Ministers from the United States, Canada, Denmark and Russia have agreed to let the UN rule on conflicting territorial claims on the seabed of the Arctic Ocean.
Now, while there are probably some very interesting constitutional, geopolitical and international legal issues that come into play, I’m more interested in where this ministerial meeting took place — Ilulissat, Greenland.
Yes, Ilulissat hosted a major international conference attended by, among others, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, Greenland Premier Hans Enoksen, Russian and Norwegian Foreign Ministers Sergei Lavrov and Jonas Gahr Stoere and Canadian Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn. Ex-Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier was — he of the ex-biker chick girlfriend with nice set and access to NATO documents — was unfortunately not there, although that apparently didn’t stop the Danish foreign minister from having a bit of fun at his expense.
Little outposts of human civilization (and even bigger outposts of civilization, like the cities along the Trans-Siberian railway) have always fascinated me. Places like this shouldn’t exist… but they do. Some 4,533 souls live in Ilulissat. What do they do? How do they spend their weekends? Where do you put up a visiting foreign minister for the night in a place like this? Is there a bowling alley?
Well, thanks to the Internet, we can now find out. Ilulissat does, for instance, have a four-star hotel (!), complete with a brasserie and bar and restaurant. The guys at the Greenland Tourism Board will be happy to tell you about the town. If you want to arrange tours, these guys seem to know what they’re doing. The town’s museum even has a website. Here are some pretty photos, including one of the town church built in 1782.
The city homepage has several other interesting links as well.
15 Comments
I visited Ilulissat one summer when I was teaching in Iqaluit ( Frobisher Bay, Nunavut, Canada) for a sea kayak touring vacation with another teacher friend.
A very interesting and friendly town. Looks very similar to many Canadian arctic towns/cities.
Greenlandic woman are extraordinarily beautiful (every one of them).
If the male to female ratio is anything like I’ve heard it is in most arctic cities; I’m sure all women are uber hotties.
I too am facinated by outposts of civilization. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Greenland is one of the many places in the world I am very facinated by. I’d love to learn Greenlandic. It’s got a cool sound.
I’m having trouble posting to this discussion. Maybe I’ve been banned, maybe it will work better without the internet links. Apologies if my comments are showing up multiple times.
The bad news for the Greenlanders is that the Danes are in charge of their foreign policy. The former Danish foreign minister managed to gift away a large portion of Denmark’s North Sea oil reserves to the Norwegians back in the 1960’s. The rumour is he was less than completely sober when he did it.
And the whole business of the Thule Air Base and the cover-up of the B-52 crash doesn’t bode well for the Danish ability to look after Greenland’s interests. Not to mention a Prime Minister who refuses to meet with Ambassadors…
The relationship between Greenland and Denmark isn’t great at the moment. The Greenlanders were threatening to pull themselves out of the Danish parliament only a couple of months back and there’s a referendum about the relationship later this year. If they do find substantial oil deposits up there, Greenland will be declaring independence faster than you can say Ittoqqortoormiit.
Why am I having trouble posting to this discussion? Maybe I’ve been banned, maybe it will work better without the internet links. Apologies if my comments are showing up multiple times.
The bad news for the Greenlanders is that the Danes are in charge of their foreign policy. The former Danish foreign minister managed to gift away a large portion of Denmark’s North Sea oil reserves to the Norwegians back in the 1960’s. The rumour is he was less than completely sober when he did it.
And the whole business of the Thule Air Base and the cover-up of the B-52 crash doesn’t bode well for the Danish ability to look after Greenland’s interests. Not to mention a Prime Minister who refuses to meet with Ambassadors…
The relationship between Greenland and Denmark isn’t great at the moment. The Greenlanders were threatening to pull themselves out of the Danish parliament only a couple of months back and there’s a referendum about the relationship later this year. If they do find substantial oil deposits up there, Greenland will be declaring independence faster than you can say Ittoqqortoormiit.
Success! Twice!
Juliane Henningsen is probably the most prominent Greenlandic women I know of. She’s an MP in the Danish parliament.
By the way, in case you were wondering, Julia Ormond is not from Greenland, not even partially.
I forgot to mention that Juliane is born and raised in Ilulissat.
Is she a hottie?
It probably is the links. Try imbedding them with html tags.
US Canada Denmark and Russia going to arbitration, to pre-emptively end conflicts on land-claims? How utterly sensible! Can we get that arbitration committee (or the one that worked on the Ecuador-Peru dispute) over to East Asia next, to work out these baekdusan and dokdo quagmires?
As to what people do up there, Greenland usually wraps up the North America qualification spot at the World Handball Championships without much trouble. Basically because there aren’t any countries in North America big enough to mount a serious challenge.
World Championships
there must be a lot of fish
Life in Greenland continues even when people aren’t watching. They’re getting in trouble now about commercial whaling;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci.....458155.stm
And IA, who are one of the “pro-independence” parties are complaining about Denmark supporting a whale sanctuary in the South (South!) Atlantic
http://sermitsiaq.gl/politik/a.....ce?lang=EN
Now that led me thinking. I don’t eat whale meat, I even refused it when offered in Japan. But is there any scientific basis for my refusal or is it just mass hysteria that I picked up in New Zealand?
Mass hysteria about food with no scientific basis? Remind you of anything?
It tastes dull, even the tongue eaten raw is boring in taste. Reactionary debates over the the rights of whales/panda/cuddly photogenic endangered species continue detract from the serious pressure inflicted on the earth’s ecosystem as a whole, . Like putting a Save the Rainforest sticker on your SUV back window.
Is it true that culling of minke wales can help increase ocean fish stocks. I don’t know, but if I had a boat I would kill a few just to see if I could increase fish numbers or not.