What do people in the Arctic live in and how do they travel from one place to another?
Getting around the Arctic
Travelling from one place to another in the Arctic is rarely quick. It is not uncommon for settlements to be tens or hundreds of kilometres from the next nearest village or town, with no roads connecting them.
As a result, getting yourself to where you need to be can often involve multiple forms of transport, can vary on the time of year, and also depend on locally available infrastructure. For example, in summer when there is no snow, all-terrain vehicles (e.g. quad bikes) might be used, whereas in winter snowmobiles might be used for the same. For coastal communities, small boats are frequently used, though in some cases this ceases in winter when sea ice is present.
For example, travel to the fishing village of Kapisillit, SW Greenland (2024 population: 43) is mostly by small boat or the twice weekly “boat shuttle” to Nuuk which takes approximately four hours.
To travel further afield, the only option may be to take one (or sometimes several) flights in small planes or helicopters, with infrequent flight schedules often meaning that this can take several days.
However, the Arctic is becoming an increasingly connected place, and different regions are improving connections between villages and towns in different ways.
How to get to Greenland?
The building of two new airports in Greenland has been done with the aim of making it more accessible to international travellers, and to make domestic travel around the world’s largest island easier.
The new airports at Nuuk and Ilulissat replace the smaller airports that had short runways where only small propellor driven planes could land. Once fully operational, both airports will be able to accept direct international airliner flights from Europe and North America, cutting the time and cost of international travel to two of Greenland’s largest cities and tourist destinations.
“Fog in Nuuk” – before the new airports
Prior to 2024, nearly all international flights into Greenland landed in the small town of Kangerlussuaq (2020 population: 508): a former US airbase that reverted to the Greenlandic Government in 1992. The reason for this is that it was the only non-military runway in Greenland that was long enough for international airliners to safely land at.
As a result, the only way to get to get to Greenland’s capital city (Nuuk), or any of Greenland’s other settlements from mainland Europe was to first fly from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq, and then get one or more connecting flights in smaller propellor driven aircraft.
While bad weather at Kangerlussuaq is rare, it was not unheard of to have onward travel delayed by several days due to poor weather at the destination airport. The announcement of “fog in Nuuk” could mean flights would be grounded for several days as spells of thick sea fog lasting several days combined with Nuuk’s steep fjords would make its airport landing radar unreliable.
As hotel space at Kangerlussuaq is limited, this meant that people travelling from elsewhere in Greenland could also be delayed or have their flights cancelled. This was to avoid adding to those who were stuck at Kangerlussuaq and the town becoming overcrowded.
However, the new, longer runways, direct flights and new radar systems means that delays due to “fog in Nuuk” should now be a thing of the past.
Take off!
Watch the video of the Dash-8 taking off from Nuuk Airport, bound for Kangerlussuaq.
Homes of the Indigenous Peoples
Although resources are now being brought into the Arctic from elsewhere, the Indigenous people are still using the rich variety of local resources. Resources from the Arctic are also used elsewhere in the world, and climate change is affecting the commercial exploitation of these resources.
At home
Look at the two images
- What articles can you see in these homes, and where did they come from?
- How far do you think they have travelled to get there?