Y

If Greenland is the most sparsely populated country in the world -- and it officially is -- its eastern shore is the most remote and least populated of its livable area.
No two cities anywhere in Greenland are connected by roads. You get where you're going by air or boat, and if the weather's too bad, you just don't get there!
From West Greenland, you get to East Greenland by way of Iceland. There's no direct air service between East and West across the inland ice cap. And to make the trip by connecting the dots around the perimeter via towns with local air connections would take three days ... weather permitting! Believe me, I tried hard to make such a schedule work when we were planning this trip. So we came by way of Iceland, and here's where you enter into East Greenland...at its international gateway!


Here's our motley group of fellow passengers on the Air Iceland flight to East Greenland, a bunch of Icelandic day trippers, getting instruction on how to get into the town of Kulusuk. Walk.	Our arrangement was slightly better. A helicopter flight on to the town of Tasiilaq. Flight schedules were pretty casual. When the pilot's ready, he'll let you know. On the return trip, you wait at your hotel until the airport sends a car to get you.


Less than 15 minutes later, we had a similar view of our own destination, Tasiilaq. As you can tell, it's a major metropolitan area -- largest town in East Greenland! Once we settled down on the helo pad at Tasiilaq International Airport, the clouds scudded away and the sun shone.


Wildlife was in short supply during our stay in East Greenland. Although we heard stories of polar bears wandering into town and local fishermen selling seals at town docks, the only critters we saw were on racks at the duty free shop or on the waiting room walls back at the Kulusuk airport as we headed off again.