Crevasses, Rocks and Huskies in Greenland: My introduction to geology in the 1950s

• Main Author: Wyllie, Peter J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Geoplanet Press 2008
• Subjects: Greenland; eskimo*; greenlander*; Huskies
• Online Access: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/65843/; https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20160401-101329099

Greenland became a semiautonomous part of the Danish Kingdom in 1953, having been a Danish colony since 1851. In 1950, when this story began, Greenland’s population was only about 24,000, of whom perhaps 1,000 were Europeans – mainly Danes. The natives are a mixed European-Eskimo race, and many of them still followed the Eskimo way of life; they are called Greenlanders. Fishing, shrimping, sealing, and mining are the main economic activities. Most of people live on the west coast, there being only two settlements on the east coast where the pack-ice drifting from the north has been an effective barrier to ships and people.