Disko Island and Qeqertarsuaq: August 14, 2025

Columnar Basalt at Disko Island

Disko Island is the youngest area in Greenland. The rest of Greenland is billions of years old. Basalt lava flowed here only about 60 million years ago when North America and Europe separated. Columnar structures occur when the lava rapidly cools and contracts to create polygonal basalt columns.

Despite the roughness of the sea, we cruised around in zodiacs to get a closer look at the basalt structures. In the afternoon we visited the small city of Qeqertarsuaq on a Disko Island. When we arrived, the city had a huge iceberg on the otherside of the peninsula. The icebergs hang out there until the wind changes and blows them on their way.

We docked at the jetty and walked up the King's Bridge with crossed whale bones and through the Bowhead arch. Last year in June, King Frederik X and Queen Mary of Denmark toured Greenland and stopped in at Qeqertarsuaq to inaugarate a new whale microphone. Qeqertarsuaq is home to the Arctic Station run by the University of Copenhagen for the purpose of promoting scientific Arctic research. The new audio station gives insight into the presence of marine mammals in Disko Bay.

The arch at the top of the King's Bridge is made from the jaw bones of a bowhead whale. The Bowhead whale is so named because its jaw is the largest of any animal comprising about 1/3 the length of its body. The length of the jaw bone is about 4 meters/13 ft. It uses it massive skull to break through arctic ice for a breath of air. Commercial whaling in the 17th - 20th centuries severely decimated the population of Bowhead Whales. They were hunted for blubber, meat, oil, bones, and baleen. Their oil lit the lamps of Europe. With the ban on commercial whaling, the population, although listed as endangered, has begun to recover. Greenlandic Inuit are allowed subsistence hunting of 1 to 2 Bowhead per year.

The population of Qeqertarsuaq is about 800 people and 400 Greenlandic sled dogs. They have a hospital and a dentist but do not have a midwife which means women must fly to a larger city to give birth.

They get fresh vegetables and fruits every Thursday in the summer. At times during the winter they may not see a container ship delivery of food for two months. Their freezers are well stocked with meat from the hunting season. Many people are licensed as hunters by profession.

A different iceberg was visible behind Qeqertarsuaq as we departed.

Tomorrow Sisimuit