Upernavik, Greenland
Our LAST stop in Greenland today. I think we are all excited to head in the direction of Canada. This town was MUCH bigger with 3000 people. It seemed like New York City after where we have been. Roads and large commercial trucks passing us as we walked from the harbor to the museum and church. There was a flattened area on the top of a mountain that was an airstrip. You could fly in here for a weekend!
I do not believe this is a normal cruise line stop. Since we had to fill in so much time here I think this was the only option. Not as quaint and as enjoyable as the other stops but it did show us a totally different type of town. There appeared to be a large hospital with an ambulance outside, a very large grocery and general store. This store had limited produce, but lots of frozen and canned products. The residents were buying hot dogs, pizza and pastries!
It was quite a walk to the museum and the old church. Once there we realized the town dump was right there. The museum would seem better suited in the main part of town? Of course they probably have few tourists but we did meet one tourist.
A very friendly lady came out of a small house and asked us why were in this town. She said she was so surprised to see all these tourists! There were about six of us there and we explained the situation, that we waiting for the Northwest Passage to clear and having to stop in many Greenland towns to go ashore. She was Swiss and on her holiday and had rented the cabin and kayak. She had planned on going further North but the weather was not good so she decided to vacation in this town. She was here to kayak and said she does not need a guide she does her own thing. We asked where she goes in the winter and she said Whistler, Canada. Believe me the contrast between Whistler and Upernavik is pretty extreme.
So I am back on board and ready for the day at sea tomorrow on the way to Canada and a new ice report. Of course we have Marc with us and he downloads and interprets the ice maps for us so we have our own private expedition leader! A pretty good thing! After a few minutes with Marc I had far more understanding than on the reports from the expedition leader.
CONTINUATION – ON THE WAY TO CANADA
Not able to post the above message as we lost internet as we started to cross to Canada.
Got a bit rough last night but I enjoy that it was SO cozy in bed I am just worry about others who have issues with rough water. It calmed down a bit this morning so we are moving around but it is not that bad. We all feel like we are on a new adventure now and really ready to arrive in Canada for the next stage of this cruise.

We have a corner where we can add a whole bunch of chairs and also spend time together for tea, pre and post dinner drinks and of course playing games. So it has become OUR corner. Some played cards and Marc and I played scrabble this morning. It was a nice relaxing morning.
The ship is doing some good things today. Lectures, a cooking demonstration, and trivia today at teatime and then another lecture.
Ice Issues: Recap is at 5.00 pm and since we have no internet we have no ice report from our personal expedition leader Marc. Sure hope it is breaking up and is starting to show some movement. The expedition leader still insists we will make it to Nome on September 1st. The ice charts make that look a bit difficult. Many guests keep trying to pin him down on HOW we will make it to Nome he just keeps saying he is confident we will make it. Maybe an ice breaker comes into play I think that would be fun. I guess time will tell.
Update on Ice: Bad news the ice has not broken up more in fact it has regressed and looks more blocked than before!
We are not sure when we will get internet back but we can go into the library in Pond Inlet, put a flash drive in USB on the local computers send out some emails and post this write up so that is how we are managing to give you this information.