atop a hill was Sisimiut's 'new' church, built in 1926.
Views from the church over the Sisimiut Museum and the harbor:
When we popped into one of the local grocery stores to get pop for Steven, a couple of teenage boys standing outside asked us if we had been taught anything about Greenland. I had to tell them that we had known barely anything about their country, and certainly nothing from our school-age years.
We then wandered along the main street toward the newer part of Sisimiut.
An impressive sculpture near the Knud Rasmussen High School, above, depicted two figures, one of whom might be a fisherman.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time to explore any of contemporary Sisimiut, as we'd have liked.
As we made our way back through Sisimiut to the harbor, I was amazed at what great shape the cars were in, compared to the very dented cars that were typical in Qaqortoq. I was similarly surprised not only by the number of vehicles, considering they could only be used within the town's boundaries, but also by their generally small size. I would have thought residents would have chosen larger and more powerful cars, given the harsh winter climate.
Days ago, we'd noticed the Bergen-based Silver Mary berthed in another Greenland port.
Shortly after leaving Sisimiut, we noticed our first and only example of strip mining taking place in Greenland. One reason the country has been in the international news so much lately is its abundance of some of the world's most sought-after minerals, which are the envy of superpowers. It will be fascinating to see how Greenland, a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, navigates its potentially unimaginable wealth without relinquishing control of its resources.
Not quite a Caribbean sunset, but still a beautiful one by any standards in my book, on our last night on the Sarfak Ittuk ferry!
Next post: Arriving in Aasiaat for three nights, more or less!
Posted on October 12th, 2025, from another spectacular Indian Summer day in Denver on what is also Thanksgiving weekend in my native Canada. Wishing my Canadian family and friends an extra special day, counting your blessings as you spend it with loved ones.
Beautiful pics! Pat McGinley
ReplyDeleteAhh, thanks, Pat! I was proud of them.
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