When you first see Ittoqqortoormiit, you won’t believe your eyes. No, not quite. It will seem like a mirage. Set on a sharp rise, backed by bald mountains, the bright, multicolored homes seem completely out of place, a storybook village set in one of the fiercest environments (and climates) on earth. Getting here isn’t easy….

For even the hardiest of travelers, Greenland has long been terra incognita, a place unreachable in any casual sense—basically, off the map. Which is a bit ironic, because, for any map lover or just those with a healthy sense of global curiosity, it’s probably that classic world map that hung across the blackboard in most…