The hook
The wildest edge of the Arctic: the largest fjord system on Earth, a labyrinth of iceberg-filled channels and sheer mountains reaching deep into Greenland's uninhabited east, home to a single tiny, remote Inuit settlement and roaming muskoxen.
01Why it's worth it
If west Greenland is remote, the east is another order of wild, one of the least-accessible and least-populated coasts on the planet. Its centrepiece is Scoresby Sound, generally reckoned the largest and longest fjord system in the world, a vast branching network of deep channels reaching hundreds of kilometres inland, walled by towering mountains and coloured rock, and filled with sculpted icebergs of every size. It is a landscape of overwhelming scale and silence, backed by the Northeast Greenland National Park, the largest national park on Earth and a true polar wilderness of ice, tundra, muskoxen, Arctic foxes, and polar bears. The human presence is almost nil: one tiny, brightly-painted Inuit settlement, Ittoqqortoormiit, among the most isolated inhabited places anywhere, clings to the coast, its people still living close to a traditional hunting life. Reaching all this is genuine expedition travel, typically by ship in the brief late-summer window when the pack ice allows, or by small plane, and it is correspondingly premium and hard-won. But for those drawn to the ultimate Arctic wilderness, immense fjords, ice, wildlife, aurora, and profound remoteness, east Greenland is as wild as the inhabited world gets.
02How to experience it
This is expedition territory: reach Scoresby Sound and the east coast mainly by small expedition ship in the short late-summer season (or by small plane to Ittoqqortoormiit), with specialist operators. Cruise the fjords among the icebergs and mountains, watch for muskoxen and polar bears, and visit the tiny Inuit settlement. Come prepared for genuine remoteness, cost, and Arctic conditions.