Getting a glimpse of icebergs and glaciers in

Greenland

Wiesbaden engineer travels to far north to capture rare images

By Karl Weisel

U.S. Army Garrison Hessen Public Affairs Office

Photos by John Wutzer

Special to the Herald Union

For many people the idea of the perfect getaway from work includes time basking in the sun in some exotic locale or sightseeing through noted cities in Europe.

Not so for John Wutzer, chief of special projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe District. During his time off from managing engineering projects with the corps in Wiesbaden, the Philadelphia native has traveled to Sri Lanka to help build homes for tsunami victims, climbed noted peaks in the Swiss Alps and most recently journeyed above the Arctic Circle to get a firsthand look at a landscape that may be changing forever as a result of global warming.

“The huge attraction for me was the fact that they had icebergs there — the largest prolific glacier in the northern hemisphere producing icebergs anywhere from the size of footballs to football stadiums,” he said.

Wutzer spent a week in Greenland exploring the world’s largest island, which has a population of slightly more than 57,000 people who primarily live in fjord towns located around the ice-free coast which surrounds a huge ice sheet covering 81 percent of the Danish province.

Wutzer, who visited Iceland several times in previous years, said the idea of exploring Greenland offered a rare opportunity. “Iceland was so unique from any other place I’d seen in Europe and the rest of the world. Greenland is even more remote, farther north and has a lot fewer people. ... It was a dream of a lifetime to get up there — to experience something very few people will ever do.

“My expectations were exceeded,” said Wutzer, still relishing the “Greenlandic high,” many fellow travelers report experiencing after encountering the vast beauty of Greenland’s massive ice formations. “Everyone I spoke with described the sensation of being shocked. It’s awe inspiring. I didn’t realize there was anything this beautiful on the planet.”

Wutzer’s photos reflect the incomparable natural beauty of the frozen landscape.

His trip began with about a five-hour flight from Baltimore to Greenland’s Kangerlussuaq Airport, an airport developed by the Americans in the early 1940s as a military base but abandoned by U.S. forces after the end of the Cold War.

“My trip was done completely independent of any tour groups,” he said.

Staying at hostels during his journey, Wutzer said despite the lack of fancy accommodations, a trip to Greenland is not cheap with the cost of flights to get around the island and other expenses such as tours and food, which costs more due to the transport required to bring items that far north.

During his stay in the town of Kangerlussuaq, a village of about 500 people, Wutzer visited the Russell Glacier, a “must-see” natural phenomenon situated about 17 kilometers away. “It is spectacular. The lighting is brilliant. There’s a tremendous amount of sunlight and there’s such a feeling of solitude. It’s touched by so few people. It’s as if the clock is turning at a different speed than in Germany.”

Traveling in August, Wutzer said he was pleasantly surprised by the weather — relatively warm temperatures (“it never got colder than 50 degrees Fahrenheit at night”) and 24 hours of daylight (“even at midnight it was still light”).

Walk on the ice cap

“Another awesome thing to do in Kangerlussuaq is to take a walking tour on the ice cap,” he said. “It gives you a small taste of the thousands of kilometers of ice that cover most of the island.”

From Kangerlussuaq, Wutzer flew to Ilulissat (“about a 45-minute flight north”). “This is the town of towns and it’s directly at the mouth of the Ilulissat Ice Fjord — the most popular destination for foreigners and one of the top 40 world heritage sites.”

The main attractions are the massive icebergs generated from a river of ice coming from the ice cap and running out to the sea. While the ice is slow moving, one is aware of the monumental ever shifting surface by the occasional cracking of ice as it breaks away. “You can hear calving as the ice breaks off,” he said, adding that the iceberg believed to have sunk the Titanic originated from the Ilulissat Ice Fjord.

Scientists and sightseers on boats and shorelines must be aware that the breaking off of the massive ice fissures can cause equally massive tsunamis as the ice splashes into the water radiating waves out in all directions, he said.

“They have great hiking trails,” said Wutzer, describing the “spectacular opportunities for photographers.”

One of the biggest surprises for most people was how warm it was in the summertime,” said Wutzer. “Some days I was even hiking in my shorts.”

As home to native Inuit people believed to have come to the island thousands of years ago from Asia via northern North America to include Norse explorers, Lief Erikkson and his brothers, who played a role in the later exploration of North America, Greenland is a mixed culture where people speak both Danish and Inuit Greenlandic. But communicating is no problem for visitors, said Wutzer, with many signs in English and tourist shop owners also able to speak English. “I didn’t have a problem getting around. They are definitely a friendly people — everyone gives you a wave whether you’re out on your bike or hiking.”

While a trip to Greenland is not in everyone’s budget, it is certainly worth the added expenses for the sheer monumental beauty and the chance to witness a landscape that may be forever changed in the future, said the Wiesbaden-based engineer. He also recommended that anyone interested in making the trek do a little advance research to decide exactly where to go and what they want to see. Booking flights in advance is also highly encouraged.

“It may be expensive to travel, but the scenery is free, the hiking is free and with supermarkets available you can even make your own food for far less than what you’d spend in a restaurant.”

Besides appreciating the natural panoramas, visitors to Greenland can also enjoy such rare opportunities as sled dog tours and kayaking, he added.