The northern hemisphere’s fastest flowing glacier, Sermeq Kujalleq (the Jakobshavn Glacier), is one of few outlets from the Greenland ice cap, and the glacier carries its discharge towards the sea relentlessly, shoving 25 metres of ice daily into the Icefjord. It’s certainly an effective ice machine, resulting in 20 million tonnes of icebergs annually. Those are big numbers, and they are big bergs.

I’ve come tonight to hear them sing, or perhaps cry, as they sit in limbo for up to years in the fjord, struggling from their creation when calving from the glacier, to their release into Disko Bay. They finally find freedom while floating north onwards from Disko Bay, then south, scooped up by the Labrador Current all the way to Newfoundland, or picked up by menacing shipping routes (indeed, locals and experts firmly believe the iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912 originated here).

The general manager of Hotel Arctic first introduces me to this musical phenomenon one sunny afternoon as icebergs glide past the deck of my luxury igloo in Ilulissat, as we add shards of ice from a harbourside berg to glasses of vodka and lime. Icelandic singer Bjork was a previous igloo occupant, and it’s as though she appeares with a faint vibrating, subtle and mesmerising siren call. But it’s the ice, the singing ice, that makes an audible noise as it slowly bubbles and melts away.

This extraordinary occurence is what makes visiting Ilulissat an overwhelming, almost transformative experience. It’s easy to see why Greenland’s third largest town draws celebrities, royalty and nature lovers alike. But to put the remoteness into perspective, while Greenland is the size of Western Europe, the entire population can fit inside a singular football stadium. And the population of Ilulissat (4,600) are almost outnumbered by sled dogs.

Evidence of an enduring and ancient way of life based on hunting and fishing is everywhere. Even in summer, dog sleds – the local equivalent of the family car – sit outside houses next to wooden racks where strips of halibut, hunks of reindeer meat and animal skins are being cured. Huskies lay coiled up below, dozing in the sun.

You too can try unique produce like a local beer brewed under the midnight sun at Restaurant Icefjord, whale and shrimp from the local fish factory at Restaurant Mamartut or Thai dishes (think seafood curry soup and snow crab) at Hvide Falk.

And visitors this year will see changes in the form of a new sustainable Best Western built by local investors, H8’s (a former fisherman’s warehouse turned hostel and restaurant) new stand-up paddleboard venture, and the multimillion-dollar Ilulissat Icefjord Centre.

Glaciologists have studied the surrounds for 250 years, and the brand-new centre will act as both a tourist destination and an information and climate change conversation arena for this ‘ground zero’.

It’s impossible to swallow all the iceberg multi-sensory splendour in one gulp at the Icefjord. While I was there I heard it sing in concerto, and when soaring above it in a helicopter I got to appreciate its vast natural splendour. But it is out on a boat that you really feel the ice.

Over the low chugging, throaty sound of the motor, iceberg sounds are diminished, but up close it is a different sense of awe. Ice towers above us with intimidating vertical walls, and the coldness emanating from them takes me by surprise. The sudden drop in temperature is like walking from a summer’s day into the freezer section at the supermarket. To get as close as possible to a calving glacier you can boat 129 kilometres north to the prolific Eqi Glacier, but to really immerse yourself in the region you should also consider travelling across to Disko Island for summertime dog sledding, try whale watching (for humpbacks, finbacks and minkes in summer, and narwhals, belugas and bowhead whales in spring), go kayaking and, of course, fish. Test the waters of activities, then dive on in – this little town and its spectacular surrounds offer supercharged splendour on a (ice) cracking scale.