Matthew M. Ployhart
I lurched forward in my seat as the boat slammed down into the icy waters of the Arctic after racing over another large wave. Ortu, sitting next to me, seemed unphased. A tall man in his twenties, he was a local who had been working as the skipper’s assistant for some time. His goal, he told me, was to eventually study and work in tourism, but for that he needed a higher education.
I looked out through the window, over the railing of the tiny speedboat at the dark water beyond, populated sparsely with large icebergs in addition to smaller pieces of sea ice. In the distance, the snowy, sloping mountains of Disko Island loomed behind us, plateauing at their tops like massive trapezoids. Having sat inside the speedboat’s tiny cabin for the past hour, I decided to throw on what little winter gear I had taken off and step outside onto the small platform on the back of the boat. Refitting two pairs of gloves to my hands, buttoning my coat, and tying the ear flaps of my ushanka over my beanie, I stepped through the small back door into an icy blast of wind.
I pulled my scarf up to cover my nose so that only my eyes were exposed to the air, as I stepped back against the wall of the boat’s exterior to shelter myself from the cold wind as much as possible. But the views were beautiful, and as we grew closer to Ilulissat, the sea ice grew thicker and thicker. A sudden sharp turn to avoid an iceberg nearly threw me headfirst into the frigid waters of Disko Bay, but I stabilized myself just as the back door opened once again and Ortu walked out, a pack of cigarettes in his hand.
“Figured I’d step out for a smoke,” he shouted over the noise of the wind and the engine and with a smile. The water had grown calmer, and as the boat slowed as we approached thicker sea ice, I decided to ask him a potentially politically-sensitive question on a topic that had been arousing my curiosity the entire trip:
“What do people think about the Danes?” I asked.
“The Danes?” Ortu turned to me, and for a moment I worried that my question was insensitive, but he continued to answer as if nothing were amiss. “Old people still dislike the Danes,” he shrugged before taking another puff of his cigarette, one hand holding a vertical handrail against the wall for support. “Young people don’t really care.” By which he meant that there exists a generational divide regarding views of Greenland’s former colonizers – colonizers whom many argue still possess Greenland unfairly.
Photo: Mountains on Disko Island as seen from Disko Bay, Greenland.
From 1721 onward, Denmark maintained some degree of influence in Greenland. Although Norse Vikings, such as Erik the Red, had attempted settlement of parts of Greenland as early as the 900s CE, European settlement and investment on the largest non-continent island in the world would not hasten until the early-to-mid-1800s, as the demand for whale oil continued to explode across the Western World. As European-run whaling settlements sprang up across the coasts of Greenland, the Danes continued to maintain control and influence over the territory.
During the Second World War, the Greenland was cut off from Europe due to German occupation of Denmark, resulting in a US-led effort to airdrop essential supplies to communities on Greenland’s west. Following the War, European capitals, including Copenhagen, began to release their colonies from imperialist domination under the pressure of a United Nations that was adopting an increasingly anticolonial stance. However, Greenland, rather than receiving full independence, was turned into a province of Denmark in 1953, and was granted representation in the Danish parliament (the Folketing). Greater control over Greenland was further offered to the local government, based in the city of Nuuk, in the 1978 Greenland Home Rule Act, and again in 2009, when Denmark passed the Self-Government Act. As of 2009, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Greenland is now provided with “a legal basis…to take over additional authority from Denmark, including over matters exclusively related to Greenlandic domestic affairs and legislative and executive power in the area of natural resources.” However, Greenland is still unable to take on matters related to foreign, defense, and security policy, which remain with Denmark.
Nevertheless, despite these modest gains for those longing for greater Greenlandic autonomy, there are many who have called and continue to call for the territory to be fully independent, much of which stems from a distrust of the Danes. The Danes, after all, were an imperialist power that occupied Greenland for much of its history, and there are some who can still remember the hardships inflicted upon the local Inuit peoples by them.
Denmark.dk, which advertises itself as “the official website of Denmark,” seems to have forgotten this when they declare that “once we were brutal Vikings. Now we are one of the world's most peaceful societies.” That may be true in many ways, as Denmark was ranked fourth in terms of quality of life and thirteenth overall when compared to 84 other countries in 2022, according to the US News & World Report, with a robust welfare program and a government that is “is perceived as highly stable and very transparent.”
Yet this same government continued to involve itself in environmentally-destructive resource-gathering on Greenland’s mainland and off the coast in the lead-up to and aftermath of independence, and oversaw a horrific 1951 experiment that sought to procure indigenous Inuit children and provide them with a “civilized,” modern education in Denmark. This latter effort resulted in the essential kidnapping and failed cultural assimilation of 22 individuals in what was known as the “Greenland Children Project” (although the Danish government would apologize for this several decades later). As of last year, Al Jazeera noted that six of these individuals were still alive, indicating the degree to which many in Greenland still hold harsh memories of Denmark’s activities on the island.
A week before my conversation with Ortu, I had the opportunity to visit a small art exhibit dedicated to Greenland at the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen. The exhibit entrance displayed an orange propaganda poster on which, in large, black letters, it stated: “FOREIGNERS, PLEASE DON'T LEAVE US ALONE WITH THE DANES!” Although originally intended as a criticism of conservative Danish immigration policy and xenophobia, one can easily see how the message applies to the situation that many Inuit Greenlanders find themselves in, as well.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), “in a 2008 referendum, 75 percent of Greenlandic citizens voted in favor of the Act on Greenland Self-Government, which expanded the island’s control over the police, courts, and coast guard, among dozens of other areas.” Furthermore, the act establishes that Greenland could theoretically gain independence through referendum with Danish Parliamentary approval. In April of last year, a draft constitution was even proposed to Greenland’s parliament (the Inatsisartut). As of 2019, over two-thirds of adults in Greenland still support independence, and Greenland’s Prime Minister, Múte Bourup Egede, is also in favor of a gradual independence, as noted by the CFR.
However, many younger Inuit do not share the same skepticism towards the Danes as their older counterparts, such as Ortu. A member of the Inuit community, from the small, sparsely-populated town of Qeqertarsuaq, Ortu remarked how much he liked the beauty of Greenland, but then also commented on his appreciation for the Danish lifestyle:
“Sometimes I get jealous when I see my friends post on Instagram from Copenhagen, and they’re wearing t-shirts and shorts in the warm weather,” he laughed before taking another puff from his cigarette and tossing it off the back of the boat into the ocean. Young people, a guide told me, are often opposed to independence due to the mining and excavating operations that the Greenlandic government would need to invest in to keep itself afloat – a reality that many young environmentalists would rather not accept. Yet, the practical difficulties that an independent Greenland would face run much deeper than this.
Ortu’s step out into the frigid cold for a smoke, while no doubt a personal preference, highlights a larger trend in Greenland. On a visit to the remote settlement of Oqaatsut – a village with a population numbering in the twenties that is only accessible via boat or dogsled – a guide told me and my companions that, if we wanted to make friends with the locals, we should consider bringing cigarettes or, even better, whisky. In fact, the provision of such common items like cigarettes and whisky can be difficult not just in Oqaatsut, but all throughout Greenland.
Photo: In Oqaatsut settlement, Greenland.
80% of the island is covered in ice, but the coastal margins of the island are inhabitable, with a population of 56,000 people, the majority of whom live on the west coast (the east coast does have human settlements, but they are far fewer, with greater numbers of polar bears, which are dangerous to humans). Greenland does have plentiful resources, but they are hard to access and difficult to harvest. According to a Los Angeles Times article in 2019, “no two towns [in Greenland] are connected by road. Also, it has a very small population, so you don’t have a big labor force to work with. And because of the climate, the season for exploration is short — you only have two or three summer months each year.”
This is something that I saw for myself while in Greenland. Although it was nearly June, and during the dry season, almost half of the time I was there it snowed, and lows in some places could be as much as -12.2ºC (10ºF). I landed in Kangerlussuaq, in Greenland’s west, after departing from the busy airport in Copenhagen, only to be met with a small, remote airbase in a town of 500 and one general store. In fact, the airport had been constructed by the US military in 1941, and harbored an America-run radar station up until 1992, during the Cold War, when American interest in maintaining a military presence in the arctic was high (in order to monitor against potential Soviet nuclear attacks). Today, visitors to virtually anywhere in Greenland must arrive through either Kangerlussuaq or Nuuk, via Iceland or Denmark. Additionally, transport to other towns and settlements is often only possible via sea or, for much of the year, dogsled.
Thus, not only does Greenland not possess a thriving tourism economy, but transporting resources into and out of its various towns and cities can be difficult. Disko Island – the largest island off the coast of Greenland, and one of the largest in the world – is without a single airport, and we were only able to make the journey via ferry. Due to harsh winter conditions, dogsled is still a dominant form of transportation over much of the region, and from Oqaatsut to Qeqertarsuaq, and even in larger cities like Ilulissat, the number of dogs often matches that of people (the police station in Ilulissat even has its own official dogsled, painted white with yellow stripes to signal its authenticity as a police vehicle). The result is that commodities – even simple things such as cigarettes, whisky, or vegetables – can be difficult to ship depending on weather conditions, and are more expensive due to the complex shipping they must endure before arriving at their destination (a friend and I, splitting the cost of the cheapest bottle of wine we could find on the menu at a restaurant in Ilulissat, still each paid the equivalent of $37). But the infrastructural challenges facing Greenland extend beyond the mere distribution of resources and goods.
Photo: Sled dogs in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland.
Although Our World in Data reports that virtually all of Greenland has access to electricity (with a significant amount of that energy stemming from renewable sources, and “a 100% renewable energy system for Greenland [being] economically feasible,” according to an article in the research journal Energy), Greenland’s infrastructure still has many shortcomings beyond a simple lack of connection between its various towns and cities.
For one, many in Greenland still live without running water or household plumbing. Even in Ilulissat, one can still find the working public water pumps, surrounded by blue-painted plywood, that service those without indoor plumbing. In Oqaatsut, where inhabitants lack indoor shower and bath facilities, there is even a public shower; and the toilets, rather than utilizing a water-flush mechanism, collect waste in a disposable plastic bag instead. Although conditions have improved remarkably in recent years throughout much of Greenland, an article in the Hygiene and Enviornmental Health Advances research journal reports that, “in rural Greenland (i.e., in settlements <500 inhabitants)…the vast majority of households (80%) live in un-piped homes, collecting treated drinking water from public taps – as well as untreated alternative water from natural sources.”
Medical facilities across the territory are in a sparse state, as well. A guide in Qeqertarsuaq, with some 800 residents, remarked that the town was fortunate enough to have its own dentist, as well as a doctors’ office capable of treating patients with minor injuries. But for something more serious than a broken bone, patients would need to sail or, in an emergency, be air-lifted via helicopter to the hospital in Ilulissat, which has more resources at its disposal. Yet even then, a guide in Ilulissat stated that for major surgeries, one must journey all the way to Nuuk, far down south, for necessary treatment.
Photo: A red building and, behind it, the red hospital in Ilulissat, Greenland.
In a study published by the National Library of Medicine in 2021, it is noted that “the overall incidence of [medical] evacuations [in Greenland] was 7.7 evacuations per 1,000 inhabitants per year.” The inconvenience of having to airlift individuals to medical institutions is even more stark when considering that, in this study alone, “The cost of a medical evacuation ranged from less than 4,800 US dollars to more than 50,000 US dollars per case.”
A significant cultural divide exists regarding health, as well. The National Library of Medicine also notes that, “the vast majority of physicians working in Greenland are Danish,” which has led to cultural tensions in some instances. My Ilulissat guide, for example, recalled an instance in which a Danish nurse attempted to turn her away from a hospital when she came to seek medical treatment, due to the nurse not believing her ailment to be legitimate (this nurse was later fired for unprofessionalism). The reliance of Greenlandic medical institutions on Danish expertise also indicates a difficult fate for the health industry should Greenland obtain independence from Denmark.
Another factor to consider is education. As I travelled around Greenland’s west coast, besides the colorful buildings and lack of street signs, something always felt slightly off. Only several days later did one of my friends jokingly remark that “this place is run by babies,” and this was based on an observation: everywhere we travelled, most of the people we encountered were older adults or very young children. Babies and toddlers were everywhere, being pushed in strollers or out for walks with their parents. Adolescents, though indeed around, were not nearly as common. Although primary and secondary education, totaling ten years, is mandatory for children in Greenland, according to Statistics Greenland, not every settlement or town possesses teachers or schools capable of instructing higher grade levels. Thus, “children from small settlements [often] need to leave their home and move to the nearest town in order to attend 8-10 grade.” Students wishing to obtain a college-level education must travel even further: “as only a few higher educations are offered in Greenland, around 30 per cent of the students study abroad, the majority study in Denmark.”
Additionally, there are tremendous benefits to remaining in the Danish system. According to Nordic Co-operation, as a municipality of Denmark, healthcare and education in Greenland is free. Although Greenland could certainly institute these measures in its own, independent nation, should the country ever separate from Denmark, paying the money that this would cost could be difficult, especially given Greenland’s low population (and therefore lower tax revenue). This is especially true considering the large financial resources they receive from Denmark. As noted by the International Trade Administration (ITA), “Denmark provides Greenland with an annual block grant of DKK 3.9 billion — roughly USD 511 million — which accounts for approximately 20 percent of Greenland’s GDP and more than half of the public budget.”
Finally, Greenland, which is currently under NATO protection through Denmark, would likely lose its “overseas country and territory status” within the European Union. The country also “hosts the Danish Joint Arctic Command and U.S. military forces,” as noted by the CFR. Ultimately, an independent Greenland’s security measures remain relatively unclear; although Iceland, which was in a similar situation after gaining independence from Denmark in 1944, is now a NATO member – Greenland could thus presumably follow in Iceland’s footsteps.
Nevertheless, there are still reasons to hope that an independent Greenland could indeed achieve the same – or even better – standard of living for its citizens should it separate itself from Denmark. As of 2022, recent projects have been proposed to explore the potential for greater hydropower electricity production in Greenland’s southwest, according to the ITA. Furthermore, Greenland is also investing in the construction of new or expanded airports that would allow far greater numbers of tourists to visit each year. The ITA notes that renovations on the airports in Nuuk and Ilulissat are on track to be completed this year, while the state-owned travel website Visit Greenland boasts the completion of three brand new airports by 2026, which, they claim, “promise more frequent, cost-effective travel options, making Greenland an increasingly accessible destination for adventurers and explorers.”
Additionally, Greenland still possesses a modest economy based largely on fishing and hunting. According to the Los Angeles Times, as much as 90% of the Greenlandic economy is based on “marine-driven resources,” such as fishing. In addition, despite the difficulty of resource collection – especially given the oftentimes cold, harsh conditions – Greenland has a wealth of natural resources and minerals. The Los Angeles Times reports that, “the resources that have been identified include zinc, gold, iron ore, uranium and various other metals.” Yet mining them, as mentioned, is costly, difficult, and often at odds with the demands of environmentalists who wish to preserve, rather than disrupt, the natural arctic ecosystems.
Nevertheless, in a global political climate that sees many countries increasingly at odds with each other, and under pressure to reduce their dependence on rivals, rare earth metal deposits are “drawing the eye of foreign investors, including both China and Western countries,” as noted by the CFR. Furthermore, “Arctic nations, meanwhile, are already pursuing Arctic Ocean oil and gas reserves, which could account for between 10 and 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered fossil fuels.” Indeed, under 2009’s Self-Government Act, revenue gained from mineral resources belongs to Greenland. If Greenland’s own revenue is high enough, the IEA notes, then Denmark’s annual subsidy to Greenland would be reduced until it becomes zero, and “negotiations on the future economic relationship between Denmark and Greenland will begin.”
Furthermore, as the climate changes due to human-induced global warming, speculative visionaries are already eying the economic potential that a warmer Greenland could possess. To be clear, this is a process that will take a considerable amount of time to play out, but it is still occurring shockingly fast. On a hike through the rocky hills nearby Ilulissat, we were told to stick to the rocks whenever possible, as the permafrost in the dirt was melting directly under our boots. “It was called ‘permafrost,’” a Danish guide, Maxim, stated, “but it turns out that it’s not as permanent as was once thought.”
However, despite the environmental degradation and catastrophic consequences that global warming is causing to the arctic, people are searching for opportunity, and not just in Greenland. Famously, China recently announced its interest in exploring the possibility of a new shipping route to Europe that would take Chinese cargo north and then west, around Russia, through the Artic Ocean, using a hypothetical railway to transport goods from a port town in Norway to Central Europe. According to a recent article in The Economist, this proposed shipping route would see Chinese products heading to Europe arrive after a swift 18 days (as opposed to the 34 or 45 days it would take to transport goods via the Suez Canal or around the southern tip of Africa, respectively). Although ice in the arctic is not yet melted enough to see this project through, Greenland’s centrally-located position indicates a large potential for prosperous port cities as more and more of its precious ice melts (it is currently losing “234 billion tons of ice per year,” or roughly 6,324 Empire State Buildings annually, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s Center for Science Education).
Photo: Part of the Greenland Ice Sheet, as seen from the air outside of Ilulissat.
As of today, it is still unclear whether or when Greenland will pursue independence definitively. Already, measures are being planned or have been put into place to promote the financial health and self-sufficiency of the country. And Greenland undoubtedly possesses a future potential to serve as a location of vital port cities, a seller of rare earth minerals, and an exporter of energy via hydroelectricity. As quoted by the CFR, New York Times journalist Steven Erlanger noted that global warming is “amplifying competition in the Arctic as never before, opening the region to greater commercial and strategic jostling just at a moment when Russia, China and the West are all seeking to expand their military presence there.” With a Greenlandic parliamentary election scheduled for next year, it is likely that independence will continue to be one of the region’s most central issues.