The bulk of foreign visitors stay in or near the capital, Reykjavik.Credit: iStock
On the face of it, the fishing town of Isafjordur (population: 2600) in north-west Iceland shouldn’t be able to cope with hosting two cruise ships simultaneously. Yet early one August morning, it had to do just that.
The vessel I arrived in, Scenic Eclipse (200 passengers; 10 decks; 166 metres long and shaped like a space-age running shoe), was berthed on the outer harbour right next to the much larger Celebrity Eclipse (2850 passengers; 17 decks; 317 metres long, like a vast horizontal tower block).
Would this pair of eclipses put Isafjordur in the shade? Happily not. We’ve become so used to tales of “overtourism”, of passenger ships dwarfing the cities they visit, blocking views, clogging streets and annoying the locals, that it comes as a pleasant surprise when everything appears to work out pretty well.
In 2023, around 2.2 million tourists came to Iceland, but the vast majority stayed in or near the capital, Reykjavik, often as part of a stop-over between the United States and Europe. The coming year is predicted to be a record breaker for visitor numbers, yet here in the remote Westfjords region, tourism still seems to find a respectful equilibrium with its destination.
Throughout the morning, the titchy Kaffihus Bakarans offered reasonably priced (well, reasonable for Iceland) cake and coffee to all comers; the few souvenir shops along Hafnarstraeti did a brisk trade in puffin-based tat; the Dokkan brewery (cunningly located right next to the harbour) dispensed flights of beer to those in need. Most passengers were then spirited off on locally operated sightseeing tours, some to view the birdlife on nearby Vigur island, others to hike to the dramatic Valagil waterfall.
Credit: The Telegraph, London
This “busy” day in Isafjordur was an outlier on a nine-night Scenic Eclipse voyage along the remote north-west coast of Iceland and on to the even more sparsely populated eastern edge of Greenland, an Arctic journey that regularly highlights a sense of human irrelevance amid landscapes shaped by plate tectonics, ancient ice ages and brutally harsh temperatures.
The wildlife, I had been told, would be unreliable: the puffins had mostly fled south after the brief Icelandic summer; the Arctic terns had taken flight, too. And our on-board “discovery director”, Xavier Garcia, was keen to manage expectations when it came to seeing polar bears: the numbers in east Greenland are unknown, but they are certainly few and far between.
So it came as an unexpected bonus when our captain, Ned Tutton, kicked things off over the loudspeaker early on the first morning: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a school of humpback whales on the port side. Do join me on the bridge if you’d like to take a look.”
And there they were, dark shapes in the water, signalling with an arch of their backs that they were about to dive, their tail flukes flipping up as they disappeared below the waves.
Scenic describes the Eclipse, built in 2019, as “the world’s first discovery yacht”, a tag line which deploys its own peculiar sense of scale but is apt given the ship’s sleek profile and its (relatively) small size.
The on-board facilities – a small gym; a fitness space for yoga; a spa complete with treatment rooms, plunge pool, steam room and sauna; various speciality restaurants; and cabins that all come with balconies and your own butler on hand – conjure up a level of comfort that’s in marked contrast to the bleak Arctic scenery.
The Chef’s Table on board the Scenic Eclipse.
The huge main lounge is all muted fabrics, slate-grey floor tiles and chrome detailing, with a backlit bar that serves pretty much any drink you like, whenever you like, as part of your all-inclusive trip. A pianist plinks in the corner at opportune moments, while a large theatre in the bow hosts lectures during the day and gentle entertainment in the evening.
There is a pair of helicopters, too, in case you were wondering, hidden away in hangars on deck eight. Local regulations meant that they couldn’t be operated in Greenland, but back in Iceland they ran 30-minute flights over the Snæfellsnes peninsula.
We weren’t entirely insulated from our environment. The 320-kilometre overnight crossing north from Iceland across the Denmark Strait was distinctly choppy, with 96km/h winds and 13-foot waves. (The next morning, there were rather fewer of us than usual tucking into the buffet offered by the gleaming Yacht Club restaurant.)
The observation lounge on board the Scenic Eclipse.
And for weather-based reasons, Captain Ned announced that we were to confine our exploration to Scoresby Sund rather than continuing up the coast on later days as had been planned.
No matter: Scoresby Sund, named after the English explorer William Scoresby, who mapped the area in 1822, is the largest fjord system in the world, covering around 23,500 square kilometres and extending 386 kilometres inland.
The mouth of the sound is guarded on its northern side by the hard-to-pronounce settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit (population: around 500), a chaotic mess of brightly coloured houses at the bottom of a hill.
Donald Trump may be keen on doing the ultimate real-estate deal for Greenland, but there’s a marked lack of Mar-a-Lago bling about Ittoqqortoormiit.
The settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit sits on the northern side of Scoresby Sund.
It feels staggeringly bleak (temperatures range from 3 degrees in summer to –20 degrees in winter), but that makes it oddly exciting as well: a true frontier. This is east Greenland’s northernmost town, with nothing but the high Arctic beyond; the nearest settlement to the south is Tasiilaq, 800 kilometres away.
The houses are made of corrugated iron. Splurges of rough concrete form a couple of looping roads patrolled by weathered-looking Inuit men, who roar about urgently on quad bikes while studiously ignoring interlopers. There’s a weather station, a small artificial grass football pitch and a tiny school. The solitary guesthouse apparently gained brief notoriety as one of the most remote hotels on earth.
We shuttled across from the ship in rigid inflatable boats (RIBs), having been briefed to avoid buying anything made out of bits of whale or polar bear. But no one was treating this as a shopping expedition. Instead we admired the working dogs, shook hands with locals in national dress at the tiny church, and toiled up the helipad to admire the view, which in this case was rather obscured by heavy rain.
And that was the last we saw of “civilisation” for the next five days.
The brooding, wild landscapes of Scoresby Sund.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Scoresby Sund is an extraordinary place, making even Iceland’s epic Westfjords region seem almost tame. Channels of seawater spread like the branches of a tree as they probe inland, the Ofjord forking into the Rype Fjord and Hare Fjord, which bifurcate in turn; the Fonfjord splitting into the Rode Fjord and Vestfjorden.
Vast red sandstone walls rise in horizontal stripes that eventually support the Greenland ice sheet, its corners tucking over the mountain tops like icing down the sides of a cake. Cliffs of basalt brood above waters a mile deep in places. There are glaciers everywhere: some frozen in valleys, others pouring into clefts in folds of grey and white.
Narwhals lurk in these parts, although, again, you are unlikely to see them. Visiting ships are barred from visiting certain zones and a strict five-knot speed limit is in place throughout Scoresby Sund to avoid disturbing the “unicorns of the sea”.
Icebergs float past, some shaped like half-melted cathedrals, others smaller, smooth as glass, or covered in stones ripped from glacial moraine, or ice-blue.
On a kayaking excursion in front of the Eielson Glacier – a staggering wall of ice gradually carving into Rype Fjord – we could hear ominous creaks and groans as the vast mass inched along its thousand-year journey, and watched as icebergs flipped over on themselves and then settled once more, teetering dangerously.
Everything on the Eclipse is carefully managed to minimise risk: briefings cover RIB excursions, kayaking and staying warm in polar temperatures. Weather permitting, we made two excursions per day, led by a multitude of knowledgeable guides.
A strict five-knot speed limit is in place throughout Scoresby Sund to avoid disturbing narwhals.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
On our relatively brief visits to the shore, armed guards scanned the horizon for polar bears, ready to usher us back to the boats at the first hint of danger.
However, the most impressive animals I saw while on land were musk oxen – genuinely alien-looking beasts, all shaggy brown hair and boomerang horns – and even then at a distance.
But good things come to those who wait, particularly to those who wait while stuffing themselves with fine wine and grilled lobster.
On our last day in Scoresby Sund, there was another call from the bridge. A polar bear was making its hurried way down the barren slopes of the Volquart Boons Coast, the speed with which it was navigating the terrain making me suddenly appreciative of those guards during our earlier landings.
And half an hour later, two more were spotted: a mother and her cub, moving more slowly, close to a riverbank.
Without binoculars they were tiny white specks on a vast grey expanse of broken boulders and scree as they foraged along the slopes, biding their time before the pack ice returned and they could begin to hunt once more. (That’s as close as polar bear encounters are ever realistically likely to be. From January 1 this year, new regulations mean that even in Svalbard, the Norwegian region best known for its ursine population, ships and Zodiacs must remain a minimum of 300m/984ft away.)
The exact population of polar bears in east Greenland is unknown.Credit: Getty Images
More visitors will come here, of course. The authorities in Greenland are encouraging visits to the world’s largest island, aware that tourism delivers a valuable source of income, albeit with an environmental cost.
There were 183 cruises to Greenland in 2023, the majority to the south and west of the country; even isolated Ittoqqortoormiit was visited 49 times.
An expanded airport with a new terminal and longer runway opened last November at Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, to cope with a predicted influx, and two more airports are due in south Greenland by the end of 2026. Devotees of the Northern Lights and husky sledding, take note.
But despite all this, east Greenland remains an extraordinary wilderness, much of it apparently untouched by humankind. And just as the polar bears are dwarfed by all this epic scale, our presence – for now – appears almost insignificant in this vast empire of glaciers and mountains, fjords and ice.
The details
Cruise
Scenic offers a 14-day Iceland to Greenland & the Glaciers of Disko Bay voyage from August 18, 2026 from $25,351pp, including flights, transfers, food, beverages and excursions. See scenic.com.au
Fly
Finnair flies from multiple Australian capital cities to Reykjavik via Asian cities such as Singapore and Tokyo, and Helsinki. Go to finnair.com/au-en
The Telegraph, London