Melting Glaciers, Candy-Colored Towns, Inuit Culture -- Fragile, Gorgeous Greenland

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In honor of recent Earth Day  let's focus on Greenland, the world's ground zero for climate change. As one of the last, great unspoiled travel destinations, it deserves to be on your (ice) bucket list.

In February not long ago, I cruised near 70 degrees latitude south in Antarctica. That April, eager to explore the polar-opposite region, I traveled to Greenland, 70 degrees latitude north, 250 kilometers above the Arctic Circle. (Wry friends said I became "bipolar.") Greenland is the more accessible of the two, and in the last few years, the more haunting, as its majestic glaciers ominously melt away. Come along on my journey, and see if this vast, cold region appeals to you:

I flew on Air Greenland via Copenhagan (you can fly from Iceland in the summer months) to the coastal air hub of Kangerlussuaq, on the west coast of the island. Here you can drive to the southern edge of an ice cap 14 times the size of England; a remnant of the Ice Age, it contains 10 percent of the world's total reserves of fresh water.

A territory of Denmark, Greenland is the largest island on earth, but it claims only about 60,000 citizens. Most are of native Inuit or Danish heritage, sprinkled about in tiny hamlets along the coasts. Roads are rare outside the settled areas, so you'll have to enlarge your idea of "vehicle" to include small planes, fishing boats and dog sleds, called "sledges."

I boarded a cherry-red Dash 7 turboprop airliner and headed for Nuuk, Greenland's capital city, population about 15,000. I taxied from the little airport straight to lunch at Café Esmerelda, serving the exceptional Greenlandic staples of cold-water cod and shrimp. At the open-air market, whale meat and seal meat are staples, both legally hunted and carefully regulated. I sampled raw whale blubber: chewy, with a not-unpleasant flavor of hazelnuts touched by the sea. Veggies are few here, and raw seal liver has traditionally made up for the vitamin deficiencies, but I decided to forgo that taste sensation.

Sights are spread around central Nuuk, and offer a pleasant afternoon self-tour: the 1846 cathedral; the capital building, with its muraled chambers; the National Museum, which includes Santa's Mailbox, a place to snail-mail a postcard to your kids. The Cultural Center (Katuaq) is especially impressive; with a thriving art scene, theater, workshops and café, it's a light-filled, Danish-designed space for all.

At the comfortable Hotel Hans Egede, I dined on musk-ox medallions at their stylish restaurant. Another good choice is Restaurant Nipisa, which features a modernized local cuisine.

Ilulissat, Greenland’s third largest town, is a two-hour flight up the coast. I couldn’t stop musing about global warming as I gazed down at the thousands of icebergs below: white polka dots on blue velvet, shed from glaciers and formed from compacted snow that fell perhaps 15,000 years ago. Ilulissat’s 6,000 or so residents live in Lego-like, multicolor houses perched against the ice-flecked waters.

Working dogs sleep in special outdoor areas, ready to get going. Dog sledging is the best (and most fun!) way to explore Greenland's towns and terrain during most of the year. I sledged for hours behind a fan of 15 racing Greenlandic dogs, with an Inuit driver steering and – frequently – braking as we coursed over the glistening snowfields in and around nearby Aallaniarfik. Reclining on a blanket, I clasped a rope and often closed my eyes as we sped along rolling, ice-covered hills. The tour company World of Greenland picked me up at my hotel, suited me in sealskin, gave me a brief orientation (basically, “Hold on!”), and dropped me back at the hotel at day's end. It was the thrill ride of my life.

The Ilulissat icefjord is a UNESCO World Heritage site. At the head of the fjord, the fastest moving glacier in the world also produces the most ice – 20 million tons a day. The glacier has retreated tremendously in the last 15 years.

You can hike to the edge of the fjord, or hop onto a fishing boat for hire in the picturesque harbor, to sail into Disko Bay among endless frozen chunks of sculptured ice shed from the glacier. We floated past breathtaking icebergs as big as islands. Openings in some of them seemed to tempt our little red fishing boat to sail through (we didn't), and we crunched over ice the size of cars. Aqua water outlined the bulky mass below the surface (seven-eighths is submerged), and small, clear bits – frozen rain trapped maybe thousands of years ago and now freed – floated around us like crystals. Some of this ice will slowly drift more than 2,500 miles south before finally melting back into the sea.

Our boat stopped at Oqaatusut, a tiny, isolated, still-inhabited whaling outpost. I walked gingerly from the boat onto frozen Rodebay Harbor. We checked out a dozen or so old settlement buildings and patted a few Greenlandic dogs before lunching on smoked whale meat and brown bread at the charming restaurant H8.

Food and lodging in Ilulissat is just fine. My hotel was the Hotel Arctic; meals there included Greenlandic barbecue and Greenlandic coffee drinks (one popular, fiery concoction is called “Northern Lights”). Lunch was at the Hotel Icefiord, which has a microbrewery and a great view of Disko Bay. Dinner at Hotel Hvide Falk was an excellent buffet sampler, with some of the best fish and seafood I’ve ever tasted.

I did talk to fishermen who note that water temperatures around Greenland have recently warmed several degrees in their lifetimes, changing the fishing patterns drastically, and Ilulissat Harbor now rarely freezes over. Three warehouses have become Kangia Ice Fjord station, where scientists and researchers study about melt, gases and emissions, and prospects for the future.

Greenland offers exhilarating experiences and comfort, rare quietude and beauty, along with the sobering realities of a warming world. As a witness to the fragile ice shelves, ice caps, glaciers and icebergs near both our poles, I can’t help becoming humbled – and more vigilant.