Greenland: The Politics of a New Northern Nation

Few Canadians realize that Europe begins twenty-six kilometres from Canada's eastern coast at Nares Strait in the Northwest Territories. Unlike the two small French islands, St Pierre and Miquelon, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Greenland is a huge piece of Danish real estate, which at some two million square kilometres is the largest island in the world, covering about the same area as continental Western Europe. However, close to nine-tenths of Greenland is uninhabitable. A huge ice cap, in some places I to 2 kilometres thick, covers most of the island. Only the coast, particularly in the southwest, offers conditions which even in Arctic terms are suitable for habitation and the building and the maintenance of a society. Although the coastline is about 40,ooo kilometres, Greenland's total population is only 52,347, most of whom live along the southwestern coast. Why are there so few inhabitants? There are several reasons. First, northern conditions do not encourage large populations. Canada's Northwest Territories (3,379,684 square kilometres) has a population of only 43,000. Second, people do not usually settle in a place unless they can live off the land in one way or another. And until recently living off the land, or rather the sea, in Greenland as in northern Canada, meant depending on hunting and fishing for one's living. With permafrost and