What is Greenland like? Curiosities and history

As technologies advance and everyone is able to share their trips, a trend is emerging to discover rarely visited corners of the planet.

This trend is leading to destinations like Norway, Finland, Alaska o Iceland They are increasingly in demand in search of those photos of little explored landscapes.

But there is a very little visited area, which politically belongs to Europe, but geographically America, which can still be maintained in an almost virgin state, what we do not know is for how long.

We are talking about Greenland, arctic island that we have recently visited on a trip with Polar Lands.

It is the land of eskimos o Inuit, which is how they are really known, since Eskimo is a derogatory word that means raw meat eater.

El original name of Greenland in tongue Inuit es kalaallit nunaat, meaning land of people.

Where is Greenland? Is it a country?

When searching Greenland on the map, we find it in the arctic regions of canada, in the northernmost part of the American continent, but in reality it is an autonomous region that administratively belongs to Denmark.

Despite being part of another country, Greenland has a certain degree of self-government, but is absolutely dependent on Denmark since this Nordic state helps the Greenlanders economically.

Without this help many of the only 57.000 inhabitants of this island would not be able to survive the harsh winters.

Greenland is a country that for much of the year lives frozen and with hardly any hours of sunlight.

But in summer everything changes, there is light all day and the coasts thaw, revealing the impressive fjords full of icebergs that break off from the glacier.

It is an island that is not as close to the North Pole as it may seem, at least the area most visited by tourists, which is the southern area.

Cities like Narsak or even Nuuk are slightly above Scotland and at the height of Norway, Sweden and Finland.

What Greenland is like, facts and curiosities

Here are some amazing facts about Greenland.

After Australia, it is the second largest island in the world, in which almost 80 percent of its surface is a huge glacier thousands of kilometers long.

If you fly across the country, it's the best way to see how impressively big it is.

The glacier is so large that it has the second water reserve in the world.

The ice is almost 3.000 meters deep in some places. which causes there to be areas of the glacier that are so heavy that they sink the ground until they are about 300 meters below sea level.

The populations in Greenland They are concentrated in coastal areas, which, as we have mentioned, thaw in summer.

During the Second World War the Americans used Greenland as an air base, which is why most of the current runways and buildings near airports were built by them.

In fact next to the Qasiurssaq airport is one of the famous cemeteries of waste that the Americans left after leaving Greenland.

What fauna is there in Greenland?

As for animals, most mammals have been introduced, such as sheep and cows, and in the wild there are only polar bears, caribou and arctic foxes.

There are no amphibians, nor many of the insects that usually exist in many parts of the world, such as ants.

Yes, there are quite a few mosquitoes of a large size, especially when the sun comes out and there is no wind.

On its coasts you can mainly see seals, but there are many species of whales and dolphins that pass near the island, so there are areas of Greenland in which the classic tourist activity is watch whales.

As for birds, you can see quite a few eagles and seagulls, as well as many species of smaller birds.

And for those of you who want to know if there are penguins, (many of you have asked me) the answer is no; There are only penguins in the Antarctic, in the southern hemisphere of the planet.

History of Greenland

Greenland It is a region so little explored that in reality there are not many historical records of it.

The only information that has been verified by historians about Greenland, was found in two sagas of stories transmitted orally, in the style of The Songs of My Cid.

Both, both Saga of Eric the Red, such as the Saga of the Dutch, they tell the same feats, Vikings who arrived in Iceland and continued west to conquer new lands.

Little by little they crossed and colonized Greenland, until you reach Vinland, in the current Newfoundland, near the border of Canada with United States.

Many of these data have been confirmed by historical and anthropological studies, hence these sources are taken as valid.

The problem is that another part of the data has not been able to be verified, which does not mean that it is not true; They simply have not been able to be contrasted due to lack of traces or initiatives and means to study them.

Today, after many studies of archaeological remains, it is known that they passed through here sporadically during many different centuries. inuit eskimo tribes  before disappearing and leaving the island uninhabited.

But if these sources are true, several centuries before arriving Christopher Columbus to America. already would have arrived Vikings to Greenland.

Who discovered Greenland?

El discovery of greenland and origin of the first documentation, was the result of one of the many stories of Vikings in which great sailors are mixed with exile and murder.

The official account of discovery of greenland account that it was Eric the Red the first to arrive on the island, after being banished from Iceland, his native country, after a brawl in which he killed two people from his community.

It is said that both he and his father had very bad characters.

This exile was granted to him especially since he and his father were considered great warriors and important people within the community, and in deference to them, his life was spared in exchange for three years' exile.

Eric the Red in Greenland

But it is said that Eric the Red He sailed in that direction because he had already heard stories from other sailors a year ago. Vikings that they had seen fertile and prosperous lands in those waters.

In any case, Erick arrived in 982 to the place of the current population of Narsak in only one longship built with wood.

After studying the coasts, at first he is not too convinced, but he goes further into the interior of the fjords until he reaches the town of Qassiarsuk.

This is where the first stable settlement on American territory that is known would end up being created.

Right in this area where more history viking was developed is where the central camp of Polar Lands, the agency with which we made the trip, just 5 minutes by boat from the airport Narsasuaq.

After three years of exile, Erick He decides to return to Iceland to tell of his exploits, and as a call for his compatriots to join him, he called this new land greenland (Greenland name in English).

It was a way of implying that they were very green and fertile lands and where one could prosper, as opposed to Iceland (name of Iceland in English), which means Ice land, when in fact Iceland It is much greener than Greenland.

It must be taken into account that the Vikings were mainly Farmers, which would end up introducing sheep and pastures to feed them.

To travel to Greenland He gathered 24 drakkas, with about 750 people, of which only 14 arrived.

Erick appropriates the fjord to such an extent that he gives it its name (Eriksfjord, the fjord of Erick) being the first colony viking en Greenland with the intention of settling permanently.

How long were the Vikings in Greenland?

Although it may seem like a lie, the Vikings They did not manage to survive in these lands for more than 400 years and in fact at the end of the XNUMXth century, references to what could have happened to them are lost. They just disappear.

Some sources say that they could have died with the Black Death brought from Europe, or due to conflicts with Inuit, who in those years already shared land with the Vikings or for a small glaciation that there was at that time.

And it must be said that it is a region in which the conditions to survive in winter are really harsh.

And if there was a drop in temperatures, it could have been almost impossible to survive in those years.

Great part of difficulty of surviving in Greenland, also today, is the lack of resources beyond water and fish.

A very curious thing about Greenland is that there's no trees and in fact it is very difficult for them to grow.

In fact we visited a small forest near the town of Igaliku, planted in 2004, with trees that have barely grown that are called the Children's Forest.

It was planted so that young people could see what the trees were.

Therefore, the only way to get wood was to trade or wait for the sea currents to bring logs from distant lands.

First Christian Church of America in Greenland

Leif Ericksson, the son of Eric the Red who believed in Norse mythology, to obtain resources he sailed to Iceland, where he was forced to convert to the Christianity and expand it if you wanted to trade.

During the time they had spent in Greenland there was a current of Christianization that had already reached the Nordic cultures.

After many family discussions with Erick and his wife, ended up agreeing to propagate the Christianity, which led him to build in Qassiarsuk la first Christian church in American territory.

The Vikings They would continue their expansion by developing two more main settlements in the south, Igalicu, y Nuuk, to the southwest (current capital).

Currently, if you want to know which are all the cities in which there were towns Vikings, you just have to look at a map and the cities that have two names are the ones that had culture viking.

In the second half of the 13th century, Norway claims control over Greenland and the decline of the population begins with the lack of resources.

This leads to a decline among the population viking during the 14th century, until its extinction in the 15th century, which curiously coincides in time with the travels of Christopher Columbus.

The Inuit in Greenland

La población Inuit originally comes from the area of Siberia, they crossed the Strait of Bering and they expanded from Alaska to the Arctic lands of Canada.

It is thought that there may have been some tribes Inuit paleo-eskimos in the western part of the island, many centuries before the arrival of the Vikings, since the inuit they were nomads.

In any case, it is known that these populations disappeared and the island remained uninhabited for several centuries.

The first reliable records of their most recent arrivals date back to the beginning of the 14th century, when they settled permanently in Greenland.

It is a nomadic hunting community that moved its settlements based on the movements of wild animals, especially caribou, whales, seals and polar bears.