Ilulissat, Greenland cruise port guide

About Ilulissat, Greenland

Ilulissat — also known as Jakobshavn — is Greenland's most popular tourist destination, situated on the eastern shore of Disko Bay approximately 350 km north of the Arctic Circle. The town borders the Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004, where colossal icebergs calved from Sermeq Kujalleq, the world's most active glacier, drift past the harbour. With a population of roughly 5,000, tourism is now the town's principal industry.

The Ilulissat Icefjord is the unmissable centrepiece: passengers can hike 1–2 km from town to view the first icebergs, or join a 3–4 hour boat excursion weaving among giants that stand 20–30 m above the waterline before they ground at the fjord mouth and slowly drift into Disko Bay. Cultural institutions include the Ilulissat Museum with its Knud Rasmussen exhibitions, the Inuit Art Museum showcasing Greenlandic and Nordic painting (notably works by Emanuel A. Peterson), and the Icefjord Centre with dedicated glacial science exhibits. Dog sled tours range from one hour to ten days — operators in town can arrange everything from short rides to multi-day expeditions — while helicopter tours provide dramatic aerial perspectives over the icefjord. In summer, Arctic midnight orienteering competitions and iceberg-viewing boat tours are popular; in March or April, the Arctic palerfik ceremonial last-sled procession of roughly a hundred sleds each pulled by ten dogs is a remarkable spectacle. Hiking trails also lead to the Sermermiut archaeological site where evidence of habitation dating back 4,500 years has been uncovered.