While its departures board is now busy with domestic flights, there are also arrivals from Copenhagen and Keflavik in Iceland. Next June, United Airlines will launch flights from Newark, New York and SAS a direct route from Copenhagen. Summer 2025 is projected to see 39 per cent more flights than this summer.
Previously, European travellers had to get to Copenhagen, changing planes in the small town of Kangerlussuaq, north of Nuuk, where a US Second World War air base served as Greenland’s gateway to the outside world.
I was on the first direct flight from Copenhagen, operated by Air Greenland. When the plane landed, Greenland’s prime minister, Múte B Egede, was waiting with a class of primary school pupils. On board the Airbus A330neo was the Danish minister of foreign affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen, a gaggle of aviation geeks, influencers and media, along with a mix of Danes, locals and tourists who just happened to book this historic flight.
The Air Greenland flight touches down at Nuuk Airport (Photo: Oscar Scott Carl)
Though Greenland has been somewhat of a secret playground, visitor numbers have been suppressed by the logistics, long journey and high prices involved in getting here. But, say local insiders, more direct flight routes are on the way.
In 2023, more than 76,000 cruise ship passengers arrived in Greenland, the highest number ever recorded and a 64 per cent increase on pre-pandemic levels. The majority come from the US, followed by Germany and the UK.
Cruises offer the chance to reach some of the most difficult-to-access corners of the country, traversing fjords hundreds of miles long and calling at villages with just a few dozen residents. Some of these even close the local shop when ships arrive, to avoid passengers buying up supplies.
Nuuk itself sits at the head of an enormous fjord system, and a 10-minute sail takes you into a majestic world of water and rock that quickly defies all sense of scale.
I’ve been based part-time in Nuuk for several years, and have been privileged to witness the last days of the city’s relative isolation. Unsurprisingly, the change comes with both optimism and apprehension – residents see the city’s newfound connectivity as long overdue but with an undercurrent of uncertainty over what the anticipated tourist influx will mean. Nonetheless, hundreds lined the streets to witness the first flight’s arrival and the crowds came out again for a celebratory fireworks display.
Nuuk’s colourful houses in winter (Photo: Vadim Nefedov/Getty Images)
Though comparatively tiny, with a population of barely 20,000, the quirks of Greenlandic geography and infrastructure mean that Nuuk has the cultural life of a city many times its size.
It is an unlikely patchwork of colourful weatherboarded cottages, grey glass-and-steel apartment towers and long brutalist blocks, all splayed across the waterfront. Nuuk has a university campus, three museums, a theatre, cinema, ski lift, sporting complex, golf course, shooting range and a selection of restaurants, cafés, and supermarkets that would outshine any similarly sized town in Europe, including the delicious Sarfalik Restaurant, serving a menu ranging from whale with chimichurri to crepes suzette.
Nuuk’s diverse identities also belie its tiny size. It’s a city where seal-hunting competitions and fine art exhibitions exist side by side, and where on a Friday night you can choose between the pool hall or the polka band (a tradition left by 19th-century whalers). Or if the weather’s good, you can hike in the mountains or sail up the fjord to camp, or eat at the popular Qooqqut Nuan restaurant, where you bring the fish, and they prepare it for you in an unexpected Greenlandic-Thai fusion.
Come winter, many locals pull their boats out of the water, but fjord tours still operate. Orange paper stars warm the city from nearly every window, saunas are fired up and the Northern Lights dance during the long Arctic nights; check in to one of Inuk Hostels’ glass-roofed cottages for an unforgettable experience.
It’s often blowing a gale in Nuuk, but this time it’s the winds of change whipping in from over the horizon. I can only recommend you catch the breeze before everyone else does.
Getting there
Air Greenland flies from Copenhagen daily. SAS will launch a route next June.
Staying there
Inuk Hostels has double rooms from £90. The comfortable cabins here are a touch out of the way, but more than make up for it with the commanding views over Sermitsiaq Mountain and the fjord beyond.
More information
visitgreenland.com
visitnuuk.com
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Publish date : 2024-12-03 17:01:00
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