editorial

The Ocean Albatros polar expedition cruise ship was launched in 2023.

Greenland Cruise &#8211; Ocean Albatros Expedition Ship Hero

Words and illustrations by Kalpana Sunder 
September 21, 2026 
An Arctic voyage, Greenland cruise, reveals the rewards of trading a camera for a sketchbook.
<figure id="attachment_163485" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-163485" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-163485" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Village-and-Zodiac.jpg" alt="Brightly painted wooden houses in Kangaamiut; a Zodiac in the iceberg-studded waters of Sermilik Fjord." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Village-and-Zodiac.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Village-and-Zodiac-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Village-and-Zodiac-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Village-and-Zodiac-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-163485" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Brightly painted wooden houses in Kangaamiut; a Zodiac in the iceberg-studded waters of Sermilik Fjord.</figcaption></figure>
Stepping off our chartered plane onto the runway at Kangerlussuaq, I breathed in the clean, crystalline Arctic air. Beyond the narrow strip of tarmac stretched the Greenland ice sheet, the world’s second largest expanse of ice after Antarctica, a forbidding horizon of white that looked like a blank page.
Ahead of me lay a 12-day <a href="https://destinasian.com/luxury-travel/spotlight/best-cruises" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cruise</a> around southern Greenland, from Kangerlussuaq on the west coast to Tasiilaq in the east. My bag held all the Arctic essentials: warm layers, boots, a camera, and woolen caps. But it was the sketchbook and paints, added almost as an afterthought, that quietly took over. I had been sketching my travels for several years, a habit born from wandering my own city with a notebook in hand. Inspired by the urban sketching movement, I came to appreciate the value of slowing down and observing instead of simply filling my phone with photographs.
The first thing I drew during Greenland Cruise was Kangerlussuaq’s stark runway, along with a signpost pointing to cities around the world. It felt both remote and oddly grounding. Yet once we ventured down the coast on board the expedition vessel Ocean Albatros, operated by <a href="https://polar-latitudes.com/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Polar Latitudes</a>, I found the landscape resisted easy composition. It wasn’t conventionally dramatic, so I had to pay attention: pale lichens, bursts of crimson wildflowers, low shrubs breaking through stone. Shaggy musk oxen stood on ridges like prehistoric brushstrokes, while meltwater traced uncertain lines over glaciers.
Sketching compelled me to pause. I noticed subtle shifts of light across an iceberg, the sheen of a Greenlandic raven’s feathers, and the challenge of working with little more than blues, grays, and white. With numb fingers and the wind tugging at the page, every sketch became an exercise in selection. I had to decide what mattered—a curve, a shadow, the way light settled on rock—and leave everything else behind.
Between landings, life settled into the gentle rhythm of expedition cruising. From the ship’s observation lounge, I watched icebergs drift silently past as fellow passengers gathered on deck with binoculars, scanning for whales and seabirds. Those unhurried hours became some of my favorite moments—not because there was more to see, but because there was finally time to absorb it. Instead of rushing to the next destination, I found myself returning to my sketchbook, adding details I had missed the first time.
<figure id="attachment_163486" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-163486" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-163486" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Expedition-Ship-and-Church.jpg" alt="A sketch of Ocean Albatros in Kangerlussuatsiaq Fjord in western Greenland; the little church in Kuummiut." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Expedition-Ship-and-Church.jpg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Expedition-Ship-and-Church-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Expedition-Ship-and-Church-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Watercolor-Sketches-of-Expedition-Ship-and-Church-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-163486" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: A sketch of Ocean Albatros in Kangerlussuatsiaq Fjord in western Greenland; the little church in Kuummiut.</figcaption></figure>
In remote settlements such as Kangaamiut and Aappilattoq, color returned to my palette. Yellow, red, and blue houses punctuated the rocky land scape, while children gathered around to point out what I should include or simply watch me draw. Fishermen chatting by the harbor, children playing soccer across puddles, and a traditional mask dance became quick studies in movement. People rarely stayed still, so I learned to sketch gestures rather than faces—the bend of a knee, the turn of a head—before the moment disappeared.
The moments that stayed with me most in this Greenland Cruise trip, however, belonged to nature. One morning at sunrise, we gathered on deck to watch the Northern Lights ripple green across the sky while a pod of humpback whales surfaced beside the ship, their distinctive flukes disappearing with balletic grace. I tried to sketch them, remembering our expedition expert’s explanation that each whale’s tail pattern is as unique as a fingerprint.
But I realized the hardest thing to draw was not the ice, the land, or even the people. It was the silence. In Queen Marie Valley, where we trekked across spongy permafrost dotted with red wildflowers while an expedition guide kept watch for polar bears, the only sound was the wind. There were no roads, no engines, no distant hum.
Some landscapes resisted every attempt to capture them. In Sermilik Fjord, massive icebergs drifted between towering mountains, their striated surfaces revealing centuries of compressed ice. Some rose like skyscrapers, dwarfing our Zodiacs; others curved into delicate arches. Only by adding our tiny boats to the page could I convey their immense scale.
At Kuummiut, deep within southeastern Greenland’s Ammassalik Fjord, cod hung outside homes like laundry while I sketched a church overlooking the sea. We experienced kaffemik for the first time, Greenland’s tradition of welcoming guests into the home for coffee and cake. As our hostess, Ulrike, poured dark co ee into delicate cups, she smiled. “My husband brought back five seals this morning, so my daughter baked everything,” she said. Sur rounded by warmth and laughter, we talked about winter darkness and the challenges of life when the sea freezes solid.
By the time Ocean Albatros sailed across the Denmark Strait toward Reykjavík, our final destination, every page of my sketchbook held less, yet somehow said more. Sketching Greenland taught me patience, observation, and humility. I kept wondering how I could ever translate the feel of Arctic air, the colors of the Northern Lights, or the sharp clarity of icebergs onto paper. Eventually, I realized Greenland makes sense only in fragments: encounters with people, fleeting moments, and shifting landscapes. It is not a place you capture all at once, but one you learn to see slowly, one page at a time.
<figure id="attachment_163483" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-163483" style="width: 1800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-163483" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large.jpg" alt="The Ocean Albatros polar expedition cruise ship was launched in 2023." width="1800" height="1200" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large.jpg 1800w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large-300x200.jpg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large-768x512.jpg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Greenland-Cruise-Ocean-Albatros-Expedition-Ship-Large-1568x1045.jpg 1568w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-163483" class="wp-caption-text">The Ocean Albatros expedition ship was specifically built for polar cruising. (Courtesy of Polar Latitudes Expeditions)</figcaption></figure>
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August/September 2026</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Sketches from Greenland”). Buy a single issue or subscribe <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

Sketches from a Greenland Cruise