Letter from London: Pittufik Off

Media question in 1964 to Beatles during first US tour:

‘How do you find America?’ asks a reporter.

‘Turn left at Greenland,’ replies John Lennon.

Above the Northumbrian fireplace where I spent summers as a child after winters in Scotland was a small oil painting of Greenland. It was by the Dane Emmanuel A. Petersen, an artist my Danish grandfather greatly admired. Petersen was one of the latter-day ‘Greenlander Painters’. A school begun like the Hudson River School before the advent of photography in order to present to an unknowing public captivating vistas of an impossibly spectacular nature. Greenland was like nowhere a painter had seen before. It was also known as Kalaallit Nunaat—Kalaallit being the Greenlandic name the Inuit gave for themselves. Or Inuit Nunaat—Land of the People. The name Kalaallit Nunaat incidentally was a statement of ownership. A proud declaration that this was the land of the Kalaallit.

At the heart of the painting was a long wooden sled speeding away from the viewer towards a small but impressive mountain across a wide open stretch of thick ice. Leaving tiny tracks behind it, the sled was pulled by huskies and the light on the rocks showed perfectly how nature can paint with luminosity and colour just as well as any human. It fascinated me that white could ‘pink’ so much, or clouds look so turquoise. It also confused me how Iceland was green but called Iceland, and Greenland white but called Greenland. Which was probably why in childhood I was so excited to learn that Greenland was given its name by Norse explorer Erik the Red who—despite the fact it was for the most part mass-packed under inhospitable, albeit scenic, ice—wanted to attract other settlers. Just as Iceland, according to similar legend, was given its name to discourage other Europeans from making settlements.

As one of the last of the Greenlander Painters, Emmanuel A. Petersen was forever exploring, though the medium of photography had arrived by then. From the 1920s to late 1940s, he painted over 3,000 works, with Greenland at the time heavily reliant on aid from Denmark by then. The paintings were made in identical batches, or as variations on a theme. They say one of the best Petersen collections—with up to 150 paintings—is at the local Nuuk Kunstmuseum.

Greenland, my grandmother would credit while doing her painstaking crochet, belonged to Denmark—though today it is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, with Denmark responsible for defence and foreign policy, and the Greenlandic government enjoying autonomy over most internal matters. Over a thousand years earlier it had been the Vikings who settled there. They stayed several centuries, building small communities, walrus hunting, trading the ivory when not tending to those all-important fertile stretches of pastureland, until by the 15th century their civilisation had mysteriously collapsed. Was it famine or disease? Interestingly, the Inuit ancestors of the majority of today’s Greenlanders only came to the island 800 years ago. It was not until 1721 that Denmark officially colonised the island when Christian missionary Hans Egede arrived to convert the Inuit, famously saying the heart of Greenland was of ‘no use to mankind’, which in turn inspired venturesome Dane Fridtjof Nansen to cross from west to east by foot and on ski in the 19th century, reporting wistfully of great visual explosions of snow and ice on the way.

No one today pretends there was not great disruption to the deeply traditional forms of life on the island from the official colonisation of Greenland. As recently as the last century, the Danes were trying to ‘modernise’ Greenlandic society by strongly pushing the Inuit towards both the Danish language and way of life, with Greenlandic children sent to Denmark for schooling, thereby shedding much of their own cultural identity in the process. In the 1950s entire communities were relocated by the Danish authorities to help with small-scale but ambitious modernisation projects—as well as military installations. One of the most famous was the forced relocation of families from the town of Qaarsut to make way for the US military base at Thule Air Base, now Pituffik Space Station. There was never outright warfare with the Inuit, or large-scale rebellion, but there grew long-standing resentments and well-honed cultural resistance. One such fracture took place following a controversial contraception campaign run by the Danes in the 1960s.

Likely impervious to the politics of the day, Petersen the painter nonetheless received official funding for his expeditions—‘putting forward Petersen’s goal to connect colony and motherland closer together,’ as the Nuuk Kunstmuseum chose to frame it. In truth, he just wanted to paint. What many didn’t know was that much of his painting in oils was done in Denmark. He took lots of watercolours and brushes to Greenland—with small Danish vessels ceaselessly dodging icebergs to get him there—but oils and large canvases proved impractical across the ice. That said, the painting above the fireplace of my childhood had one or two telltale cracks which family legend always insisted was from the oil paint having frozen while being painted.

At night as a boy I dreamed of the painting. I was parentless and full of imagination. These became recurring and included a boat a few miles offshore about to land. Clearly the painting had made a permanent nest in my psyche. Trips to Denmark—where I was later told my Danish family wanted to adopt me—incorporated yet more tales of Greenland, this time from distant relatives, some of whom had been there. I became so keen on the subject that only recently did I rescue a chipped Danish porcelain dish from a junk shop for only £1 with a map of Greenland on it. I had learned Petersen had a background in porcelain painting, specialising in seascapes, and wondered if this one image had been his.

It seemed last week that the visiting JD and Usha Vance—plus national security advisor Mike Waltz and his wife—didn’t experience any of these wonderfully broad and magnificent open stretches of ice, such as expressed in the painting. Instead they remained locked down on the aforementioned Pituffik Space Station—permitted by Denmark to be built by the US at a sensitive time with the Soviet Union for the US. Vance and Waltz stayed only three hours, presumably fearing the optics of negative protest. It is stinging that the country who built this base to defend against Moscow was now courting Moscow, as Trump continues to seek rapprochement with Putin, despite recent rare signs of frustration with Putin. ‘Denmark isn’t being a good ally,’ said JD Vance—ironically, it must be said. I messaged one of Vance’s supporters the same day. Without wishing any disrespect on this person, he did the usual thing, with that new buzzword of theirs, swiftly accusing the Danes of being ‘freeloaders’. Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen meanwhile posted to camera: ‘We are open to criticisms, but let me be completely honest, we do not appreciate the tone in which it’s being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies.’ Donald Trump next said to NBC News: ‘We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100%.’ Rancour was everywhere. ‘If needed,’ Vance had said prior to the visit, ‘Trump will take territorial interests—he doesn’t care about European outrage!’ This was one of the things which had triggered the islanders most.

‘In short, America’s plans in relation to Greenland are serious,’ said petrostate leader Putin at the same time: ‘These plans have deep historical roots. And it’s clear that the US will continue to systematically pursue its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Аrctic,’ sounding very much like a man talking about Ukraine. Further, listening to Vance’s continued vitriol towards Denmark, I was reminded of a brief visit made in 2008 to a small Danish military base in Helmand in Afghanistan. It was the day a young Danish soldier had been killed supporting the Americans. A few melancholic soldiers were sharing a non-alcoholic Danish beer on their netted decking.

But all this seems irrelevant now. The reality is that the Danes will now see any visit to Greenland by an American politician as extreme provocation. This was so avoidable. Nor did I hear any mention made by the visiting Americans that the Danes had already said, which they had, they would agree to any upscaling of the US base. As the Americans must know, the Danish capital of Copenhagen is the last place on earth where you would find people wishing to weaken Western security.

As an aside, I wonder if Vance and Waltz on their mission had time to discuss the 1968 crash of a (USAF) B-52 close to the base they visited. The long thick stretch of ice where this took place was not unlike an Emmanuel A. Petersen icescape. The B-52 went down carrying four B28FI thermonuclear bombs with the crash causing inevitable radioactive contamination. One of the nuclear weapons remained unaccounted for, the US-friendly Danish line being that there was no missing bomb. Others insist to this day it remains under thick ice and is likely still leaking. The US by the way had promised Greenland it would not store nuclear weapons there during peace time. But a secret deal had been made by the Danes without telling the Danish people. So they can work together, a cynic might argue.

Instead it now seems that by hook or by crook the US really does intend to take ownership of Greenland. It doesn’t require me to say the implications of this are massive, including a possible end to NATO. In a period of its own political flux, everyone on the island is now united by one thing. They will not accept any form of bullying from a country not even its neighbour. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was visiting again this week—to many Danes it is the only story in town. No matter how correct the US may be about a weakened northern flank, and no one had been disputing this or its strategic importance, anyone with a civil tongue in their head knows full well you do not exercise change through violence with your allies. Unless, like Ukraine, it is also about rich untapped mineral resources, as well as oil and gas.

Either way, the Greenlandic people will be inventive in their response. Most observers expect them to stand their ground. In fact, I wonder if the ghost of Emmanuel A. Petersen—shivering down from his atelier in the sky—might not start painting again. And, remember, Kalaallit Nunaat is a statement of ownership. The US now has more than just one foe on the island, thanks to the incomprehensibly despotic nature of their recent behaviour. It should also be recalled that the Inuit people value highly innovation and resilience. Just as the Greenlander Painters have a lasting way with paint.