Top of the World

On a journey through a remote part of Greenland, Chloe Berge discovers a landscape at once fragile and awe-inspiring.

- Chloe Berge

My eyes played tricks on me in the dark. It was 2 a.m. on the edge of a bay in Greenland, and our tented camp appeared like a black-and-white photograph in the light of my headlamp. I watched as an iceberg glided by on the water. The mountains were wreathed in a spectral fog in the moonlight. Polar bears are a very real threat in this part of the world; I would jump every time I heard the sound of a humpback whale spouting in the bay or a tent flap snapping in the wind.

My six fellow campers and I took rotating solo shifts of bear-watching throughout the night, armed with flares and a whistle, should we need to alert our guides. I walked around the camp’s perimeter, weaving between our four fluorescent-orange tents, all my senses tuned in. The Inuit have a word for this feeling, ilira, which roughly translates to “awe accompanied by a creeping fear.”

I was on a new land-based expedition with Hinoki Travels, an ecotourism company. Our weeklong August journey had begun in Kulusuk, a Tunumiit (or East Greenlandic Inuit) village of about 225 people. Kulusuk is on an island of the same name, just below the Arctic Circle. Of the 140,000 travelers who go to Greenland annually, the majority explore only its western and southern reaches by cruise ship. Less than 5,000 visitors land in Kulusuk every year by plane. But with a new airport in Nuuk, the capital, and twice-weekly United flights from Newark Liberty International launching this summer comes serious concern about the impact of tourism on the environment.

FROM TOP A guest with Hinoki Travels painting a scene from the day's journey; kayaking on Tunu Sound; Jokum Heimer Mikaelsen, a Tunumiit guide, performing a traditional song; preparing dinner at camp.