Sisimiut

Sisimiut is a town that rewards those who arrive without fixed expectations: the harbour is busy with fishing vessels and supply ships, the hills behind the town are criss-crossed with hiking trails marked with orange poles in the snow, and the sound of dog chains is constant because the sled dogs here have never been banned from the streets as they have been in the south, a contrast that immediately signals a different relationship with the traditional economy.

The old part of town climbs the hillside above the harbour in a scramble of painted wooden houses that has the informal energy of a real working town rather than a tourist display, and the church on the hill is one of the oldest in Greenland, its burial ground containing markers in Danish and Greenlandic that document the colonial period with a directness that the town's museums approach more cautiously.

The hiking trail to the summit of Paavijursuit is Sisimiut's signature experience: a five-hour round trip across tundra that requires river crossings and an ascent through dwarf birch and lichen that in September turns the hills into tapestries of orange and rust, a display of autumn colour that seems impossible at this latitude until you stand in it.

At the harbour, the fishing fleet works alongside the tourist boats, and the processing plant sends out a smell of fish meal that is the unmistakable signature of an Arctic coastal economy that has always depended on the sea, a smell that visitors learn to associate with the real texture of life in a Greenlandic town rather than the packaged version.

The winter carnival, or Nalunnguarput, transforms the town in February with lantern processions through the snow, dog sled races, and a community gathering that draws visitors from across Greenland to participate in a tradition that has been continuously documented since the 19th century, a winter celebration that has survived the introduction of electric light and the internet with no apparent loss of meaning.

The local museum occupies a former colonial building and traces the history of the area through Thule culture artifacts, the colonial period, and the transformation of the settlement into Greenland's second-largest city, with particular emphasis on the periods of rapid growth in the 1950s and 1960s when the central government relocated many smaller settlements into larger towns.

For most visitors the dog sled experience is the emotional centrepiece: sitting behind a team of Greenlandic huskies as they run across the frozen fjord is an experience that reminds you exactly where you are on the planet, and nothing in temperate latitudes prepares you for the scale of the sound of paws on hard snow, a rhythm that is continuous and ancient and has no mechanical equivalent.

Sisimiut is the starting point for some of the best hiking trails in Greenland, including the challenging ascent of Paavijursuit with views over the archipelago.

The Arctic dog sled culture is still active here year-round, unlike in South Greenland where dogs were banned from settlements in the 1970s.

The annual Nalunnguarput winter carnival in February is a major cultural event unique to Sisimiut.