Iceberg ahead! Navigating a path less travelled in the North Atlantic

Captain Rens van Eerten’s distinctive voice comes over the speaker in the stateroom, excitedly telling us that orcas have been sighted off starboard.

Instinctively, we know we will be too late to see them by the time we dress, head up two floors and make our way across the ship to the open deck.

This 7am ‘wake-up call’, however, is enough to turn us into inquisitive meercats – springing into an upright position and peeling back the curtains of our oceanview window to be rewarded with an equally gobsmacking sight: icebergs of titanic proportions. Our Holland America Line ship Volendam has entered Greenland’s Prince Christian Sound.

These icebergs that greet us like butlers at the entrance to a grand restaurant are just the beginning of a smorgasbord of Arctic experiences over the next eight hours. Mother Nature is our host as we dine out on mesmerising glaciers tinged with turquoise, partly frozen waterfalls, bergy bits (icebergs the size of a cottage), growlers (icebergs as big as a family-sized SUV or grand piano) and coal-coloured mountains with jagged peaks you can almost reach out and touch.

In our experience, only Alaska’s Glacier Bay has come close for sheer ‘wow’ factor. But this is next level ‘whoa’.

The ship’s bridge team masterly manoeuvres the Volendam on 360-degree turns and into a fjord for all to experience the grandeur from every angle. And we are captivated – whether jockeying for position on the ship’s open bow, lunching by the floor-to-ceiling windows on the Lido Deck or lounging with a warming Knotty Irishman (Baileys Irish Cream, Frangelico, Dead Rabbit Irish Whiskey, coffee, cream and nutmeg) in The Crow’s Nest with its commanding view under the bridge.

Much of the day’s scenic cruising is spent rugged up on the wet and breezy bow, playing the same game Greenlanders find amusing: what does that iceberg shape look like? ‘Lions’, ‘seals’, ‘whales’, ‘grandma’s handbag’, ‘human foot and ankle’ – you name it, we imagine it in the icy shapes, with some as big as a Noosa mansion.

But seeing this alien landscape on our 25-night bucket-list cruise to Canada, New England, Iceland and Greenland also brings the climate change issue to the surface. After all, we hope our children and grandchildren will be privileged to see this one day, too.

Rising sea levels and coastal erosion are expected to have enormous impacts on Greenland’s 55,000-strong population and especially the Indigenous Inuit people.

Greenland is basically an ice sheet that is about 3.2km thick. Tremendous ice loss has occurred in the past decade.

Higher temperatures due to climate change, and the extreme possibility of this sheet beginning to melt, will change the Inuit way of life forever – from shifting animal populations affecting hunting patterns, to loss or damage to homes and infrastructure, and even the need to relocate. The sight of the sole Inuit village in Prince Christian Sound – with  boiled lolly-coloured houses at the foot of a soaring mountain range – brings home the effect relocation would have on the 100 villagers and the only way of life their families have known for generations.

Tune in to just about any YouTube video on Greenland to see why this unique, resources-rich, autonomous territory of Denmark is so important to the world (and why US President Donald Trump wants to gain control over it).

A bird’s-eye view from the bow

But back to those icebergs.

In the Northern Hemisphere, an iceberg is born 10,000-15,000 years after snow falls at the ice cap. The snow accumulates and compresses into layers of dense ice over centuries.

The ice cap ‘feeds’ the series of glaciers around its edges, with the slow-moving  ice ‘river’ gradually sweeping up rock debris and slipping down through a valley to the sea.

Pressure from the weight of the ice above combines with rising and falling tides and wave action, plus warm temperatures in the summer, to create an explosive event called calving.

About 40,000 medium-to-large icebergs break off the Greenland glaciers annually. Wind and currents move these large masses of freshwater ice fairly slowly: about 0.7kmh on average.

NASA (climate.nasa.gov/news/723/breaking-the-ice-on-icebergs/) says Greenland icebergs are carried along the Labrador Current southward, down what is known as ‘Iceberg Alley’, which passes around Newfoundland and into the Grand Banks area of southeastern Canada and New England (which is where the Titanic met its demise).

Our next port of call, Nanortalik (translating to ‘place of the polar bears’) – Greenland’s southernmost town on an island of the same name – takes us closer than we ever thought imaginable to  these ‘bergs.

As luck would have it, our Rigid Inflatable Boat shore excursion to get up among the icebergs turns into a ‘private tour’ all to ourselves on an open boat.

Andre, our skipper from Arctic Cruises, guides us at lightning speed to a huge ‘granddaddy’ iceberg first.

Icebergs generally live three to six years but can be much older if they are in colder waters.

They may get stuck locally on the ocean bottom or find themselves anchored by surrounding sea ice. But once they head further south into warmer waters, they rarely last more than a year. While Andre, born and bred in Nanortalik, can’t remember how long this particular iceberg has been ‘visiting’, he thinks 10 years wouldn’t be stretching the truth.

He ensures we keep our distance, pointing out the dark lines showing weathered faults in the iceberg that can break off and crash down at any time.

It is true that only 10 per cent of an iceberg is above the waterline. Andre believes that this ‘granddaddy’ is resting on  the sea floor and, with 90 per cent below water, is about 70m high (taller than the Sydney Opera House).

In under a minute, we are approaching a much smaller growler. We are so close, I can run my outstretched hand along the top ridge. Andre picks up a tiny piece of iceberg, made of the purest freshwater, that he says will be great in a wee whisky!

A later port of call, St Anthony’s in Canada’s remote Newfoundland and Labrador Province, is another important dot on the map in the lifecycle of an iceberg.

It is where icebergs go to die.

About 90 per cent of icebergs that reach this rugged coastline begin their journey a year earlier down Iceberg Alley. They usually find themselves trapped in one of the many bays, coves and bights along the way, where they run aground and melt (only about 400-800 a year make it as far south as St John’s, 470km to the southeast as the crow flies).

Also in St Anthony’s, hikers can take on the 0.4km Iceberg Alley Trail from Fishing Point Recreation Area (Day Park) and see these icebergs in the twilight of their years – especially in late spring and early summer.

As well as other hikes (Carter’s Trail, Whale Watchers Trail and the Santana Trail), the more adventurous can take on the Daredevil Trail, where the only way is up, up, up: 476 steps and a 550ft (168m) elevation to the top of Fishing Point Head for an even better view of those majestic icebergs, frolicking whales in the harbour, circling sea birds and the town far below.

Even with no ’bergs in sight, that’s enough to make any  heart melt.

*The writer paid for all her expenses.