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Greenland is a beautiful nightmare
- topkai22 1y agoI flew over Greenland coming back from Europe recently. From the air, the fjords and glacial snowscapes there and in northern Canada are profoundly beautiful and completely devoid of signs of humans in a way you don’t see even in some of the remotest parts of the US. Definitely worth opening the shade for if you have the opportunity
- jamesblonde 1y agoThe best flights are to/from Seattle. Copenhagen/Seattle goes over the far north of Greenland.
- tobinfekkes 1y agoSame here. My favorite pictures from flights are from the London/Seattle route over Greenland.
- SilverElfin 1y agoI’ve flown that way but got absolutely blinded by whatever is outside - it was very hard to tell any details on the land below.
- ck2 1y agofun-fact: CIA is currently mucking around in Greenland trying to get rid of people against annexation this is not going to end well https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tusli-gabbard-spy-greenland-b2746117.html https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...
- idiotsecant 1y agoI don't think that's an accurate characterization of either of those articles. It sounds like they're trying to find groups who want to be independent, probably with the goal of artificially propping them up. It's still gross, but not as gross as hunting dissidents.
- morkalork 1y ago>find groups who want to be independent, probably with the goal of artificially propping them up The same thing is happening in Alberta. It is unsettling and disturbing
- a4isms 1y agoNo different than the Russians hunting for American dissidents to prop up. Well, a little different in that the Russians hunted for them in the Senate chamber and golf clubs.
- dismalaf 1y agoThe Trudeau/Carney government is doing that all on their own. Just gonna drop this here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=US-CA&start=2010 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... Edit - for those who don't get it, Alberta derives most of its wealth from oil. Successive Liberal governments have both restricted our ability to sell oil while taking significant amounts of money from Alberta in transfer payments. Since Alberta has a border with the US, we have pipelines going south. All the while the Canadian economy has been severely under-performing relative to the US government. The last 2 points naturally push Alberta away from Canada towards the US, without any potential political interference.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- didibus 1y agoIf you do the math, Alberta would donate even more money if it was a US state. It would owe more federal taxes, and since its population tends younger and well employed, it would get less of it back. You could say the "benefit" could be that getting approvals for pipelines and higher production of oil might be easier to get in the US. That's really just an "if" though. The Keystone XL pipeline was blocked twice by US government. What it should have done is adopt Norway's model. It would have half a trillion in savings already if it had, and wouldn't even need oil, as raw investment could finance its budget alone. But putting all that aside as well. Your average Albertan wouldn't be better off. They'd lose healthcare, education would be more expensive, they'd have a worse retirement fund, and so on. They'd have to pay more tax and get less benefit in return. Plus, there'd be a higher influx of immigrants low balling the jobs and lowering wages. But it’s not too late to change course. If Alberta seriously committed to a Norway style model now, it could still build a fund big enough to make oil dependence temporary. That alone could justify building pipelines to the coast, use it as a bridge until the Heritage Fund becomes a self-sustaining engine of prosperity. It's a convincing argument for the other provinces, and would be great for Canada overall.
- danielscrubs 1y agoExactly my thoughts. I think US ownership (not necessarily of land) is inevitable, but it is going to take a couple of decades of these kind of polarising pieces.
- tokai 1y agoWhy is that inevitable?
- tomrod 1y agoSounds like Danish former colonies aren't the only thing three letter agencies are bumbling around in.
- danielscrubs 1y agoScandinavians are known for being quite naïve and Americans are quite good at psyops (historically). You might expect them to have christian values, but it would be a mistake…
- impossiblefork 1y ago>I think US ownership (not necessarily of land) What would that even mean? Especially the use the word 'ownership'? I think there's zero chance of US long-term influence on Greenland. They simply have no reason to prefer foreign domination, when they can simply be sovereign. I would place independence + EU membership as more probably than any association with the US, and I think them staying within Denmark is much more likely than them becoming independent.
- WalterBright 1y ago> They simply have no reason to prefer foreign domination The reason is they require subsidy to live there. The economy appears to run at a net deficit. The same reason the Vikings gave up on it.
- impossiblefork 1y ago
- lifestyleguru 1y agoOh god, this CIA meddling in never ends well for anyone. I mean afterwards Americans will make a Hollywood movie claiming that situation was complicated and their intentions were good, but it will end up with some sort of hell.
- gruez 1y ago>fun-fact: CIA is currently mucking around in Greenland trying to get rid of people against annexation That's a very misleading phrasing for what's essentially an influence operation. Your wording of "get rid of people ..." implies there's some assassinations/violence going on, but there's nothing to suggest that's happening. If Republicans/Democrats or even Russia was running an influence operation in the US, nobody would characterize that as "getting rid" of opponents or whatever.
- krapp 1y agoEvery "influence operation" of this type by the CIA inevitably involves assassinations and violence. That's what the CIA does.
- gruez 1y agoSource that all/most CIA "influence campaigns" involved "assassinations and violence"? Moreover even if we take at face value that CIA always eventually resorts to assassinations/violence, it's dishonest to claim it's "currently" going on with no evidence of it. It's probably safe to say that most military campaigns involve civilian deaths, but it'd be irresponsible to claim right off the bat that the US military is "currently killing civilians" in the absence of a specific incident.
- sema4hacker 1y agoIn spite of wanna-be-kings like Putin and Trump, the obvious historical trend is for larger empires and countries to break up into smaller independent ones.
- anotherhue 1y agoI note there was no mention of a McDonald's. I for one look forward to the McWhale.
- 77pt77 1y ago[dead]
- tiagod 1y agoNot even Iceland has McDonald's
- sayrer 1y agoThey used to! Anyway, Iceland is really easy to travel to. Everyone speaks perfect English, and the coffee is good. I know a little bit of Icelandic because they think I am Icelandic for some reason (I can read the signs at least, so maybe I don't look lost). There's a street with hot dog stands and stuff right in the middle of the capitol, which they seem to like. There are good hamburger places too, but they are expensive. Greenland is another level.
- ysangkok 1y agoWhy would you want McDonald's when you have pølsevogn? https://www.facebook.com/p/Kunuks-P%C3%B8lsevogn-61575713986903/ https://www.facebook.com/p/Kunuks-P%C3%B8lsevogn-61575713986...
- vintermann 1y agoThis makes sense. Denmark is to pigs what New Zealand is to sheep.
- tptacek 1y agoIt's funny to me that in portraying Indiana as a "blank state" he's highlighting one of the most beautiful parts of the state (the route through the Dunes along the Michigan lakefront; if you've seen "Road To Perdition", you know what that area looks like). It's not important to the article, a complete tangent, but I can't not call that out.
- curl-up 1y agoHaving been to Greenland recently, I found his description of it similarly flawed.
- joecool1029 1y agoIn what way/ways?
- curl-up 1y ago> The first thing you notice when you land in Greenland is there are no trees or grass. There is snow and then there is exposed rock. This is only true of the area around the airport. Even his pictures further into the article show how misleading this description is. I was actually very surprised how little snow/ice there was. Now when I think of Greenland, I think of something similar to [1]. Of course, in the winter, it's a completely different story (I was there in July). But he was there during the warm period as well (as is obvious from his photos). > The city itself sits in a landscape so dramatically inhospitable it makes the surface of Mars look cozy. If you look at a map, you will notice that Nuuk is at the same latitude as Reykjavik. There's a common meme about Iceland being green and Greenland being icy, and that's definitely true if you compare inland or northern Greenland with Iceland during summer (during winter, both are icy and dark), but hiking around Nuuk is a very "green" experience. Yes, there's a ton of mosquitoes, but nature itself is very inviting. I did not get any of the "inhospitable" vibes he mentions. > But again even riding the bus around it is impossible to escape the feeling that this is a fundamentally hostile to human life place. The sun is bright and during the summer its pretty hot, with my skin feeling like it was starting the burn pretty much the second it was exposed to the light. It's hard to even dress for, with layers of sunscreen, bug spray and then something warm on top if you suddenly got cold. This whole section is just overblown BS. All in all, I enjoyed it a lot. Compared to Iceland, it's definitely a lot less "user friendly" and you need to prepare better, but I have never been to a place that is less affected by humans, and in our age, that is something worth experiencing. [1] https://truewindhealingtravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/52256390354_67a2f0a190_k-1170x768.jpg https://truewindhealingtravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08...
- sleddoggs 1y agoNice try, Matt. I think everyone knows you just want Greenland all to yourself.
- pixelpoet 1y agoPoor doggywogs :( Edit: Wow, HN didn't like that. Nevermind, screw the dogs I guess, just toss the frozen ones over the cliff.
- Slava_Propanei 1y agoIf you hang out with sled dogs, you will discover they are the happiest dogs. They go nuts when they get to run or eat, and just chill in their dog houses otherwise.
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- mkl 1y agoYou may want to reconsider your choice of word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog
- pixelpoet 1y agoIt's a common word in (UK, apparently) English, cf. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doggy_woggy https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doggy_woggy I've literally never once heard someone use the ethnic slur "wog", and I grew up in 90s South Africa :)
- strken 1y agoI'm Australian and I might be missing some nuance about other dialects, but doggy-woggy is a completely different word from doggywog. The first is standard rhyming reduplication, while the second is ambiguous but can be read as relating to a couple of different slurs (in my dialect). I have heard people use that word, although a good chunk were using it about themselves and with pride.
- jjgreen 1y agoIt certainly was in the `70s, but faded away after that. Mind you, given the recent surge in popularity of fascists, it might make a comeback.
- ryangibb 1y ago> The second I stepped outside I was set upon by a flood of mosquitos like I have never experienced before. I have been to the jungles of Vietnam, the swamps of Florida and the Canadian countryside. This was beyond anything I've ever experienced. > There are bugs in my mouth, ears, eyes and nose almost immediately. The photo below is not me being dramatic, it is actually what is required to keep them off of me. > In fact what you need to purchase in order to walk around this area at all are basically bug nets for your face. They're effectively plastic mesh bags that you put on. This is pretty standard for Scotland in the summer too.
- FridayoLeary 1y agoThe midges are horrific. It's amazing how something so tiny can make your life so miserable. I don't know how people in the olden days survived. I wonder what kind of social and political effects the midges had. I can imagine Scots with all their gifts of the mind and body fleeing and surrendering to the English just to get away from them.
- WalterBright 1y ago> I don't know how people in the olden days survived. Maybe they found a material they could smear on their body. For a similar example, I have a friend who spends a lot of time hiking and camping. He tells me that the first day, he needs to apply sunscreen. The next day onward, he doesn't need to anymore, as his body oil and sweat seems to do the job. It makes sense that our skin has not evolved to be cleaned every day.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoPeople simply got used to it, for the most part. It takes me a few weeks to readjust to the insects whenever I go back to the Arctic, after which they're just dramatically less annoying. Keep in mind that the swarms you see today are usually a historical anomaly exacerbated by changing conditions in the Arctic. Longer, warmer summers create more spaces for them to breed, and sudden, bitter cold spells in winter affect the predators controlling their population more than the insects themselves. The palearctic region is a very different place than it was centuries ago.
- bikelang 1y agoHaving grown up in northern Indiana and having spent my honeymoon ski touring in Greenland - I must say I don’t find the two to be very comparable. The skiing was significantly better in Greenland and the people much friendlier to boot.
- marssaxman 1y agoCharming, and well written! I'd love to go backpacking there some day - perhaps the Arctic Circle Trail.
- rwmj 1y agoI also thought it was charming and well written, and now have no intention of ever going there!
- Simon_O_Rourke 1y agoBeautiful, but definitely not worth invading or sending our troops to take over, if you don't awfully mind Mr. President.
- dsign 1y agoWell, US has the base near Guantanamo; I haven't been to that side but I have been to Guantanamo proper... trust me, that place is hot and has mosquitoes and two decades ago the naval base was almost as infamous as North Korea. And then there's the newly opened "alligator Alcatraz"... I think Mr. President have gotten some ideas for Greenland :-) /s
- WalterBright 1y agoSomebody is likely to take it at some point, for strategic military and resource purposes.
- Symbiote 1y agoDenmark took it centuries ago, and that's how it should stay unless or until the Greenlandic people decide otherwise.
- WalterBright 1y agoThe regular incidence of war going on on our globe suggests that's not sustainable. Why do you think countries spend so much money on their militaries? Me, I'd love it if we could zero out the US defense budget. Unfortunately, that would be a disaster for us.
- spacechild1 1y agoWhat kind of argument is that!?
- WalterBright 1y agoWho controls what territory in the world is hardly stable. At some point, if one is not a military power, one will have to take sides. If, for example, valuable resources are discovered in Greenland.
- tokai 1y ago«This would end up being a theme, where buildings representing Denmark were made out of lots of wood, almost to ensure that you understood they weren't from here.» Wooden buildings is much more of a Swedish or Norwegian thing than Danish. Wood is just a good material for building in the arctic.
- SilverElfin 1y agoWhy is it a good material? I would think steel or reinforced concrete would be better, with cheap corrugated metal paneling. And either way you need reinforced concrete foundations right?
- benrutter 1y agoCertainly for Sweden and Norway, wood is very plentiful, and a good insulator. I don't know if steel would technically be better, but historically at least it would have been harder to get hold of.
- WalterBright 1y agoI considered using metal framing for my house. The contractor told me that would be a mistake, as metal attracted condensation. I decided that following his advice would be a good idea.
- coryrc 1y agoWood is a much better insulator than those two materials. At cold temps even the fasteners holding on cladding over foam sheets is a significant source of lost heat, so if screwed into wood instead of steel framing, you conduct much less heat.
- SilverElfin 1y agoCan’t you put some insulation on fasteners? Or just hold insulation on from the inside without piercing the outside wall?
- b3lm0nt 1y agoEnjoyed this. Reminds me of the great Idle Words (Maciej Ceglowski’s blog) travel posts. Shuffleboard At McMurdo: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm
- wood_spirit 1y agoThere is a YouTuber making a really remote cabin in I think northern Canada called Off Grid Engineering and he has a similar narrative style. Nice :). Recommended
- internet_points 1y agocame to say the same thing :-) I love those posts; this one was right up there with Maciej's
- lesser-shadow 1y ago[dead]
- calmworm 1y ago[flagged]
- Koshkin 1y agoGreenland may be a good place to put data centers on
- calmworm 1y agoI must have missed that bit in the post.
- trollbridge 1y agoLots of hydroelectric power (when they need more electricity in Greenland, they just put up another dam) and lots of access to cooling for data centres.
- tiagod 1y agoFar from being the first time I see it. I don't see why we shouldn't.
- magneticnorth 1y agoThe submission guidelines summed up in a sentence is "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." Travel blogs for remote places definitely do gratify my intellectual curiosity.
- beeforpork 1y agoAlways have. Because it's interesting stuff.
- skrebbel 1y agoYep!
- WalterBright 1y ago[flagged]
- colinb 1y agoI'd like to be respectful, guidelines and all that, but this comment is dismissive of people's real concerns, and frankly a bit arseholey. Do the people who offer to buy your house have armies? Are they keen on deploying drones and missiles against people who annoy them? Maybe the orange man was just joking. Maybe it's all part of some genius strategy to increase the US' standing in the world. Maybe it's a clever scheme to boost the US economy. But from the point of view of the Greenlanders and the Danes it seems to be more like a visit from the mafia. "Nice country you've got here. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it." Sigh. Maybe I'm reading more into your comment than you meant. If that's the case, I'm sorry. If it isn't, I suggest that you stop to consider that your entertainment news may be someone else's threat of violence.
- CapitalistCartr 1y agoThe people wanting to buy your house don't have the World's most powerful military and a penchant for abusing others with it. The store selling cookies or belts want to sell these things, as opposed to being coerced. If I buy your car at gunpoint, the money I leave you with doesn't make my actions legal or ethical.
- WalterBright 1y ago> If I buy your car at gunpoint That isn't buying it. It is stealing it. Threatening to buy is an oxymoron.
- mjmsmith 1y agoMaking you an offer you can't refuse.
- WalterBright 1y agoThat's taking something by force, not buying something.
- planet36 1y ago"The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite." Moby-Dick Herman Melville
- iagooar 1y agoI've had whale when I went to Norway. Was it good? It was OK. Would I have it again? Probably not. Still a nice experience. Also trying cured reindeer, moose and seal slices was pretty unique.
- repple 1y agoWhale meat is so iron rich. Basically eating liver. Now reindeer steak — that’s excellent!
- bookofjoe 1y agoI recall having whale on a regular basis when I was college in Japan in 1968-69. I liked it, though its grey appearance wasn't appealing. I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste.
- laxd 1y ago# I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste. Say what? How can a mollusc taste like meat?
- Simulacra 1y agoI'm not sure what this person expected, they seem to have gone in this with Rose tinted glasses only to come away with it feeling like "Greenland, why?" It's like they set out to prove a point and were disappointed.
- ulrischa 1y agoIs this a US propaganda article to make greenland join the USA?
- iagooar 1y agoI have been to northern Norway and Iceland a few times. It all started when I was running my previous SaaS at the peak of its growth. I needed a break, and wanted to go far away, while still being close enough if sh*t hit the fan. My co-founder had recently talked to some friends who had been to Tromsø, Norway. The place looked perfect, so I booked a 5-day solo trip there. Places that are so distant, with such harsh conditions and few people living there always give me a feeling I do not experience anywhere else in the world. I feel small, irrelevant, in the face of brutal, powerful nature. And believe me, it is a feeling that is overwhelming. But never have I perceived it as something negative. The opposite was true. Feeling small made me feel calm, embracing that that was the right spot for me as part of God's creation. Suddenly, all those dark clouds that followed me everywhere I went back home were... Gone. If you ever have the opportunity to go to one of these places - go. It might change you in profound ways.
- bruce511 1y agoThanks for this. I'm going to Nesseby Norway next summer for 3 days over the solstice. There doesn't look like much to do there, which I guess is kinda the point. I'm looking forward to it.
- timonoko 1y agoPlenty to do, you can for example fish and eat it too: Paddeling from Nesseby to Russia https://youtu.be/nW5sFJKs8K4?si=xbmMz11CRIrC7obk https://youtu.be/nW5sFJKs8K4?si=xbmMz11CRIrC7obk
- marcosscriven 1y agoI had a similar feeling in the Faroe Islands. Even in mid summer the weather was rather inclement. But the landscape was breathtaking, and the locals friendly in a low key way. I’d love to go back.
- Sammi 1y agoMore wind means less mosquitos. One step forward and one step back. Also don't fly with sas to the faroes. They turn back and try again the next day like in the article. Fly atlantic airways, they have equipment to fly through the fog or they will refuel in iceland and try again same day.
- sangeeth96 1y agoI'm not a fan of bugs but it's only when I consume these travelogues I'm reminded that I should be grateful things are nowhere as apocalyptic over where I live in south India.
- epolanski 1y ago> Even professional travel personalities seemed to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. "There's the grocery store again!" Hah, that's exactly the feeling I got when my favorite travel YouTuber went there. Other than what in this post you also had boat excursions which were nice.
- JohnLocke4 1y agoI happen to be one of the Danes who partially grew up in Greenland that he talks about in the article. I even recognize the places from the article. Some of my cordial childhood memories are from there and it is a place I will forever love. One of the most visceral memories I have is looking across the ice fjord listening to the thunderous breaking of the ice bergs - you can hear the sounds on videos, but combined with the enormity of what is in front of you and actually being able to feel the sound in your body it can only be experienced by being there. I can see that the author was initially worried that Greenland would be devoid of anything to do, which is of course not true, as is written in the article. Especially the people are one of a kind in what I can only describe as directness or pragmatism. One time a local from the place I lived was driving his car as it broke down and - rather than having it regularly towed to the mechanic - actually decided to tow it with a group of sled dogs. We just watched him sticking his head out the window shouting commands to the dogs while driving by. The dogs there can distinguish left and right, so it was surprisingly trivial to get the car to the mechanic. The Greenlanders see nothing extraordinary about this. In other words, it is really valuable to have local connections if you want a great vacation in Greenland. I can also recommend the small, mini village settlements that are spread across the coast of the grand county. Some of them have hotels also. I became nostalgic so I wrote a little blog post with some pictures for you people: https://lucasblog.dk/post/Greenland https://lucasblog.dk/post/Greenland
- vintagedave 1y agoThanks for sharing. Can you tell us where the “if you know where this is” photo is, please? And how would you make local connections before visiting?
- JohnLocke4 1y agoI feel like telling you where the picture is taken would spoil a potentially fun experience, so I will not disclose that :) Anyway, making connections is hard, though not impossible. I would recommend the local pubs (which are surprisingly busy given how small settlements are) and finding friends through e.g. work settings.
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- paulcole 1y ago> There is nothing distinct about Indiana, it's just a place full of people who got too tired on their way to somewhere better and decided "this is good enough". This is how Norte Dame was (allegedly) founded. Priests set out from the East Coast, planning to found the greatest Catholic University in the world in California. They get to Indiana and encounter a terrible snowstorm. They hunker down and decide they’ll get moving again when the weather improved. It never did.
- goodmattg 1y agoPerfect weekend read - kudos on a nice piece of writing
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- jeffnappi 1y agoThis video about Camp Century in Greenland is fascinating: https://youtu.be/OndXawgRAeo https://youtu.be/OndXawgRAeo
- nullbyte808 1y agoFunniest shit I've read in awhile on here!
- cozzyd 1y agoI've spent quite a bit of time in kangerlussuaq while on route or on my way back from summit station. Would love to explore more of the country, but even just kangerlussuaq is quite beautiful. I've seen pictures from the east Coast from some pilots based out of Akureyri who were assisting some geologists at Summit one year and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Greenlandic hot dogs are delicious too, similar to Iceland.
- worik 1y agoWhat a wasted trip! How rude, especially about Indiana. They never found out where the people were going in their BMWs The only descriptions of the locals were entirely without sympathy. If this is how Icelanders [edit: Greenlanders, duh!]are treated by Danes, I suggest selling out to Trump!
- mkl 1y agoThe author is American, and no Icelanders were mentioned.
- worik 1y ago> The author is American I assume you mean USAian. Fits my prejudices, which is unfortunate An arrogant prick, anyway
- hollerith 1y agoWe're not going to start using your awkward new word. There's nothing wrong or ambiguous about "American".
- rendall 1y ago> I assume you mean USAian. In English, the word American refers to someone from the United States, and almost all of the languages of the world use some equivalent term: amerikkalainen, Amerikaner, Américain, americano, американец, アメリカ人, أمريكي When speaking South American-inflected Spanish, you might use the word estadounidense and not americano USAian is not a word that anyone uses. I don't make the rules.
- worik 1y ago> n English, the word American refers to someone from the United States, No. It refers to Mexacins, Canadians, Columbians.... The problem with USA expetionalism made clear.
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- tick_tock_tick 1y agoDamn dude did Indiana steal your car or something? That's a lot of hate.
- mckn1ght 1y ago> So if you've ever wonder "what is a glacier", let me tell you. Greenland has a lot of ice and it pushes out from the land that is covers into the sea. When that happens, a lot of it breaks off. This is quite inaccurate and incomplete and the cynicism that follows and pervades the article is offputting. Let me tell you that glaciers are quite fascinating and come in a variety of constructions and have all sorts of interesting and beautiful features like caves and moulins. Watching one calve off something the size of a 5 story building into the sea just a couple hundred yards from my camp was a thrilling experience, the last time I went backcountry kayaking. And listening to another rumbling in the distance every 30 minutes or so at another camp the following night put me to sleep like a distant thunderstorm. I think this article just goes to show that you can find beauty and wonder anywhere if you’re open to seeing it. Even the mosquitoes in interior Alaska don’t bother me because it is simply the world I live in.
- LAC-Tech 1y agoI never understood why Denmark still bothers with Greenland. It seems to cost them a lot of money while at the same time they demand more and more autonomy. Danish isn't even an official language anymore. What does Denmark gain out of the block grant they give to Greenland?
- nsnxnn 1y agoPrime access to the most significant sea in the 21st century as well as lots of resources By most estimates, in the mid 2050s the north artic will be mostly ice free, enabling direct and short travel between the states, Europe and the east
- inglor_cz 1y agoThree centuries together is a long time. Many familial, workplace and friendly bonds tie the countries to one another. Also, as long as the territory is vaguely yours, even in a confederation, it is at least neutral or mildly positive towards you. Not hostile. If everything was about net money transfers, then the US could get rid of at least 15 constituent states, but half of those would be immediately courted by China, eh?
- Espressosaurus 1y agoIt's tiny and inhospitable, but it's beautiful like the inhospitable beauty of the high desert--but with snow. The pop of color of the houses against the the bedrock they're built on, the orange spray of lichen on the granite, the site of brightly colored red sails on tourist boats radiant as the sun punches through the fog, the incredible glaciers and density of snow and ice as it exits the mouth of the fjord, the site of an iceberg tipping over as it melts... It's not somewhere you go if you want to enjoy architectural masterpieces, but the harsh beauty of a place like that can't be understated.
- dreamcompiler 1y agoAs inhospitable goes, I wonder how Greenland compares to Antarctica.
- sph 1y agoIf Greenland is Mars, Antarctica is Pluto. When I was sweating in the European summer a few weeks ago, I used to check the weather down in the South Pole… -50C on a good day, -80C with windchill. There is a reason one has a few small human colonies and the other only penguins.
- noduerme 1y agoThis was some great travel writing. You don't hear good metaphors thrown around these days so much; LLMs suck at metaphors. Some choice bits: >>like being stuck behind a school bus in your own driveway. >>like some sort of prehistoric parking lot >>like nature's sculpture garden >>like being grounded by an airline >>like a very expensive, very slow merry-go-round >>like being trapped in a meteorological mood swing These are each couched really nicely as references to everyday life, not over the top Hunter S Thompson style parallels, but at the same time very visual and conjuring experiences everyone can relate to. Good writing. I'm really disturbed by the throwing of frozen sled dogs off a cliff. Frozen wasteland or not, they should do something to enforce laws against cruelty to animals.
- LarsKrimi 1y ago> Frozen wasteland or not, they should do something to enforce laws against cruelty to animals. There are animal welfare laws, as well as a special unit responsible for specifically sleddogs. People are told to call snitch lines if they see animal cruelty What is animal cruelty? The sleddogs talked about in the post were dead, you don't know how they died. In the wild or on trips sled drivers will often kill sleddogs themselves if they notice one slowing the pack down. It's a different world Or is it just the part about throwing them off a cliff you don't like?
- noduerme 1y agoIt's the part about chaining them to rocks and letting them freeze to death which I don't like. Someone who takes decent care of their animals would not allow that situation to occur in the first place. How they dispose of the dogs after allowing them to die at home is not really the issue. We aren't talking about the middle of a sled ride, or a death by hazard or necessity. The definition of cruelty, if you don't understand that, is that this creature is under your control, serving you, and the minimum you can do is to respect it. If you don't, then you disrespect life. And if you disrespect life then you disrespect your own. Yes, we kill animals for food or for fur. But disrespecting them is a completely different, very ugly and disgusting thing. Because we are like them. One mark of a psychopath, btw, is cruelty to animals..And the reason is not simply a lack of empathy. It's a desire to do to other humans what you can do to animals. What you're missing is the fact that this can be done to you. You can be skinned alive, for example, or vivisected. You could be left to die somewhere frozen. No one would even care for your corpse. They'd just chuck you off a cliff. For normal human beings, hearing things like that make them empathize with themselves. Therefore they don't want to inflict torment on anything else. You're new here and maybe you're a psychopath. But I'm wasting my time trying to explain something anyway. What defines "cruelty" is not about life and death. It's about respect for the living and the dead, and essentially respect for yourself as a fellow animal.
- keeptrying 1y agoI felt the same when I went to Amstwerdam from SF
- andhuman 1y agoThe bit about the dog was a good memento mori. You work hard almost your entire life… and then your body gets tossed over the wall.
- kasajian 1y agoThe article wasn't proof-read. Too many basic English errors are too distracting and makes it hard to read.
- lucb1e 1y agoDid anyone ever find out where those people were driving with such urgency, if indeed the town is like 6km start to finish? Felt a bit unresolved in the post Is it just daily life, going 2km from work to home in a wind-protected vehicle (since the car won't be warm yet when your destination is on average like 4 minutes away; it can't be the heat aspect) as opposed to walking or, idk, ice skating or whatever it is you can do there (I presume not cycling or scootering due to slipperiness)?