These four photos are all taken from the same spot.  The ones at the right above and below were taken on our first day in Ilulissat.  The ones on the left were taken on our last day.  Notice how much more ice filled this entrance to the harbor in just four days time.  In fact, there was so much more ice that the coastal ferry we were to board upon leaving Ilulissat was nearly four hours late due to its slow battle through the ice-clogged waterway.   During this early August visit in Ilulissat, the town had experienced a whopping 17 days of total sunshine.  Global warming or no, that's enough heat to move the icebergs around like rubber duckies in the tub!
In a country where most of the ground is rock and the permafrost is just below the surface, everyone asks:  What do you do with your trash?  Nobody asks:  What do you do with your dead?  The dead are buried in shallow graves, such as the one here awaiting a resident.  They are covered with rocks and blanketed with festive, bright-colored artificial flowers.  Most of the grave markers -- simple wooden or metal crosses -- bear no names because in Greenland Inuit tradition, names are used over and over again.
Fish are dried on a traditional "flake" to be served to men, or dogs, as the need may be.
At the local museum, exhibits include a traditional sod house where visitors can go inside and experience the living condition of the very recent past.
Small icebergs often enter the Ilulissat harbor and -- while we were there -- make ingress and exit difficult when they pile up against the docks.
Americans can't bring home anything made of seal, or whale, or walrus, or any other marine mammal.   So pictures of these exhibits and wares in local  shops are the closest we get to "owning" the local art and lifestyle.
		This is the Hotel Arctic, where we stayed, just outside of town and across the harbor from the Ilulissat Hospital (red building with the tall chimney).  For a four star hotel, the accommodations were ordinary, but I have to admit -- the local food was fresh !!!!  This is a portion of a musk ox delivered for the weekly traditional cookout.
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