Northern Lights Forecast for Ilulissat

Northern Lights in Ilulissat

Ilulissat is a town of about 5,000 people on the east shore of Disko Bay, at 69°N on the west coast of Greenland. The Ilulissat Icefjord, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004, meets the bay just south of town, so you can watch the aurora over stranded icebergs without leaving on a tour. The Greenlandic word for the northern lights is arsarnerit.

The Sermermiut boardwalk to Holms Bakke

The marked trails start at the Ilulissat Icefjord Centre, by the Old Heliport on the southern edge of town, a walk of 15 to 20 minutes from the center. From there a raised wooden boardwalk, about 1.3 km long, runs through the Sermermiut valley to Holms Bakke, a hill at the mouth of the fjord, with the town behind you. The fjord is more than 1,000 m deep in places, but a ridge at its mouth lies only about 200 m down, so the largest icebergs from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier run aground there and can sit for years. Sermermiut was lived in for around 4,000 years, and its last resident moved into Ilulissat in 1850.

Over the hills, not over Disko Bay

People in Ilulissat see the aurora far more often over the hills toward the ice sheet than out over Disko Bay. A researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute explained why: from here the aurora appears most often toward magnetic south, over the land, and the damper air over the sea brings haze and cloud. The view from Holms Bakke, south across the icefjord, faces the right way. Guided tours go into the hills behind the town, some by dog sled.

Seqinniarfik and the weeks without sun

The aurora season runs from September to early April, and the midnight sun hides it in summer. The sun does not rise at all from about 30 November to 11 January, though a few hours of twilight still show around midday. On 13 January about a third of the town gathers on Holms Bakke, in Greenlandic Seqinniarfik, “the place where you go to greet the sun”, and sings to welcome it back.

Sled dogs and the coldest months

January to April is the dog sledding season, and Ilulissat has almost as many sled dogs as people. Snowmobiles are kept out of the icefjord area but allowed in the hills. February and March are the coldest months, averaging around −15 °C. The town museum is in the house where the polar explorer Knud Rasmussen was born in 1879.

Air Greenland’s hub for the north

No roads connect Greenland’s towns, so you fly in. Ilulissat Airport, about 3 km northeast of the center, is Air Greenland’s hub for the north of the country, with flights from Nuuk and on to the settlements farther up the coast. Icelandair flies in from Iceland in summer.