Life in a Northern Town: A Visit to One of the World’s Remotest Villages

Life in a Northern Town: A Visit to One of the World’s Remotest Villages
Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland. Tim Johnson
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When you first see Ittoqqortoormiit, you won’t believe your eyes. No, not quite. It will seem like a mirage. Set on a sharp rise, backed by bald mountains, the bright, multicolored homes seem completely out of place, a storybook village set in one of the fiercest environments (and climates) on earth.

Getting here isn’t easy. Set at 70 degrees North—roughly four ticks of latitude above the Arctic Circle—winter is long and harsh. I arrived by icebreaker, and the “fast ice” still covered Scoresby Sound for miles in front of the town. By the calendar, it was almost summer. But despite a brilliant Far North sun, snow remained on the ground and the temperature hovered near freezing.

Tim Johnson
Tim Johnson
Author
Toronto-based writer Tim Johnson is always traveling in search of the next great story. Having visited 140 countries across all seven continents, he’s tracked lions on foot in Botswana, dug for dinosaur bones in Mongolia, and walked among a half-million penguins on South Georgia Island. He contributes to some of North America’s largest publications, including CNN Travel, Bloomberg, and The Globe and Mail.
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