Prince Christian Sound in southern Greenland

© Posnov/Getty Image

Southern tip of a northern isle. Prince Christian Sound in southern Greenland

The sheer size of Greenland is hard to put in perspective. The world’s largest island is more than 2.17 million square kilometers. It is a land of deep fjords and ice that must have made the Norse explorers who landed there a thousand years ago feel right at home.

Today we find ourselves at the southern tip of Greenland, in Prince Christian Sound, a long, narrow fjord system 96 kilometres long, at times as narrow as 450 metres across. It flows through steep canyons of granite that soar over 300 metres above. The placid calm of these waters is frequently disrupted by calving glaciers, breaching whales, and the cruise ships that visit the region. The only human habitation in this frozen landscape is the Inuit village of Aappilattoq, home to about 100 people.