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Iceland and Greenland 2026

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2026-07-20

We had a tour of the town, including visit the supermarket. A lot of it was what you would see in any grocery store, except a lot of it. (I think, instead of getting frequent deliveries as happens in areas with lots of transportation access, they get bulk deliveries as ships arrive, and merchandise sits on the shelves as people buy it over time. And no ships arrive in winter, so they must stock up for that.) However, there were also spark plugs, motor oil, sled dog food, and so on.

The tour included the hospital, community apartments, town hall, a church, a replica historic winter house (one room for too many people, no heat, no running water), the town museum, and a gift/specialty shop (clothes, toys, party supplies, and more). They were also replacing pipes that had frozen last winter. There is no private property in Greenland; the state owns land, and individuals are granted rights to use plots. Besides the individual houses in Tasiilaq, there are community apartments. However, they have a housing shortage, resulting in people living with family or roommates longer than they would like.

Lunch was back at the hotel, after which we had free time. Then it was time to go back to Kulusuk. For this, they put us in the wide slow boat we had used for iceberg viewing instead of the fast narrow boats for the trip over. Once we left the fjord and entered the large waves of the open Atlantic Ocean, that boat rocked a lot. In multiple directions. It was unpleasant and somewhat frightening, but I was tolerating it. However, some of our group were getting seasick and panicking, so we turned around and went back to Tasiilaq.

This left us without plans for getting to Kulusuk, which was the way back to Iceland and the rest of the world. We went back to the hotel, checked in, and waited for the trip leader and the tour company to figure things out for the next day.