The airport in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, doesn't look like any
other airport. Outside, the tiny runway accommodates a lone
helicopter. Inside the waiting room, the chairs are upholstered
in seal skin. This otherworldliness was expected, as Greenland
has little in common with any other place on the planet. The
largest island in the world, it is weighed down by its immense
ice cap that in winter covers almost its entire land mass. In
summer, the ice retreats to reveal a savage landscape of fjords
and jagged rocks. And, at the end of this summer, it has
revealed more than ever. Flying low, fast and north into the
interior, the mind's eye expects a scene of endless winter but
the reality is worryingly different. There is little to prepare
you for the summer spectacle of Greenland's fjords. It feels
like a confusion of geography. At once as familiar as Scottish
lochs, they present a problem of scale. The dark mountains that
frame the deep lakes rise so high that they push through the
cloud clover and on to snow c