So how did this icy land come to be named Greenland? I know many of you know this already, but bear with me. I can add a little to the story!
This is a first look at Greenland from the air
Erik the Red
Our tale begins with a Norseman (or Viking) named Erik Thorvaldsson who lived in Iceland; he was nicknamed Erik the Red probably because of his red beard. In about the year 982 he was convicted of manslaughter, what the records of the time refer to as "some killings". (Interestingly, his father had earlier had a similar problem and had been banished from Norway.) Because of his crime, Erik was banished from Iceland for three years, so he sailed west to a land that others had visited before him but where no one had settled. He spent three years exploring the west coast of this large island and then returned to Iceland. Erik showed himself to be a good salesman when he began to recruit others to join him to settle in this western land; he called it Greenland to make it sound like a more comfortable land than Iceland. He gathered a group of colonists who went with him and who established two colonies on Greenland's southwest side.
The Viking Period Continues
Later, Erik's son, Leif Eriksson traveled further west and explored the land there which was then called Vinland and which is now called Canada. The Viking settlements on Greenland lasted for about 500 years and then failed, possibly because of disease, climate change during a much colder period, maybe conflict with the Inuit peoples, and/or pirate raids.
This is the tundra on the approach to Kangerlussuaq
The Inuit People of Greenland
Most of the population of modern Greenland (50,000 of 56,000 people or about 80%) are native Inuit (or Eskimo). Migrations of people from the North American mainland, Canada, probably occurred many times, but the current population are descendants of tribes who arrived in the 1100s. It is their language that is the official language of Greenland, Greenlandic. These people have survived in these difficult Arctic conditions for a thousand years.
Kangerlussuaq Airport
Government
The Inuit do not have total control of the country, however. Greenland became the property of Denmark in 1814 and remains a Danish territory. Denmark's queen, Queen Margrethe II, is the head of state, and Denmark's money, the krone, is the unit of money in Greenland as well. However, with the Self Government Act of 2008, Greenland assumed responsibility for most of its local affairs on June 21, 2009. Finally, the capital of Greenland is Nuuk. Nuuk can be found on the shore of Baffin Bay on the west coast of the island south of Kangerlussuaq. Nuuk is actually only about 400 miles east of Canada!
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