Greenland is a beautiful nightmare | Hacker News Reader

Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

matduggan.com

625 pointszdw338 comments

I 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.

Thanks 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.

Plenty to do, you can for example fish and eat it too:

Paddeling from Nesseby to Russia https://youtu.be/nW5sFJKs8K4?si=xbmMz11CRIrC7obk

I 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.

More 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.

What do you mean with "they have equipment".

Probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system.

Yes.

SAS planes are equipped with ILS though.

They still have to know how to use it an be confortable using it. The pilots also need a license for instrumental flight.

https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/flight-training/i...

Pretty much every commercial pilot is ILS rated... but it depends on the airline if they are okay with landing in fog or with extra expense flying all the way back and providing a hotel;)

I'd expect a Scandinavian airline to be prepared for bad weather; rain, fog, and snow are completely common occurrences in all major Nordic airports, can't see why nor how SAS would be able to operate without pilots being well-trained on flying in bad conditions.

How many "major nordic airports" are one tiny strip of runway next to a bunch of steep terrain?

You lost me, I don't know what you are trying to infer, can you be clearer?

Can't help ya. A big flat major airport in fog is different to a tiny runway with steep terrain in proximity in fog that's just it. If lose ILS at the wrong time, some turbulence and you meet a mountain.

Cojones ;-)

>Also don't fly with sas to the faroes. They turn back and try again the next day like in the article.

To me this is a good reason to fly SAS.

If you want to enjoy a day in an airport hotel and be late for what you are travelling for then sure. Sas plane is full of tourists who don't know. Locals all use atlantic airways cause they know they actually land.

Again I say, I'd choose SAS. There is a reason they choose to do what they do.

I'd really love to hear what you think it is.

I don’t know if you didn’t read or didn’t believe what the other poster said about Atlantic Airways, that they have the equipment to manage the fog and the ability to refuel in Iceland and therefore can try again the same day if necessary. The implication being that SAS have neither - that’s presumably the ”reason they choose to do what they do”.

It’s not unreasonable to think that Atlantic Airways, being a Faroese airline, are better equipped than others to get people to the Faroe Islands.

The reason might be as trivial as "we don't want to spend extra money on the necessary equipment and training". Not something fundamental.

After all the other airline has a good safety record, which indicates that raw risk isn't the reason.

And when you want to experiance true issolation in the face of nature, Alaska and Westerm Canada are waiting. Try a drive north through BC in winter. Fish on an Alaskan river only accessible by floatplane. Wake up to watch the northern lights only to realize you are looking south. Or pan for gold only to look up and see a grizzly cub walking cassually past.

Norway: 15 people per sq km.

Alberta: 6.7

British columbia: 5.5

Alaska: 0.5

Yukon territory: 0.1

Northwest Territories: 0.03

Finnmark in Northern Norway is more like 1.5-2, Troms is 3-6. But I agree, Alaska and Western Canada are places to go some day.

Funnily, as a student I had this offer to go to work as a waiter on Alaska. For different reasons that didn't materialize, but definitely this makes me want to go see it even more.

Not so much for the possible bear encounters. I do not think I am ready yet for that.

Another option is

Western Australia: 0.2 if you get outside the capital city.

You'll see stars you didn't know existed and the distances are something else.

Northwest territories is beautiful though.

I stayed out past Margaret River in Western Oz and "OMG its full of stars" when I went to the outside toilet during the middle of the night and looked up.

I felt like I could get sucked up and lost in galaxies. You could see so many.

I live down in the south West and you really don't have to go far for some fantastic star photography.

Blackwood River forest is just one example.

Altitude is also an excellent force multiplier for visualizing stars. I can still see in my mind's eye the sky at night at 17,000 feet while trekking in Nepal in 1982: it looked like glitter-studded fabric, the stars almost contiguous.

Autralia is empty too, but lacks the vertical dimension. Seeing big mountains far away gives one the sense of being in a bigger "room".

Driving through is fine, but realistically, if you need basic amenities (healthcare, groceries, etc), you will be living in or around a population center, so those numbers won't hold up.

Seconded. I've been 'up North' in Canada and it is something that I won't even bother to try to put into words. All I know is that it left me changed, in a very good way.

The people of Alberta remind me of what I imagine the American pioneers to have been: distinctly down to earth, extremely resourceful, generous, and not to be fucked with.

Went hitchhiking in Alaska while running my startup to "get a break". Absolute disaster. Couldn't properly connect to internet, dropped a bunch of meetings, etc.

Still worth it. My fault for not planning in advance.

> Couldn't properly connect to internet, dropped a bunch of meetings, etc.

Isn't that the whole point of going to Alaska?

Yeah, this was my first startup and I thought I could multi-task lol. Probably did it for the wrong reason (eg: "checking a box - went hitchhiking in Alaska") than anything else. Spent most of the trip worrying about other) startup shit, didn't enjoy the scenery nearly as much as I should have. Still regret it haha!

It's not the cub I'd be worried about, but where's it's mom?

I have yet to go north much, though our son and his girlfriend worked in Eagle Plains for a bit. One fun snippet from their trip back, having a raven as an escort for the highway drive: https://youtu.be/9KdMJhSaeJc

That is the scary bit. Maybe mom is right behind you.

In my younger days I hitch-hiked from Fort St John to Inuvik, via Whitehorse. It got into my blood and bones. I'd love to return... maybe one day.

> Feeling small made me feel calm

Completely agree. I’ve been on many hikes and in particular there was one time where I was walking up a mountain, at winter, with skis on, that I felt like wow if everyone got to experience this particular feeling of just you and the mountains and not a single soul around, there would be less conflict in the world. If we all got to go on these long solitary trips in the mountains alone. All kinds of grievances and conflicts and whatever you might feel about people that you dislike, it all suddenly feels so insignificant and pointless to even expend any energy on.

federally subsidized solo mountain hiking for the un-initiated. I will pay the tax

You just described wonderfully why I'm drawn to remote places. It started with a trip to the interior of Iceland, then Tromsø, and more recently Svalbard and the Faroes.

I tried to capture the beautiful sense of isolation in Svalbard here, maybe it inspires others to make a trip to somewhere remote. https://photoblog.nk412.com/Svalbard2024/n-ssC8fP/Svalminiph...

Thanks for the pics! The prevalence of rifles is... thought provoking. The pic of the guy on a bike with a rifle is so metal

My overall impression of the area is "gloomy" all pics are overcast. It feels sad. It is beautiful, but I long for the sun

I believe that a rifle is required in Svalbard when you are outside. Polar bears are no joke there.

I couldn't find my old photo of a modern-day nordic recreational cyclist with an all metal SAAB on his back, so here's the next best thing

https://old.reddit.com/r/shittytechnicals/comments/yicgme/it...

On Svalbard you need a rifle for Polar bear protection. If you need sun just go there in summer, with the midnight sun it will never leave you.

Poked around your site and enjoyed it, please post more

Thank you, kind of you to say. Enough people have said nice things that I've convinced myself that more might be interested in my travel shenanigans.

I could’ve scrolled far longer. Really liked the pictures and brief texts

Thank you, I've been trying to post more.

Great photos. Crazy to just see a picture of a rifle leaning up against a window, unattended.

My god, how can I take photos like that? Do you describe your setup and process somewhere?

Thank you, I don't think I'm doing anything particularly special with my process. I like blacks, and keep photos slightly underexposed, something that most phone cameras will avoid like the plague, brightening everything up. Cropping and composition is also more important than it seems IMO.

Beautiful photography, and I enjoyed your commentary. Thank you for posting.

> I feel small, irrelevant, in the face of brutal, powerful nature.

I married a Chinese woman so I know that same feeling!

I kid.

Mostly.

I see your Chinese and raise you Russian.

I see your Chinese, Russian, and raise you Mexican. :)

Grew up in a Chicano hood, thank you very much. I have been hit by the chanclas, hermano!

Sorry. I love life ;)

Could the catharsis come from replacing emotional bad weather with actually bad and dangerous weather/nature?

I was just daydreaming about visiting Svalbard when I opened up HN and stumbled on this comment.

I 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

Thanks 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?

I 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.

Thanks! A typo: "Wood is by far a ubiquitous material" → "Wood is far from a ubiquitous material".

Fixed!

Can you explain the cars described in the article?

> 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 have a video of the coolest moment of my life and it looks like maybe the magnitude of a firefly on film. An asteroid impact was predicted and I heard of it in time, so I went to observe it. No sound (or body feel) in my case, but knowing how crazy big and distant the fireball that you're observing is, lighting up the sky from the far side of France...

People whom I showed didn't really have a big reaction. I didn't really understand that, but by now I have enough distance to the event to look back at the video more objectively and realize that, indeed, it's cool but it's just another video. This, too, seems like it can only be experienced in real life

Eleven have been predicted ever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Lis...), none yet in 2025. If you see the notice and you're within, say, 750 km, share the news with a friend and go see it! Of course, it objectively really is just what it is: bigger version of a shooting star. Idk if everyone would have my reaction, but I did ^^

Thank you for sharing iceberg cracking. I love 'cold vacations' anyway (two months in Finland were some of the best months), so this is a new entry on my bucket list :)

What does one feed sled dogs in Greenland?

Fish, as described in the article. And when they freeze to death to toss them down a cliff.

It'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.

Having been to Greenland recently, I found his description of it similarly flawed.

In what way/ways?

> 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...

>> 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.

At least as far as trees go, Greenland is reasonably famously lacking in trees (if you are the kind of person who cares about such things). All chopped down by the Vikings and only now are a few sections of forest being regrown. Iceland is basically the same.

A few links:

- https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/GRL/. "In 2020, Greenland had 0.00 ha of natural forest"

- https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/14notoe/the_prog...

- https://greenlandtrees.org/

Agreed, I failed to mention this detail, thank you for adding. But hopefully you agree that his description paints a completely ridiculous picture.

I’ve never been to Greenland or (to my knowledge) met anyone who has. What is/was your experience like?

I tried explaining in the other comment here. In summary, it's beautiful, raw nature, that's different from anything else I've seen. It takes some preparation, but I haven't experience any of these "sun will kill you and ice will kill you too" vibes that the article suggests. It felt like one of the last places on Earth not affected by humans (at least directly through resource exploitation, as it definitely is affected by the warming - but that's another discussion).

Unfortunately the dunes and lake are not visible from that stretch of I-94.

Southern Indiana is another beautiful part of the state. It's mostly rolling hills with lush green forests and farms.

You don't have to drive it on I-94; in fact, for many years it was faster not to, because of insane bottom of the lake traffic. You can take the Dunes Highway instead (and then keep off 94 up the Michigan shore; there's good stuff up there).

I need to do that next time I’m driving between Chicago and Michigan. I haven’t seen the dunes there yet and I bet it’s incredible.

I'm speaking up for Indiana here but honestly if you're looking for those dunescapes and beaches, western Michigan is the better bet. Road To Perdition was filmed around Saugatuck, just an hour into Michigan; that part of Michigan really is worth a trip to see (you'd want book a place to stay up by the lake for at least a couple days; it's not so much a sightseeing deal as a chill-out-by-the-lake deal).

The whole stretch though from Chicago up to Traverse City is basically where Chicago vacations.

I have done that! Reminded me of some dunes I scaled in Jordan.

Check out sleeping bear dunes park in Michigan especially if you can get out to the islands. Also Three Oaks Michigan is also a nice spot to stay and explore for a day or two. Journeyman distillery and a few nice restaurants are located there.

Honestly, I think it's a good thing it's insulated by a couple miles of hills and trees from I-94. The relentless noise of the highway would be absolutely terrible for the beach.

I actually stopped to stretch my legs and bag another national park at the Indiana Dunes National Park last Friday on my way back to Michigan from Wisconsin. Maybe AI was in a sour mood due to my poor decision to drive through Chicago from 3 to 6pm on a Friday, but I wasn't that impressed - Holland, Muskegon, Hoffmaster, Silver Lake, or Ludington State Parks up the Michigan coastline are all superior.

It only looks fantastic though a Chicagoan or Hoosier perspective because the rest of the area is a rust belt.

There's no part of Chicago that really looks all that impressive from any of our interstates. If you want to drive fast through Chicago and actually see it, you have to get yourself onto Lake Shore Drive.

I-64 is an underlooked gem. I used to drive there all the time.

Yeah I didn't open this link to see Indiana catching stray bullets. Does a disservice to this article.

I prefer to see that part as an up-front, honest disclosure of his biases and negativity.

The charms of Indiana have been consistently lost on me over the years; it enhanced the article for me, and I read nearly his entire blog after his Greenland rantlet. I learned a few things.

Different strokes I suppose :)

Then again, that stretch also has Gary.

Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc.

If you read the history of westward expansion, "got tired and decided this was good enough" is literally true for how much of the area got initially settled (by white people)

I took a moment to realize there’s a place called Gary, Indiana. And that there isn’t just some guy who is so infamous that he’s just known as Gary.

Clearly not a fan of musical theater. The Music Man ~~takes place in~~ repeatedly refers to Gary. Ron Howard sings a song called Gary Indiana in the movie version. He’s about waist high in that movie.

Pretty close, but the musical takes place in the fictional town of River City, Iowa and Henry Hill claims to be an alumnus of the Gary Conservatory (class of '05), which is the hook used to launch the song in question.

D’oh. You are correct.

The town's even referenced in Futurama:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qUW1pabZpLE

Gary, Indiana is still memorable to me 50 years later from when we'd drive through it, handkerchiefs pressed to our faces to block out the terrible smell from some sort of toxic industry. Is Gary still like that or has it been cleaned up?

Reminds me of driving through Eureka, California in the early 80s and the overpoweringly horrible smell from the paper mills in the area.

Where did all the effluent go; directly into the bay?

No, there's a pipe from Samoa Peninsula out to the ocean. (Fun fact, they're now using that pipe for the fiber optic cable that's landing here.)

It doesn't stink much anymore. It's still extraordinarily poor, but this is also Gary:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6196019,-87.2547571,3a,75y,3...

It’s actually a very famous city, but not for entirely good reasons. For starters, it did in my youth have the highest per capita rate of murder in the United States.

However, Michael Jackson is from there. So there’s that.

> it did in my youth have the highest per capita rate of murder in the United States.

> However, Michael Jackson is from there.

There are no coincidences.

Bunch of murderous psychos going heehee as they murk you smoothly.

It is known for not being Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome.

Every guy named Gary is named after Gary, Indiana. Gary Cooper named himself after the town, and then got very, very popular.

Not all, only most Americans. For Brits it's usually after Sir Garfield (spear field) St Aubrun Sobers.

And even before Gary Cooper there were people using it for Gerald (spear power), Gerard (spear hard/brave), and (old) Gerbert (spear bright). It is a cousin to, but believed not historically derived from, Garrett/Garrod. It is unclear whether German/Germain derive from this root or not. It is usually unrelated to Jared (which is usually a Hebrew name, but does have spelling variants that overlap Garrod).

Thank you, I thought this was interesting!

Illinois has a few rust belt towns as well. Decatur is the asshole of Illinois, with a water supply to match. Though for variety, it smells like old gym socks instead. Corn processing plants are almost as bad as paper mills, and when I lived there it had two, ADM and the very aptly named Staley.

East St. Louis, Illinois would like to have a chat with Decatur about which is worst.

The thing about the middle of Illinois is they consider Chicago to be a separate state and East St Louis to be Missouri’s problem. “Oh you’re from Chicago” is a common reply any time you found out you’re from an exurb. Often said with just a hint of dismissal. That’s not the real Illinois. Nobody talks about Rock Island and Moline (the Illinois half of the Quad Cities) this way, for instance.

Carbondale is slightly better, but I think it’s a notorious party school for very good reasons. Small town Midwest has a saying that “there’s nothing to do here except drink, fuck, and knock over mailboxes”. Most Iowa this is especially true, but Carbondale also gave me that vibe. Also that’s a fucking long drive. St Louis too. Nobody appreciates that Illinois is half as tall as California (not that anyone appreciates how long a trip up and down CA is either).

Indiana is seriously considering annexing much of central/southern Illinois. It’s amazing just how aggressively divisive politics have become in the last 20 years.

They might think they are serious, but they are not. Illinois would have to agree to it, and Illinois will not.

Newark New Jersey just walked into the room. “The armpit of America“.

Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who. This is a happy occasion!

Yep. Even worse, the problem is recursive: a town I lived in for a while growing up, Vandalia, Ohio (a suburb of Dayton, itself not exactly a booming metropolis in this millennium, but I digress) was settled by westward migrants aiming for Vandalia, Illinois - a town in the absolute middle of nowhere that just so happened to be the end of the National Road, presumably because the road builders got bored and/or ran out of money. Anyway, the travelers got bored and/or ran out of money on their way to Illinois, gave up, said "good enough", and named their new Ohio settlement after the place they failed to reach.

The Midwest is many things, but for quite a lot of it, "where anyone really wanted to get stuck" is not one of them.

I’m just praying that your football team was called the Vandals

Gary is basically part of the Chicago metro area; it's not characteristic of the run of the state you go through between Michigan and Illinois. You don't see it until after you commit to getting onto the Skyway.

It's really easy to write off a giant part of the country that millions of people live in as tired (and the implication underneath is usually "backward"), it's also dehumanizing them and makes assumptions about their quality of life when it might actually be a lot better than the people making these assumptions.

Spend some time not just driving through them, and one may be surprised to find plenty of diverse and interesting people that live full lives with rich family and social bonds, reasonably priced housing, ample winter outdoor activities (a lot of people actually want snow because it's beautiful and you can do fun things with it) and plenty of nearby nature and recreation opportunities, which I would contrast less unfavorably than the zeitgeist against the crowded, expensive vagrant culture that tends to dominate the more popular places on earth.

The phrase “got tired “is not referring to the modern populations but rather the people who founded those original settlements in those states centuries ago.

They didn't "get tired", they found rich soil and ample water to do farming and milling, which is what they were intending to find. It's called the bread basket of America for a reason.

Agree: a farmer coming to Indiana having previous farmed in New England or New York would have thought he'd died and went to farmer heaven.

In some places, some people absolutely could not endure the long travels to the West Coast, for example the Oregon Trail was extremely difficult and many people quit somewhere in the middle and settled into those Midwestern states. Yes they did in fact get tired, in some situations.

What was so special about Oregon, anyway, that it was worth a deadly trek across the country to go there?

Wasn't it just that it wasn't yet settled, so you could settle there and claim some land? That implies that Indiana or anywhere else on the way would have been at least as desirable, but someone else got there first.

They farm corn and soy almost exclusively, because those are heavily subsidized by the USG. Most of America’s fruits and vegetables come from elsewhere.

Source: I lived in Nebraska and Indiana.

I thought that was California. Not trying to be argumentative.

I lived in the area for more than 20 years, have annually visited family living there for my entire life even after I left, and consider myself quite qualified to comment on the area, the people who live there, and their culture, thanks.

I've traveled a lot through the area. I was throughout Ohio earlier this year, spent two weeks in Illinois last year, etc.

If I'm allowed to be anecdotal too I've also spent a decent amount of time in the area, including a visit to Bloomington, Indiana to visit their Informatics school, which was full of very interesting, open people that were absolutely wonderful and invited us into their world for a weekend.

The last night there I had dinner at one of the professors' houses in a very nice neighborhood that was absolutely lovely, and in general I thought it was a solid middle class place to live. If it was plopped in the middle of Silicon Valley it would be considered one of the more bucolic and put together cities in the area. And unlike Greenland, the weather is quite good for much of the year and there are trees.

My personal experience does not match the image of tired, doomed NPCs living in a wasteland that it's painted as in this blog post and in these comments.

University towns are exceptions that the rural and suburban parts of these states largely hate. They are the tiny pleasant exception to the whole that is not representative.

Ann Arbor is a nice town. Bloomington sounds like a nice town. The vast majority of Indiana and Michigan are sparsely populated and full of people who distrust anyone not like them and are not interested in broadening their experiences.

"Got tired and decided this is good enough" is literally true - small town midwest America is full of the kind of people who don't want to travel or experience new things because they're content in their house with their hobby and their 6 friends and trying to do something like understand how to ride a bus is terrifying.

This is not a stereotype. I know tons of these people. I got out of the midwest to get away from them.

University towns are a dump of businesses of questionable morals extracting as much as they can from a transient population. They're basically military base towns. And both of those are basically tourism or retirement towns which are almost as bad (source: grew up in one). The difference its that tourism towns and retirement towns get their population voluntarily, without a bunch of brainwashing.

I'll side with the "Indiana ain't bad" crowd on this.

Sounds lke you grew up in the wrong small town, you could say the same about a bad neighborhood in any major city. I get around in the midwest for motorsports events, and there is a critical mass of people who love to meet travellers and love to travel themselves. Maybe it's condescension they distrust?

Having spent a decade in Portland and a few years in the Bay Area, all I can say here is that I've met these people in droves in both places, and the rural-urban political divide is just as strong in the coastal states as it is in the Midwest. I don't think content people living simpler lives are a thing that is unique to any state or region in the country.

If your experience is different, it may simply be the product of cost pressures. It's easier to have a simple life that consists of smoking weed and playing video games with your friends if you don't have to figure out how to afford an expensive house. And something tells me people in Indiana, even their dullards, could figure out how to ride a bus if they really needed to.

I would assume most of those 20 years were your childhood? How many years have you lived in the Midwest as an adult?

Not the person you responded to, but: I lived in north-central Indiana until around age 35. Family still lives there. And the description: Pretty accurate.

The giant parts of the country routinely vote against their own self-interests, and refuse to accept evidence to this effect.

> Spend some time not just driving through them, and one may be surprised to find plenty of diverse and interesting people that live full lives with rich family and social bonds

I would argue that this could also be said to people (mainly from more rural parts of the US) who like to disparage large cities. If we're going to lecture city dwellers about how they talk about places like Indiana, maybe it's worth encouraging Hoosiers to go east or west and experience the vibrant neighborhoods and offerings of large coastal cities rather than just assuming they're cesspools of crime and poverty just because they heard a politician say places like Portland, Oregon, are "war ravaged"

Gary is also interesting, though. It used to be interesting for good economic and cultural reasons, then bad reasons. Now it's experiencing some revitalization in the manner of Detroit or Rockford, which might actually make it more boring, though better to live in.

I thought the Indiana aside was odd as an objective assessment, but it worked well as a flavorful bit of travel writing to help me understand the perspective of the visitor to Greenland.

Gary is fine during the day compared to a lot of the surrounding areas because the population is actually fairly diverse. White, black, latino, there are enough of you that it's possible to blend in as long as you dress poor enough. If you aren't into drugs or banging and out during daylight hours and don't flash valuable you'll probably be fine.

Vs. say some parts Cleveland, where I've been robbed at gunpoint the second my vehicle broke down and people noticed I'm not from around there.

Cleveland rocks!

Good enough, but also the abject fear of seeing the rocky mountains rear up from the plains. For someone walking beside a wagon in late summer, a horizon of tree and snow-covered mountains topped with jagged peaks would seem like the end of the earth.

and gary was where michael jackson was born.

I regulary watch a youtuber from OH and think it's actually nice compared to NY (crowds, cars, construction sites) and SF (intoxicated homeless people). Yup, the weather sucks for half of the year, there are abandoned Rust Belt industrial buildings all over the place, it's kind of flat, but apart from that, it still looks kinda nice. Also great beer joints, places to bike around.

https://youtu.be/eClMVj9GLAA?si=IxXxgdWfCsGge9yT

After living in a good number of places...

I think the people who have found their "good enough" place to live have more down-to-earth personalities.

And people living in "the best place to live" places or "all the people who do X should live here" places have different personalities (not always good).

The Indiana Dunes is indeed one of the most beautiful unexpected places I have encountered traveling in the US. And Wagner’s have to be the absolute best ribs in the world.

This is good to know, I have passed through Indiana a number of times on I-70 and I've found it to be particularly flat and boring. I know there are pretty places everywhere but that stretch has felt like exactly what he was saying, a place you have to get through to go somewhere else.

Whenever I see people say Indiana is flat and boring I know they haven't been south of I-70.

The glaciers bunched everything up like a rug and melted just south of 70

Irked me too. I'm running for state representative in House District 9, which covers much of that area. The district is drop dead gorgeous and it's growing rapidly. There's a lot here.

Whoah, neat, congratulations or whatever you say to that. Good luck! Were you already involved in local politics in the area?

yes, quite a bit

> whatever you say to that

Illegitimis non carborundum?

Thanks. That's exactly the right thing to say.

Pretty much everyone on earth is proud of their home area. I've never really been to a place where people didn't describe their home as one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Earth has a lot of nice places. The flatness of Indiana can be calming and beautiful. But if you're driving on main roads, it's not very exciting, and it's not the kind of exciting people will fly across the world to see. And that was the point in the article.

I love my home town. I grew up there, and it was fine. I would never describe it as one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm I proud of it? Only in the sense it's home and I have family there.

People do fly out to vacation in the part of Indiana he highlighted!

I'm not saying Indiana on the whole isn't flat. When I was growing up, their ad campaign was literally "there's more than corn in Indiana". I'm just saying, he couldn't have picked a worse map location to make the point with.

This area has a lot of hills.

Many areas have some minor hills, or some variant infinitely more interesting (hoosier myself, I regret moving here 10 years ago and may finally be bothered enough by it to deal with moving out in Spring). All in all, a state this big with less than 1,000 ft between the highest and lowest parts is just disappointingly flat, given the general lack of other natural attraction.

I'd say the caves in that region of the state are interesting, but options like Mammoth Cave are not that far away in KY (and they have better hills too).

Try going to west Oklahoma sometime. Not even the people who've never traveled think it's the most beautiful place on Earth.

Heh, as someone who lives there (Northwest Indiana) that was a rough read.

Then again, our state motto did used to be "Crossroads of America", so I guess that's kind of fair. These days it's the more aspirational "More to Discover".

I live somewhere that you’ll find almost nothing but insults about online. Meanwhile it remains a great place to live because those people don’t come here. Consider it a blessing.

Cleveland?

And the southern part of the state is actually one of the most famous places in the United States for painters to retreat in the autumn as there are no trees as beautiful as you will find there.

Calling some states good states and others not is just a silly thing to do anyway.

I bugged me too. I'm from Southern Indiana and when I hear people say "Indiana is flat" or "Indiana is boring to look at" all I hear them say is "I've only been to the Northern part of Indiana."

There is a lot to shit on Indiana for but its natural beauty isn't one of them.

It's likely people from west of the Mississippi.

Indiana and other midwestern states have some awesome nature, but it's basically taken for granted by people from there because you grow up having your family show you all those places. Imagine if aliens showed up to a megacity, and declared there was no food anywhere -- a local would show them places called "restaurants" that actually have more varied and competitive tasty foods than about any farmland areas you'd find, but the aliens would think there's food only in the farmlands and declare the city worthless for finding something to eat.

If you drive out west, you don't even have to look for them; astounding nature is evereywhere.

End result is people from midwestern states appreciate the beauty of their state, but people who haven't lived there for years generally don't. Even after leaving the midwest, I have a high appreciation for the natural landscape, but that's only because I know where to go when I get there.

It’s also problematic because that part of Indiana was geo engineered into a blank slate. It used to be a wetlands that rivaled the Everglades but was drained and filled in a massive (and controversial) public works effort.

Got any links describing this?

https://www.turnstoneimpact.com/blog/on-this-date-october-15...

Thank you

I've never been to Indiana but I don't like when people say things like this about other places. Yeah, these people are "too tired" to go anywhere else - right. I hope the author enjoyed channeling Hemingway for a bit but seriously what does he know about why people live there?

Would you rather hear about being too poor to go anywhere else? I'm from Indiana, lived there until I was 35 and family still lives there.

"Too tired" is an apt descriptor, though. "Too Poor" or not having opportunities is generally good too, but you likely wouldn't see all of that while driving through. Most people just live there because they were born there and their lives are there. "why would you move here??" isn't an unusual question.

I feel like that is a valid view from someone who lives there but, if you aren't from a given place, I'm not interested in your opinion. Also, "why would you move here?", how many places on Earth meet that criteria?

Immediately reminded me of my first (and only) impression of driving that route.

And of that old one-hit-wonder, R. Dean Taylor lyric "Indiana wants me ... Lord I can't go back there"...

"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

I'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.

Whale meat is so iron rich. Basically eating liver.

Now reindeer steak — that’s excellent!

I 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.

# I was always struck by how much it resembled meat in both texture and taste.

Say what? How can a mollusc taste like meat?

mollusc [sic]: 'An invertebrate of a large phylum which includes snails, slugs, mussels, and octopuses.'

Mollusc is a perfectly legal way of writing mollusk if that's what you mean. And everyone knows that whales evolved from hungry beach snails around 50mya.

>And everyone knows that whales evolved from hungry beach snails around 50mya.

Favorite thing I've read this week.

It literally is meat. It's a mammal!

To clarify: animal meat. I had a feeling this clarification would pop up...

A whale is an animal...

Sigh. OK. 4-legged.

> 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.

The 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.

> 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.

People 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.

Most people don't have nearly that good luck.

I'm fortunate that they just don't like me as much as some of the people I've done week+ hiking/camping trips with. I was ok with deet. Some folks still got dozens of bites even after it.

I think you overlooked the mention of sunscreen.

No? We all wore that too... but unless we're all just weirdos and sunscreen == bug repellant for the whole rest of the world in a way it never has for us (and is not advertised as), it just seemed irrelevant.

The sunscreen kept us from being bright red and in pain for the last 6 days of the trip. The mosquitos gave zero fucks about it.

I would bet that the lucky person whose "body oil and sweat seems to do the job" isn't the representative person here...

He never said it was a mosquito repellent. Just that he wouldn't burn the second day of sweating while hiking, and only needed the sunscreen for the first.

In Scotland they would have smeared bog myrtle over themselves. Other alternatives were animal fat mixed with an aromatic or even tar and pine resin. As far as I know most cultures had some sort of equivalent.

The best contemporaneous example would be the otjize clay rub used by the Himba in Namibia. It’s largely an adaptation to water scarcity but it also protects them from insects and cleans their hair and skin by trapping dirt and flaking off.

That first google map has "Myggedalen" (Mosquito Valley) listed as a Panoramic View. At least they're honest :-)

Myggedalen looks like "midge dale".

Etymologically I'm pretty sure it is.

> "I am being eaten alive!" cried Pippin. "Midgewater! There are more midges than water!"

> "What do they live on when they can't get hobbit?" asked Sam, scratching his neck.

I'm a native English speaker and I feel like dale and valley are two different words for the same thing.

In the 70's we visited relatives in northern Minnesota and took a .22 rifle to a dump, I think to shoot rats. So many mosquitos would immediately land on us and the rifle that you couldn't see the sight on the end of the barrel. We got out of there quick.

I struggle with the juxtaposition that there are horrible swarms of mosquitoes while there appears to still be snow everywhere. I've experienced those two things separately many times but never together.

This 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.

> 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?

It'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.

«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.

Why 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?

Certainly 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.

I 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.

Wood 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.

Can’t you put some insulation on fasteners? Or just hold insulation on from the inside without piercing the outside wall?

Obviously there are various schemes to mitigate (not eliminate) this loss and others. It all takes expertise and money, both of which will be in short supply.

Also it's not like Greenland has an excess of concrete or steel either.

hence, "Norwegian wood"?

I 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

The best flights are to/from Seattle. Copenhagen/Seattle goes over the far north of Greenland.

Same here. My favorite pictures from flights are from the London/Seattle route over Greenland.

I’ve flown that way but got absolutely blinded by whatever is outside - it was very hard to tell any details on the land below.

Enjoyed 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

came to say the same thing :-) I love those posts; this one was right up there with Maciej's

There 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

> 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.

Having 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.

fun-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.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

I 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.

>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

The Trudeau/Carney government is doing that all on their own. Just gonna drop this here:

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.

If 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.

> They'd lose healthcare

You ever needed surgery? Ever tried to use healthcare for anything non trivial or not immediately urgent?

I've lived in BC and Alberta. Things take years in BC, maybe a single year in Alberta, and days to weeks in Europe...

We pay into Canadian healthcare but use EU healthcare (while paying more out of pocket)...

I mean, if you're rich, you can also cross the border and pay US prices. Or hop to Dubai and get it done same day.

I've lived in both Canada and US and to be honest, I never found it was much better in the US for how much you pay, and for which so many people simply can't even afford it. With the exception being urgent care and routine things definitely have less wait time in the US. But most major thing seem comparable, like maybe a little faster in the US, but like I said not to the proportion of how much more you pay. And the treatment itself, quality, how you are cared for, basically the same.

I'm glad to hear it's better in Europe!

You know how long it takes if you can't pay in the US? Infinity years.

No 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.

There are less than 60,000 people in Greenland

Not 6 million, only 60K

It's like a small city population spread out much further

Much easier to disappear opposition than try to recruit people pro-oppression

This is not going to end well because it's not about the mineral rights

It's about the northwest passage, which will then be another cold war with Canada

I hope all these countries understand the vast majority of US population is not okay with this

> I hope all these countries understand the vast majority of US population is not okay with this

Where are the protests against the current regime in the US? I see more support rather than outrage. If the US in its current state was any other third-world shithole, you'd be invaded by 2003 US.

But where do you see this support you speak of?

Exactly 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.

Why is that inevitable?

Sounds like Danish former colonies aren't the only thing three letter agencies are bumbling around in.

Scandinavians 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…

>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.

> 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.

I don't think the subsidy is required. The net deficit is small.

Some Swedish regions also have a net deficit relative to other Swedish regions, but that doesn't mean that they don't work out economically. After all, not all economic activity in region is taxed there. A firm in Örnsköldsvik pays their taxes to the Swedish government, and then the Swedish government distributes part back to the region.

It's around 600 million USD per year, on 56836 people. Around $1000 per head. But GDP per capita is $58,498.

10k.

Ah, you're right. So an order of magnitude higher. Miscalculated.

> I don't think the subsidy is required. The net deficit is small.

Continuing to lose money leads to bankruptcy.

They would presumably just cut their government budget if it weren't for the subsidy.

It would probably be fine. Furthermore, I don't think Denmark plans on dropping it. They want reasonably strong government services also in this sparsely populated arctic region.

>They simply have no reason to prefer foreign domination, when they can simply be sovereign.

No, they can't. The likes of Palau are (barely) viable as sovereign countries, because at least the geographic size is as small as their populations.

It is absolutely, positively, completely impossible for 50K Greenlanders to by themselves maintain a the world's largest island, even aside from the completely frozen-over aspect. The $600M annual subsidy by Denmark does not include the funds Copenhagen spends on also running Greenland's foreign relations and defense. But in reality, Denmark spends a relative pittance on those things (like "six dog sleds" pittance); the vast majority of the cost of defending Greenland is borne by the US, as has been the case since 1940. Why should the US shoulder the burden without commensurate political power?

You don’t get to decide the price after the fact.

The petroldollar has been amazing for every citizen of US… somethings just give and take.

US can choose to jump out of Nato whenever it wishes.

The real danger here is that we might all be chatting against llm bots…

inevitable... because of Manifest Destiny?

Like so (source Wikipedia)

"... there were three basic tenets behind the concept:

The assumption of the unique moral virtue of the United States.

The assertion of its mission to redeem the world by the spread of republican government and more generally the "American way of life".

The faith in the nation's divinely ordained destiny to succeed in this mission." ?

I don't think that's any more inevitable than US ownership of Scotland or Finland.

I think it even makes sense if it were pursued in a different way. Greenland is looking for full independence but can't really hack it financially without aid. I think the COFA (Compact of Free Association) model that we have with Palau and Marshall Islands would work well.

We get expanded military rights and potentially some mineral/drilling rights, while Greenland gets protection, lots of money, access to USPS domestic rates, and probably increased tourism in addition to the independence they desire. Their citizens could also live and work in the US indefinitely.

I think the Danish intelligence services should apply this model to Hawaii and Guam. It would make a lot of sense. Hawaii and Guam could get better health care on average while being semi independent. The EU could protect both with nuclear weapons.

Native Hawaiians would escape the continued mistreatment:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/hawaii-no...

I think Radio Free Denmark should launch a soft power campaign.

Lol I realize this is tongue in cheek but Denmark has no ability to administer or protect anything that far away. Nor are those places seeking independence.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong and the Danes will successfully integrate a large group of people that don't share their values. They've already done that, right?

> I realize this is tongue in cheek

That's your mistake.

> Lol I realize this is tongue in cheek but Denmark has no ability to administer or protect anything that far away

Does the US? They don't seem to have a great track record of that

I mean do you even remember Pearl Harbor?

/S :^)

> Their citizens could also live and work in the US indefinitely.

Not sure why Greenlanders would care at all.

They can already do the same in Denmark, which is a country with far better standards of living.

Oh gimme a break. That's one of the largest benefits to COFA and is heavily used by the Marshallese. Greenland on its own is not a first world country - there simply isn't enough population/work and it's a hard existence as detailed in TFA.

You may not want to come here and that's fine, but it's a huge draw and will continue to be. Administrations are fleeting, but the allure of opportunity remains. You're posting on a forum that is somewhat of a monument to exactly that.

EDIT: some of this made a bit more sense prior to your hasty edit

Florida on its own is also not a first world country. This goes for many places and it isn't the flex you make it out to be, the fact that Greenland is part of Denmark which in turn in part of the EU and which the USA through NATO is bound by treaty to defend rather than that threaten to invade is a detail that may have escaped your attention but it matters rather a lot to the rest of the 'first world'.

Florida on its own would absolutely be a first world country with a GDP comparable to Spain or South Korea. Pick a less prosperous state haha it has multiple cities with a greater population than the entire island of Greenland

There is a lot more to being a first world country than you make it out to be. Florida only works because it is part of the USA, if it were not it would not manage.

Denmark is one of the countries with the highest standards of living by any metric possible, consistently ranking among the best countries to live in the world.

The US is not.

Sure, there's allure in going to US if you're from a poor country, or if you have an ambition your country cannot satisfy (some scientists and entrepreneurs will find America only in America, that's true).

Greenlanders are neither of those two categories.

If they don't care moving to Denmark or rest of Europe you can be sure they don't care coming to US either.

Greenland needs protection from whom? The only country threatening it is the US.

The Arctic will be the battleground and trade route of the future as it warms. Being associated with the US is preferable to the other options (Russia, China most likely). There won't be an option of the status quo.

Greenland, as part of Denmark, is part of and protected by NATO. As its in the Atlantic it benefits fully from that treaty.

It is also protected by Denmark's membership in the EU and the CSDP by virtue of the EU's collective self defense clause (which protects all of all member states territory, not just the parts in europe).

The status quo - apart from the part where the US is threatening to violate its NATO treaty obligations and invade something it is obligated to protect from invasion - is just fine.

The primary threat to Greenland is USA and USA is extremely unreliable country. USA can't sell protection. It may extort or invade or commit some kind of atrocity ... but is not capable of selling protection.

You are talking about getting a colony and stealing their resources.

What do you mean inevitable? The people there want nothing to do being somebody's colony.

US ownership would be pointless. The US already has relatively free access to its ally Greenland for military purposes. See for example the US base in Pituffik (formerly Thule). Proposing to annex your allies is a bit rude, to say the least...

If a country other than Denmark was to claim Greenland, either Iceland or Canada would make more sense.

As a Canadian I really can't imagine why we would be a better country for Greenland to be part of then Denmark. Unlike Denmark (and the other nordic countries) we don't have any historical connection to it... nor is it part of our landmass, or really anything else other than vaguely near by.

We're also really not interested in annexing random things.

I meant that geopolitically Canada or Iceland would make more sense, assuming Denmark was out of the picture.

And also glad to hear that random annexations by Canada are currently off the menu. Though who knows if Canada might become "interested" in some bits of Oregon or Maine in the future ;-) These might might not be "really" American....

When American Idiocracy (AI) fatally weakens their southern neighbor would be the time for Canada to conquer their rightful claims. The Burning of Washington will rise again.

(just kidding, to be sure)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroostook_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington

So “Canadian Bacon” really was prescient both ways!

It's going to get forgotten instantly when Trump leaves office, either democratically or feet first.

Oh 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.

>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.

Every "influence operation" of this type by the CIA inevitably involves assassinations and violence. That's what the CIA does.

Source 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.

In 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.

Nice try, Matt. I think everyone knows you just want Greenland all to yourself.

Poor doggywogs :(

Edit: Wow, HN didn't like that. Nevermind, screw the dogs I guess, just toss the frozen ones over the cliff.

If 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.

You may want to reconsider your choice of word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog

It's a common word in (UK, apparently) English, cf. 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 :)

I'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.

It 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.

Did 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)?

> 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.

It'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.

Beautiful, but definitely not worth invading or sending our troops to take over, if you don't awfully mind Mr. President.

Well, 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 :-)

Somebody is likely to take it at some point, for strategic military and resource purposes.

Denmark took it centuries ago, and that's how it should stay unless or until the Greenlandic people decide otherwise.

The 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.

What kind of argument is that!?

Who 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.

What are you talking about? Greenland is already a NATO member (via Denmark), so it has already taken a side. The obvious scandal, of course, is that Greenland is being openly threatened by the US - a fellow NATO member!

> Greenland is being openly threatened by the US

Not really. It's just bluster.

Denmark/Greenland certainly thinks differently. And empty threats are still threats.

There's been no followup on the "threat".

First, a threat stays a threat, even if you don't "follow up".

Second, there are stories about alleged covert CIA operations. The topic is certainly not off the table.

Don't you see any problem with the US expressing desires to annex parts of a fellow NATO member, let alone not ruling out military action?

The Henry Kissinger argument.

Charming, and well written! I'd love to go backpacking there some day - perhaps the Arctic Circle Trail.

I also thought it was charming and well written, and now have no intention of ever going there!

Damn dude did Indiana steal your car or something? That's a lot of hate.

I 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?

Prime 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

Three 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?

I'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.

I'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.

This video about Camp Century in Greenland is fascinating: https://youtu.be/OndXawgRAeo

I'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.

The article wasn't proof-read. Too many basic English errors are too distracting and makes it hard to read.

> 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.

Perfect weekend read - kudos on a nice piece of writing

The 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.

As inhospitable goes, I wonder how Greenland compares to Antarctica.

If 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.

I felt the same when I went to Amstwerdam from SF

Funniest shit I've read in awhile on here!

I note there was no mention of a McDonald's. I for one look forward to the McWhale.

Not even Iceland has McDonald's

They 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.

Why would you want McDonald's when you have pølsevogn?

https://www.facebook.com/p/Kunuks-P%C3%B8lsevogn-61575713986...

This makes sense. Denmark is to pigs what New Zealand is to sheep.

What 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!

The author is American, and no Icelanders were mentioned.

> The author is American

I assume you mean USAian. Fits my prejudices, which is unfortunate

An arrogant prick, anyway

> 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.

> 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.

When English speakers speak English, American refers to people from the USA. Spanish speakers from South America are the only ones who complain about this, but they are free to use whatever terms they would like, when speaking Spanish.

If it makes you feel better, you can tell yourself that American is just a short way of saying United States of American, if you want.

We're not going to start using your awkward new word. There's nothing wrong or ambiguous about "American".

Is this a US propaganda article to make greenland join the USA?

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