Greenland Ice Sheet Midnight Sun — Ilulissat
The Ilulissat Icefjord — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world's most productive glaciers — calves Greenland's fastest-moving and most prolific glacier, Sermeq Kujalleq, into a fjord that becomes so densely packed with icebergs that ships cannot pass. The icebergs range from 20-metre growlers to cathedral-scale seracs 100 metres high, grinding slowly through the 40-kilometre fjord toward Disko Bay under the midnight sun from May to July. At midnight in June, the low-angle orange light illuminates the ice from the side, creating shadows of extraordinary depth in the crevasses and caves of the berg faces, and the silence of the ice plain is broken only by the periodic thunder of calving events visible from the viewing platform above the fjord mouth. The sheer volume of ice moving through Ilulissat — one of the primary drivers of global sea level rise — gives the spectacle a gravity beyond its visual beauty.
About this spectacle
Standing on the viewing platform above Ilulissat Icefjord at midnight in June, visitors watch the low Arctic sun hang close to the horizon, casting deep orange light sideways across icebergs that range from small growlers to towering seracs over 100 metres high. The fjord is so densely packed with ice calved from Sermeq Kujalleq that the surface resembles a frozen city in slow motion. Shadows pool deep into blue-black crevasses and cave mouths on the berg faces, and the colours shift continuously as the sun traces its low arc. The overriding sensation is one of immense, geological scale held in near-silence — then broken without warning by the thunderclap of a new calving event, a distant crack and groan echoing off the ice. The icebergs grind slowly through the 40-kilometre fjord toward Disko Bay, and the whole scene carries a weight that combines visual spectacle with an unmistakable sense of witnessing a planet in change.
When to go
May — Sep, peak May — Jul
Getting there
Nearest airport: JAV. Nearest city: Ilulissat.
Booking options
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