Qaqortoq, Greenland, Denmark — Take a Second Look

They are used to it in Churchill, Manitoba, but not in Qaqortoq, Greenland. “I have lived in this town for over 50 years” a local resident told me, “but I have never seen a polar bear - until now.”

It definitely came as a surprise then to this small community in Greenland’s south when a young polar bear strolled through a school playground in the middle of the day earlier this year. The streets of this town of 3,000 quickly became deserted and children were kept inside. Then it happened again when two more polar bears entered town this summer.

The town of Qaqortoq in south-west Greenland

By now it is clear that polar bear visits are happening with increasing frequency in this most populated part of Greenland. Blessed with a milder climate than the rest of the country, you are more likely to see sheep, cattle, and green pasture (thus the name Greenland) instead of ice and rocky unproductive land along the shorelines of the southern fjords. It was the possibility to raise animals and grow crops that attracted the Norsemen from Iceland to establish settlements here in the 10th century.

Seniors gather to enjoy the August sun in Qaqortoq’s town square .

Polar bears were never a problem in the fjords of south-west Greenland. Until recently, the massive Greenland Ice Sheet and rugged mountains were effective shields against polar bear incursions. But with the ice sheet retreating, more pathways are opening for polar bears to reach the towns and settlements along the coast. Also, a melting pack ice in the far north is sending hundreds of huge tabular icebergs down south the eastern coast of Greenland – with polar bears on board. At the southern tip of Greenland, propelled by ocean currents, the icebergs round the corner and travel up the west coast. There, the polar bears jump off and swim to land. Locals tell me that some bears were found to make the trip two or three times, going after sheep as they cross land from the west to the east coast.

The town of Nanortalik in south-west Greenland

While some problems, like polar bears finding their way into populated areas in south Greenland, are unexpected and present a direct danger to the people who live there, other consequences of climate change are more consequential for humanity in its entirety. Currently, the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing 30 million tones of ice per hour and 5,000 sq km of ice have been lost at the margins since 1985. That is equivalent to 1 trillion tones of ice. This does not include the ice lost from Greenland’s 235,000 glaciers which are speeding up and retreating at an alarming rate. To make matters worse, the black soot, which is generated by Canadian forest fires, is carried by winds towards Greenland where it settles on the Ice Sheet. A darkened Ice Sheet absorbs more solar radiation, which melts the ice even faster, heats up the climate more and causes more forest fires. It is this circular feedback loop that has the scientific community worried.

All the fresh water added to the North Atlantic by the melting ice sheet is expected to raise sea levels by 1 to 2 m (3 to 6 ft) globally by the end of the century. These numbers are not hypothetical. They represent the effect of CO2 already in the atmosphere, in other words, they are irreversible. While sea levels have only risen 7 cm (3 in) during the past 25 years, scientists agree that the process is speeding up due to an increasingly warmer climate and a faster than expected ice melt.

As the morning fog lifts, huge icebergs become visible at the entrance to Qaqortoq harbour.

The good news: the polar bears coming ashore in Qaqortoq look healthy. Perhaps the local sheep are a healthy substitute for the seals in the pack ice further north.

More pictures can be seen on this website on the page “Gallery Archive - North America II”.