Guarding Greenland by Mads Nissen (54 images)

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With a surface area of 2,166,086 square kilometres, three quarters of which is permanently covered by an ice sheet, and a population of just 57,000, Greenland would seem like a cold, distant and insignificant appendage, anachronistically linked to the Kingdom of Denmark. Yes global warming and increased political wrangling over the Arctic has made this icy wilderness into a geopolitical hot potato. Though the Cold War is over, world powers are once again competing over natural resources, trade routes, strategic military outposts and lucrative cruise tourism in the far North Atlantic and Denmark's vast icy outpost has become the scene of a creeping rivalry between powerful players. From the isolated Danish military outpost of Mestersvig in the East to America's controversial Thule Air Base on the west coast, causes far from the the territory's shores are making their mark on its inhospitable landscape.

One of the most controversial and sensitive spots on Greenland is the now abandoned town of Dundas where in 1909, Greenland-born Danish polar explorer Knud Rasmussen established the Thule Trading Station as a trading post, naming it after the mythical land of Ultima Thule of antiquity which alluded to the 'end of the world' or an unknown northern land. After World War II, the USA expressed interest in buying the whole of Greenland but had to settle for permission to build an air base a few kilometres from the original settlement, forcibly removing the indigenous community in the process and moving it some 130km north of the site to a new village called Qaanaaq where they endured months of living in tents until their new homes were built. Dundas remains a ghost village to this day, with boarded up wooden huts and an abandoned cemetery sinking into the snow.

Commander Joseph L. Prue, who is in charge of Thule Air Base, explains that the base plays a central role in America's satellite communications and surveillance efforts and is still instrumental in terms of missile defence.During the Cold War, the base had a population of almost 10,000. Lying roughly halfway between the USA and the Soviet Union's industrial heartland, it was used as a military base for American bombers and still plays a central role in the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System designed to track intercontinental ballistic missiles. Though a group of 428 original inhabitants of Dundas tried to reclaim their homes near the American base, they were turned down by the Danish Supreme Court in 2003 and the evictions remain a controversial issue in Greenland.

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