As chronicled in the Sagas of Icelanders, Norwegian sailors (often called Vikings) founded two small colonies near the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, Canada, and a second site in southwestern Newfoundland.
Archaeological sites centuries later place these early settlements and the attempted colony of Vinland on North American soil by Leif Erikson in 1003, more than 500 years ahead of Christopher Columbus making landfall in the “New World” in the much warmer climes of the Caribbean.
Several indigenous peoples predate the Norse settlements of Greenland and its harsh climates, including the Thule tribe, ancestors of the modern Inuit, who migrated there from Canada early in the 10th century. The Vikings who arrived later that same century, led by Erik the Red, established two main settlements known as the Eastern and Western settlements.
Erik named the large island “Greenland” in an effort to attract settlers to the barren, icy landscape, in perhaps the first documented instance of real estate marketing. The Norse population grew there over several centuries, with their first bishop arriving in 1126. However, by the 15th century, the Norse settlements began a period of decline due to a combination of a changing climate and their isolation from the rest of Europe.
The Kingdom of Denmark sent a missionary expedition to Greenland in 1721, in an effort to convert the indigenous Inuit to Christianity. By that time, the missionaries found no remaining Norse colonists or their descendants. They instead established contact and trade with the Inuit, leading to significant cultural exchanges.
Greenland became a Danish colony around the time the concept of America was brewing in the minds of British colonists to the south, in what would become the United States of America.
In 1916, the U.S., an emerging world power, purchased the Danish West Indies, which are now the U.S. Virgin Islands. Virgin Islands, from the Kingdom of Denmark for $25 million in gold.
As part of that treaty, the U.S. also declared it had no objection to the Danish government extending its “political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland,” formally recognizing Danish sovereignty.
Earlier, in 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward had negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Apparently, even then, beachfront property went for a premium.
Alaska became a 586,412-square-mile territory, with an acquisition cost of about 2 cents per acre. Seward also ordered an extensive survey of Greenland, which he believed would give the U.S. strategic and shipping advantages in the future. However, no formal offer was ever made to Denmark. Perhaps wounded by the public’s reaction to the Alaska purchase as “Seward’s Folly,” the diplomat moved on.
The U.S. was in an expansionist mood and mode after its Civil War, and Russia was dealing with economic challenges following the Crimean War and was divesting territory it found difficult or economically burdensome.
In recent years, Vladimir Putin has expressed interest in the strategic value of restoring the borders of the Russian Empire, including Alaska. The mainland of Alaska is only about 53 miles from Russia, and if calculated from the Aleutian Islands, the distance is only 2.4 miles. The U.S. Navy has flown monitoring planes to the edges of Russian airspace since the early 1980s, to listen in on Russian Air Defense transmissions. A friend of mine from Jekyll Island was learning Russian right out of high school at the Presidio in California as part of that Naval mission.
During his first term in 2016, a century after Seward started eying Greenland, President Donald Trump first expressed interest in expanding U.S. holdings there. That has grown further into an outright desire to own the independent territory for its strategic military importance and its rare-earth minerals, also buried under ice. The U.S. has had military bases in more remote parts of Greenland since 1951.
If it is logical — though not to me — to lump Greenland in with Venezuela, or Cuba, or other enemies of America to seize territory, then what is to prevent Russia from placing a similar claim on Alaska? Or to dissuade China from moving on Taiwan, if either suited their “strategic interests.”
President Trump has long trumpeted his ability to strike big real estate deals, so surely there should be a deal to expand U.S. access to parts of Greenland that could satisfy America’s strategic interests.