As chronicled in the Sagas of Icelanders, Norwegian sailors (often called Vikings), attempted to found two small colonies near the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, Canada, and a second site in southwestern Newfoundland. Archaeological sites centuries later place these early settlements and the attempted colony of Vinland on North American soil by Leif Erikson in 1003, more than 500 years ahead of Christopher Columbus making landfall in the New World in the much warmer climes of the Caribbean.
And before they got to Canada, those Vikings first settled Greenland in the 980s. And though real estate development has forever been about location, location, location…there is also the longstanding concept of possession being 9/10ths of the law. The Vikings left Newfoundland, and Europeans from Portugal, Spain, France and Great Britain would predominantly claim and ‘tame’ the wilderness of north and south America. But the Vikings and those Icelanders and other Scandinavians hung on to Greenland. Probably the fishing was good.
Several indigenous people’s predate the Norse settlements of Greenland and its harsh climates, including the Thule tribe, ancestors of the modern Inuits, who migrated there from Canada early in the 10th century. The Vikings who arrived later that same century, led by Erik the Red, established two main settlements known as the Eastern and Western settlements. Erik named the large island “Greenland”in an effort to attract settlers to the barren, icy landscape, in perhaps the first documented instance of real estate marketing. The Norse population grew there over several centuries, with their first Bishop arriving in 1126. However by the 15th century, the Norse settlements began a period of decline, due to a combination of changing climate and their isolation from the rest of Europe. Sound familiar?
The Danes replace the Vikings
The kingdom of Denmark sent a missionary expedition to Greenland in 1721, in effort to convert the indigenous Inuits to Christianity. By that time the missionaries found no remaining Norse colonists nor their descendants, but instead established contact and trade with the Inuits, leading to significant cultural exchanges. Greenland became a Danish colony, round about the time the concept of America was brewing in the minds of British colonists to the south in what would become the United States of America.
By the 19th and 20th centuries, Greenland had undergone significant changes including increased Danish settlement, other European exploration and whaling activities. The Inuit culture also persisted in the more northern parts of the huge island. While Greenland continued as a Danish colony and later territory, in 1979, Greenland became a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, with the Danes assisting in the management of domestic and foreign affairs as well as national defense. The population of Greenland has grown to about 57,000.
In 1916, the U.S., an emerging world power, purchased the Danish West Indies, now the U.S. Virgin Islands, from the Kingdom of Denmark for $25-million in gold. As part of that treaty, the U.S. also declared it had no objection to the Danish government extending its “political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland“ formally recognising Danish sovereignty.
Earlier, in 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward had negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Even then beachfront property went for a premium, Alaska became a 586,412 square miles territory, with an acquisition cost of about two-cents an acre. Seward also ordered an extensive survey of Greenland, which he viewed as giving the U.S. strategic and shipping advantages in the future, though no formal offer was ever made to Denmark. Perhaps wounded by the public’s reaction to the Alaska purchase as “Seward’s Folly,” the diplomat moved on.
The U.S. was in an expansionist mood and mode after its Civil War and Russia was dealing with economic challenges following the Crimean War and was divesting territory it found difficult or economically burdensome. In more recent times, Vladmir Putin has expressed interest in the strategic value of restoring the borders of the Russian Empire, which would include Alaska. The mainland of Alaska is only about 53 miles from Russia, and if calculated from the Aleutian Islands, the distance is only 2.4 miles. The U.S. Navy has flown monitoring planes to the edges of Russian air space since the early 1980s, to listen in on Russian Air Defense transmissions. A friend of mine from Jekyll Island was learning Russian right out of high school at the Presidio in California as part of that Naval mission.
Strategic asset? Rare Earth minerals? Polar proximity?
Greenland is a bit farther from the U.S., though technically part of the continent of North America. At the onset of the Cold War, the U.S. established two military bases in Greenland. Formerly Thule Air Force Base and now Pituffik Space Base continues operation to this day in northwest Greenland , roughly 950 miles from the North Pole and primarily providing the U.S. and NATO with an early observation post for any trans-Atlantic missiles crossing the Arctic airspace, or attacks launched from space. And roughly 125 miles farther north and east of Pituffik, is the abandoned Camp Century, originally constructed under 100-feet of glacial ice. However the kingdom of Denmark, and the people of Greenland have given the U.S. military reasonably wide berth, with the possible exception of Inuit resistance to disturbing their less urban and more primitive life-style, hunting and culture in the northern tundra of Greenland. (Source: The Independent)
During his first term in 2016, a century after Seward started eying Greenland, President Donald Trump, first expressed interest in expanding U.S. holdings in Greenland, which has grown further to an outright desire to own the independent territory, for its strategic military importance as well as its rare earth minerals also buried under ice. Climate change is melting Greenland glaciers, and uncovering mineral sites as well as the secrets of Camp Century. The Russian Navy has been building a fleet of ice-breaker ships for decades, and the U.S. has long known that Russian submarines have discovered the benefits of hiding under icebergs, glaciers and large ice flows to prevent radar and space-based detection. Should we go from defunct Cold War to a Defcon #1 hot zone again, it is likely that war will begin flying over the polar ice caps.
IF it is logical, though not to me, to lump Greenland with Venezuela or Cuba and other enemies of America to seize territory, then what is to prevent Russia from placing a similar claim on Alaska? Or to dissuade China from moving on Taiwan or either non-ally from making a move on the American territories of American Samoa or Guam, if it suited their ‘strategic interests.’ President Trump has long trumpeted his ability to strike big real estate deals, there should certainly be a deal to expand U.S. access to parts of Greenland which could satisfy America’s strategic interests. We bought Alaska (which was a territory prior to statehood) and the U.S. Virgin Islands (another territory). But if the President is serious about ‘taking’ Greenland by force if necessary…then I will be standing with the people of Greenland.
I am a proud American, Georgian and southerner, but if we are truly a nation of laws, and support self-determination of government by the people, there is simply NO justification for seizing another sovereign nation, like Ukraine or Chinese aggression towards Taiwan. Even serious consideration of this path places us on a global trajectory more isolated than either of this world’s two other main super powers.