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For over 70 years, the Inughuit of Northwest Greenland have been fighting for their existence and against the claims of foreign powers. That could change now: After a close alliance between Nuuk and Washington, a rethink is now beginning in Copenhagen.
Nowhere on this planet do indigenous people live as far north as northwest Greenland. The name “Inughuit” means “the great and true people” and refers to a people of hunters and fishermen who were the first people to migrate to the world’s largest island from northern Canada over 4500 years ago.
Because of their remote location, nearly 2,000 kilometers north of south-west Greenland, discovered by Norse Vikings in the 10th century, the Inughuit lived incommunicado well into the 19th century. They were convinced they were the only people on earth.
Forced resettlement in the summer of 1953
That changed abruptly as a result of the world conflicts of the 20th century. At the beginning of the 1950s, the then colonial power Denmark allowed the Americans to set up military bases in Greenland.
The authorities in the country of the Inughuit acted particularly ruthlessly: In the summer of 70 years ago, the Inughuit families living there because of the favorable conditions were resettled more than 100 kilometers further to the more inhospitable north by the Danish colonial authorities in a cloak-and-dagger operation. As a result, the USA stationed some of their strategic B52 nuclear bombers in Thule.
A call for help from the Inughuit to the brother peoples further south in Greenland went unanswered, with the comment that the Inughuit “were not really Greenlanders”, as descendant Ruth Kristiansen recalls.
consequences of climate change
Northwest Greenland remained at the mercy of various non-Inughuit interests for decades: the USA expanded the Thule base into one of its most important foreign bases. The former colonial power Denmark – which is still responsible for Greenland’s foreign policy today – fought with its neighbor Canada until recently the so-called “whisky war” over the sovereignty of an uninhabited island.
Legend:
The Inughuit continue to pursue the controversial polar bear hunt.
Keystone/ KEVIN FRAYER
And even the government of Greenland, which has been autonomous since 1979, paid little attention to the distant Inughuit people, whose living conditions have continued to deteriorate in recent years due to the climate-related retreat of pack ice and snow.
Russia’s war causes rethinking
The consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which violates international law, have now also reached the Inughuit: their home country is becoming a hotspot of geopolitics, as it was during the Cold War. Symbolically, the US military base got its original Inughuit name “Pituffik” back this spring.
Legend:
The US military base in Pituffik, which until recently was called Thule Air Base.
EPO/RITZAU SCANPIX
Greenland’s autonomous governments in Nuuk and Washington have intensified their bilateral cooperation and pledged more support to the Inughuit. Denmark, which fears for its influence in the far north and still has a guilty conscience towards Greenland, has sent a well-paid parliamentary delegation to the far north in the past few days.
They visited what are now the Inughuit population centers in Qaanaaq and Siorapaluk and, according to a media release, had “open and good discussions about the concerns and problems of the local population”.