After travelling through remote fjords, past glaciers and icebergs, and visiting some tiny communities along the Greenlandic coast, arriving in Sisimiut feels surprisingly urban. This is Greenland’s second-largest town, with around 5,500 inhabitants, yet it still sits in a landscape that would be considered wilderness almost anywhere else. Mountains rise directly behind the houses, the sea stretches away in front of the town and within a short walk you can leave the streets behind and find yourself beside lakes and open tundra.
That contrast was probably what struck me most during my visit. Sisimiut is unmistakably a modern Greenlandic town, but traditional Greenland, Danish colonial history and the surrounding Arctic landscape are all visible at the same time. You can walk past colourful wooden houses, visit buildings dating from the colonial period, see working fishing boats in the harbour, encounter Greenland sled dogs and then wander into a modern supermarket – or, rather unexpectedly, find a Burger King.
The brightly coloured houses are one of the first things you notice. Across Greenland there is a long history of colour being associated with the function of buildings, although today the system is far less rigid than it once was. The result is a town filled with strong reds, blues, yellows, greens and blacks that stand out beautifully against the grey rock and surrounding mountains.
Sisimiut lies just north of the Arctic Circle on Greenland’s west coast. Its name is usually translated as “the people at the fox burrows”, referring to the Arctic foxes found in the area. Like most Greenlandic communities, there is no road connecting it with the next town. Boats and aircraft therefore provide the main links with the rest of Greenland.
That takes a little getting used to if you come from Britain. We tend to think of the sea as being around the edge of the country. In Greenland, the sea is often the highway. For thousands of years it has provided transport, communication and, crucially, food.
I had a chance to experience a little of that food culture during my visit. A tasting of Greenlandic foods included dried cod, dried herring, seal blubber, minke whale and prawns. It was certainly very different from stopping for lunch in a conventional European town, but that is exactly why experiences like this are worthwhile.
It is easy for visitors to Greenland to see seals and whales entirely as wildlife-watching opportunities. For Greenlanders, marine mammals and fish are also part of a hunting and food tradition stretching back generations. Trying traditional foods provides a small insight into that relationship between people, wildlife and the sea.
For me, one of the highlights of Sisimiut was the museum. It is not simply one building filled with display cases. Sisimiut Museum occupies several historic buildings in the old colonial quarter, creating a fascinating little historical area that is worth taking time to explore.
The museum tells several overlapping stories. There is archaeology associated with the Saqqaq culture, whose presence in Greenland stretches back thousands of years, alongside hunting equipment, sledges, boats and objects illustrating Inuit life. A reconstructed peat house helps show how people lived here in comparatively recent history, while other displays examine trade, fishing and the development of modern Sisimiut.
The old Bethel Church, the distinctive blue church dating from the eighteenth century, forms part of this historic setting. Walking around the museum buildings gives you a much better understanding of the town because the story doesn’t stop with either traditional Inuit culture or Danish settlement. Both are part of the Sisimiut you see today.
As a sea kayaker, I am particularly interested in Greenland’s qajaq tradition. The kayak wasn’t invented as a recreational craft. It was sophisticated Arctic hunting technology, developed over generations to allow hunters to move quietly and efficiently through cold coastal waters.
That makes visiting places such as Sisimiut particularly interesting for modern paddlers. We haven’t brought kayaking to Greenland. Greenland’s Inuit culture helped give kayaking to the rest of the world. Modern sea kayaks may use plastic, fibreglass and composite materials, but the basic idea remains instantly recognisable.
Fishing is equally visible in modern Sisimiut. The harbour is a working place rather than simply somewhere for tourists to photograph boats. Greenland’s economy remains strongly connected with the sea, and Sisimiut is an important fishing and processing centre.
Then there are the dogs. Sisimiut lies within Greenland’s sled-dog region and during summer you can see dogs tethered around the outskirts of town. They may appear rather inactive during the warmer months, but these are working animals whose real season arrives when snow and ice transform the landscape.
Winter effectively creates a completely different transport network. Frozen lakes, snow-covered valleys and sea ice open routes that simply don’t exist in summer. For someone visiting during the warmer months, seeing the dogs is another reminder that we are experiencing only one seasonal version of Greenland.
I decided to explore a little beyond the streets and walked uphill towards the lake. This was another thing I liked about Sisimiut: you don’t need a major expedition to get a taste of the landscape. Walk away from the centre and the buildings quickly begin to give way to rock, tundra, water and mountains.
The town is famous among walkers because it marks one end of the Arctic Circle Trail, the roughly 160-kilometre wilderness route between Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq. It is a serious multi-day journey, but you don’t have to walk the entire trail to appreciate the landscape surrounding Sisimiut. There are much shorter walks that give excellent views back towards the town, harbour and sea.
And this is perhaps what Sisimiut does particularly well. It brings together Greenland’s different faces in a remarkably small area. There is Inuit history and Danish colonial history. There are fishing boats and mobile phones. Sled dogs and supermarkets. Traditional Greenlandic food and international fast food. Historic wooden buildings and modern apartments. And beyond all of it are mountains, lakes and an enormous Arctic wilderness.
After travelling through some extraordinarily remote parts of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic, I found Sisimiut a particularly interesting place because it isn’t simply somewhere preserved for visitors. People are working, shopping, going to school, fishing, travelling and living ordinary lives in what, to those of us visiting from elsewhere, seems like an extraordinary environment.
Why not take the opportunity to read our other blogs about Greenland;
- Nuuk: A Capital City at the Edge of the Wilderness
- Top 5 Things to Do in Nuuk in Summer
- Paddling Maniitsoq and Sermillinguaq Fjord: From Scotland to the Ice
- Top 5 Things to Do in Sisimiut in Summer
- Ilulissat: Where Greenland’s Ice Sheet Meets the Sea
- Top 5 Things to Do in Ilulissat in Summer
- Greenland’s Qajaq: The Arctic Hunting Craft That Shaped Sea Kayaking Worldwide
- Kangerlussuaq Fjord: Sea Kayaking Among the Icebergs of West Greenland