By Sasha Alex Lessin, Ph.D. (Anthropology, UCLA)
Across history, two currents compete for Greenland. One is the murderous domination syndrome—empires, corporations, and militaries grabbing land, resources, and strategic positions. The other is the cooperative partnership current, echoing the Great Goddess tradition—local peoples living in balance with sea, ice, and sky. This timeline traces Greenland from its first inhabitants to its role in World War II and today’s Arctic scramble, showing how outside powers repeatedly sought to harness the island for their own purposes.
2500–500 BCE SAQQAQ PEOPLE FROM CANADA MIGRATED TO GREENLAND’S ICE EDGE
Small Saqqaq Paleo-Arctic hunting bands reached Greenland from Arctic Canada. The Saqqaq culture mastered seal and caribou hunting, sled travel, and survival in one of Earth’s harshest climates. Life centered on seasonal movement and intimate knowledge of ice and weather. These first Greenlanders represented the partnership way—people adapting to nature rather than trying to conquer it.
The Saqqaq culture flourished primarily along West Greenland’s coast, especially around Disko Bay, Sisimiut, and Nuuk. Archaeologists find the densest sites on resource-rich coastal stretches of western Greenland. Sites also appear in southeast and east Greenland, reaching as far as Scoresby Sund. Isolated traces exist on Ellesmere Island and the northeastern Greenland islands. Overall distribution extended from northern Thule to southern Nanortalik. The Saqqaq were primarily coastal marine hunters, so they followed shorelines and seasonal sea-ice zones rather than occupying the deep interior.
500 BCE–1200 CE: THE DORSET ERA
The Dorset culture followed the Saqqaq culture. The Dorsets left carved masks and ritual art that hint at deep spiritual life. Dorset hunters thrived for over a thousand years without agriculture, relying on seals, walruses, and seabirds. Their world revolved around cycles of ice, animals, and stars. No outside empire touched Greenland in this era. The land itself shaped Dorset culture.
1200 CE–present: THE THULE INUIT ARRIVED
Ancestors of today’s Inuit migrated eastward from Alaska with advanced technology: dog sleds, kayaks, umiaks, and efficient whale-hunting tools. The Thule Inuit spread across Greenland’s coasts and became the island’s enduring culture. Their survival strategy embodied cooperation between families, animals, and the environment.
982–c. 1450 CE NORSEMEN SETTLED IN GREENLAND ALSO
Eric the Red came to Greenland from Norway. Erik, originally named Erik Thorvaldsson, was born in Norway around 950 AD. He settled in Iceland, but was exiled from Norway for his involvement in conflicts and killings. Late in the 10th century, Eric explored Greenland, named it Greenland to attract Norse settlers, and established settlements in southern Greenland from 982 onward. More Norse migrated to Greenland for the next several centuries.
Erik’s voyages contributed to the Norse colonization of Greenland, which lasted for several centuries. Two colonies grew, raising sheep and cattle and trading walrus ivory to Europe. Churches rose in the fjords, linking Greenland to medieval Christendom. Erik’s son, Leif Erikson, sailed from Iceland and visited Greenland around 1000, en route to North America. This was the first arrival of the dominator model—European settlers imposing farms and feudal religion on Arctic terrain.
By the 1400s, the Norse vanished from Greenland, likely undone by colder climate, isolation, and fragile economics.
1721–1900 DANISH COLONIAL GREENLAND
Denmark claimed Greenland and reintroduced European control through missions and a royal trade monopoly. Inuit communities were reorganized around Danish posts and Christian churches. Contact with the outside world remained tightly restricted. For two centuries, Greenland existed mainly as a remote appendage of a European kingdom.
1900–1939 SCIENCE AND STRATEGY IN GREENLAND
Explorers and scientists turned Greenland into a center for polar research. Radio stations and weather posts multiplied. Aviation pioneers realized Greenland sat directly on the shortest route between North America and Europe. Quietly, the island transformed from a remote colony into a strategic high ground.
1939–1945 WORLD WAR II – ATLANTIC POWERS DEFENDED GREENLAND FROM NAZIS
Control of Greenland meant control of North Atlantic shipping lanes, trans-Atlantic air routes, and weather information. Accurate forecasts decided the fate of convoys, submarine patrols, and bombing raids. Whoever knew the Arctic weather first held a military advantage.
AMERICA OCCUPIED GREENLAND
When Nazi Germany occupied Denmark in 1940, Greenland stood unprotected. In 1941 the United States signed an agreement with Danish representatives allowing America to defend Greenland. The U.S. built a chain of airfields and bases, known as Bluie West One and Bluie West Eight. Greenland became a vital link in the aircraft ferry route that moved thousands of American planes to Britain. For Washington, Greenland served as an unsinkable aircraft carrier and a North Atlantic lifeline. Britain feared Germany might use Greenland to aid U-boats or to gather weather intelligence. The Royal Navy supported American moves to secure the island. Allied weather stations in Greenland helped plan naval convoys and later major operations such as D-Day.
The Nazis had no realistic plan to conquer Greenland. What they wanted was weather data. Germany launched secret expeditions to Greenland’s remote eastern coast to set up clandestine meteorological stations. Operations such as Operation Holzauge—Wooden Eye—sent small teams by ship and submarine to transmit Arctic forecasts back to Europe. These forecasts guided U-boat operations and Luftwaffe planning.
In 1944 U.S. forces captured German weather operatives in Northeast Greenland—the last armed German units to surrender in the war. Greenland never saw major battles, yet it played a silent, decisive role in Allied victory.
1947–1991: THE COLD WAR – GREENLAND BASED ANTI-SOVIET RADAR
After the war, Greenland’s importance only grew. The United States established massive facilities such as Thule Air Base in northern Greenland. Early-warning radar lines monitored Soviet bombers and missiles approaching over the pole. Secret projects even planned to hide nuclear missiles beneath the ice sheet. Greenland became part of the global machinery of superpower confrontation.
1979-2024: GREENLAND, AUTONOMOUS DANISH TERRITORY
Greenland gained Home Rule in 1979 and expanded Self-Government in 2009. Climate change now melts ice and opens new shipping routes. Rare earth minerals, oil, and gas draw fresh attention from the U.S., Europe, Russia, and China. Once again, outside powers circle Greenland, eager to harness its strategic position and resources.
2025: TRUMP CLAIMS FOR GREENLAND FOR U.S. — RESISTED BY NATO
In 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly expressed interest in the United States acquiring Greenland, framing the idea as a strategic necessity rather than a symbolic gesture. The proposal immediately drew global attention, not because it was entirely unprecedented, but because it revealed how sharply Greenland’s geopolitical value had risen in the 21st century.
Greenland occupies a pivotal position between North America and Europe, commanding Arctic air routes, submarine passages, and access to emerging polar shipping lanes as sea ice retreats. The island also hosts the long-standing Thule Air Base, a cornerstone of U.S. missile warning and space surveillance infrastructure since the Cold War.
The response was swift and firm. Denmark, which retains sovereignty over Greenland, rejected the proposal outright. Greenland’s own elected government emphasized that the island is not for sale, asserting its growing autonomy and right to self-determination. European allies echoed this stance, and NATO made clear that territorial acquisition among allies fell outside acceptable norms.
Rather than advancing formal negotiations, the episode crystallized a broader reality: Greenland now stands at the intersection of U.S., European, Russian, and Chinese strategic interests. Washington subsequently increased diplomatic engagement, reopening a U.S. consulate in Nuuk and expanding economic and scientific cooperation, while carefully stepping back from the language of ownership.
Historically, the controversy underscored a recurring pattern in Greenland’s long story. From Paleo-Arctic hunters to Norse settlers, from Danish colonial administration to modern superpower rivalry, the island repeatedly drew outside powers seeking access, advantage, and control—while its inhabitants adapted, negotiated, and resisted incorporation on their own terms.
Greenland today remains neither isolated nor passive, but an active participant in shaping its future at the center of Arctic geopolitics.
CONCLUSION
From Inuit hunters to Viking settlers, from Danish missionaries to American generals, Greenland has shifted roles again and again. Yet beneath every wave of domination, the partnership current endures—the Inuit knowledge of ice, sea, and sky. Today the island stands at another crossroads. The question remains the same as always: Will Greenland serve empires, or will it guide the world toward a wiser partnership with the Earth?
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