Greenland's History: Although there were a few blow-ins and a couple of outlawed exiles washed up on it shores, Greenland did not have sustained contact with Europeans until Eric the Red, the legendary Viking, used it as a home-away-from-home during his years of exile. It was Eric the Red who called the country Greenland but the naming proved to be more lyrical than factual; most of the time Greenland was anything but. This did not deter the boatload of Icelanders who promptly set about colonising the land and for a couple of centuries the colonists herded, farmed and hunted while the country slipped back into its usual comatose state. Norway got 'round to annexing the country in 1261 but it was a futile attempt at control because 130 years later a big chill set in and by the time the country thawed out and the outside world made contact again, the colonists had gone, either fully acculturated into, or killed by, the Thule. Contemporary Greenlandic society evolved after more than two centuries of Danish colonialism and more than 4,500 years of Inuit colonization of the ice-bound island. Despite a very strong European influence, mostly from Denmark, Greenlanders share a common cultural affinity with the Inuit residents in Alaska, Siberia, and Canada who Rasmussen knew so well. Modern-day Greenlanders are extremely proud of that legacy. About 80 percent of the island's 60,000 residents are ethnic Inuit or mixed European and Inuit; the rest are of European extraction.

Greenland's Natives: For more than 4,500 years, the intrepid Inuit people of the arctic settled and hunted in Greenland, one of the world's harshest environments. Descendants of Siberians who crossed the Bering Straight into North America, the Inuits (sometimes called Eskimos, or eaters of raw meat), made their way during warming stages from Ellesmere Island onto Greenland. They survived by hunting seals, caribou, walrus, whales, arctic hares and foxes, polar bears, musk ox, and other animals. They traveled by kayak, seal-skin boats, dog sledges, and walking. Their resilience and brilliance command respect from anyone who's visited these northern climes and tasted the region's fury. Although modern life has well and truly caught up with the Inuit in the form of warm-climate foods, computers, luxury cars, and outboard motors, as little as 40 years ago Greenlanders were still practicing a traditional way of life that revolved around the hunt. They believed that humans were shades - more of the dead than of the living - and it was only the techniques and rituals of the hunt that kept them within the realm of the human. Any error in judgement would mean falling back into the earlier animal world. Harmony with the land, respect for the dead, and due homage to the animals that sacrificed themselves for the good of humanity, were the hallmarks of a good hunter and kept the world from falling off its axis. Inuit folklore also told of a time when men could speak to animals; the words were shamanistic in character and delivery and held a tengeq or intrinsic power. If the words were uttered heedlessly they immediately lost their power. This belief may account for the Inuit's almost legendary reluctance to indulge in idle chitchat. Their brevity makes most non-Inuits look brash and bold.