Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark and is the largest of the kingdom's three constituent parts by land area, the others being Denmark proper and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenland are citizens of Denmark. They are thus citizens of the European Union (EU), although Greenland is not part of the EU. It is the world's largest island and lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The capital and largest city is Nuuk.
A
[edit]- For Greenland is a barren place,
A land where grows no green,
But ice and snow, and the whale-fish blow,
And the daylight’s seldom seen, brave boys!
And the daylight’s seldom seen!- Anonymous, The Greenland Fishery (18th cent.) st. 10, in The Oxford Book of Ballads (1910) p. 842
C
[edit]- As Men in Greenland left beheld the sun
From their horizon run;
And thought upon the sad half-year
Of cold and darkness they must suffer there:So on my parting mistress did I look.- Abraham Cowley, "The Parting", sts. 1–2. The Mistress (1667) p. 73
- The Icelander Biœrn of Skardsa...relates that Jon Grœnlander, a Hamburgh seaman, was thrice driven among the Greenland islands, where he saw fishers' huts like those of Iceland, but could discern no people in the neighbourhood. Fragments of shattered boats, according to the same authority, have frequently been stranded on the coast of Iceland; and in 1625, an entire canoe was driven on shore, compacted of sinews and wooden pegs, and smeared over with blubber. An oar has since been found, inscribed in Runic characters, with the words, Oft var ek dasa, dur ek dro thik: "Oft was I tired, while I drew thee."
- David Cranz, Historia om Grönland (Stockholm, 1769) p. 344. Translated as The History of Greenland (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820) vol. 1, p. 244
D
[edit]- In my first voyage not experienced of the nature of those climates, and having no direction either by Chart, Globe, or other certaine relation in what altitude that passage was to be searched, I shaped a Northerly course and so sought the same toward the South, and in that my Northerly course I fell upon the shore which in ancient time was called Groenland, [...] the land being very high and full of mightie mountaines all covered with snow, no viewe of wood, grass or earth to be seene, and the shore two leagues off into the sea so full of yce that no shipping could by any meanes come neere the same. The lothsome view of the shore, and irksome noyse of the yce was such, as that it bred strange conceites among us, so that we supposed the place to be wast and voyd of any sensible or vegitable creatures, whereupon I called the same Desolation.
- John Davis (1585), in Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, edited by Edmund Goldsmid (Edinburgh, 1887) vol. 6, p. 217
L
[edit]- Nunarput utoqqarsuanngoravit
Niaqqut ulissimavoq qiinik.
Qitornatit kissumiaannarpatit
Tunillugit sineriavit piinik.Akullequtaasutut merlertutut
Ilinni perortugut tamaani
Kalaallinik imminik taajumavugut
Niaqquit ataqqinartup saani.- Our country, which has become so old your head is all covered with white hair,
Always held us, your children, in your bosom and gave us the riches of your coasts.As middle children in the family, we blossomed here, Kalaallit
We want to call ourselves before your proud and honorable head. - Henning Jakob Henrik Lund, "Nunarput utoqqarsuanngoravit" (1912) sts. 1–2, in James Minahan, The Complete Guide to National Symbols and Emblems (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009) vol. 2, p. 701
- Our country, which has become so old your head is all covered with white hair,
M
[edit]- A stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock
Hewn from the living marble of the rock
Or sprung from mermaids, and in ocean's bed
With orcs and seals in sunless caverns bred,
They might have held, from unrecorded time
Sole patrimony in that hideous clime,
So lithe their limbs, so fenced their frames to bear
The intensest rigours of the polar air;
Nimble and muscular and keen to run
The rein-deer down a circuit of the sun;
To climb the slippery cliffs, explore their cells,
And storm and sack the sea-birds citadels;
In bands, through snows, the mother-bear to trace
Slay with their darts the cubs in her embrace,
And while she licked their bleeding wounds to brave
Her deadliest vengeance in her inmost cave.
Train'd with inimitable skill to float
Each, balanced, in his bubble of a boat,
With dexterous paddle, steering through the spray,
With poised harpoon to strike his lunging prey
As though the skiff, the seaman, car and dart
Were one compacted body, by one heart
With instinct, motion, pulse, empower'd to ride
A human Nautilus upon the tide;
Or with a fleet of Kayaks to assail
The desperation of the stranded whale,
When wedg'd twixt jagged rocks he writhes and rolls
In agony among the ebbing shoals,
Washing the waves to foam, until the flood
From wounds like geysers seems a bath of blood,
Echo all night dumb pealing to his roar
Till morn beholds him slain along the shore.- James Montgomery, Greenland, canto 4. Greenland, and Other Poems, 2nd ed. (London: Strahan and Spottiswood, 1819) pp. 84–5
S
[edit]- “How do you find America?” a reporter asked Ringo Starr just over 61 years ago. The Beatles’ drummer replied: “Turn left at Greenland.”
- "61 years ago, Beatles visit captivated nation", The Oklahoman (9 Feb 2025)
T
[edit]- If anyone thinks that the US Congress would have stood for any sort of troops moved to Greenland, I believe we’d have veto-proof majorities within two weeks.
- Thom Tillis, quoted in Paul Adams, "The smoke has cleared somewhat, but the battle is far from over", BBC News (21 Jan 2026)
See also
[edit]External links
[edit]- Visit Greenland – the official Greenlandic Tourist Board
