Holiday Calendar for Greenland

Greenland is located both north and south of the Arctic Circle. The country is technically part of Denmark, but is autonomous with its own domestic government.

You can only fly there from Iceland and Denmark. Greenland boasts the second largest ice sheet in the world after Antarctica, which covers more than 1.8 million square kilometres. In Greenland, at celebrations such as weddings, baptisms, or birthdays, there’s almost always someone to yell “Pagaaaaa” and throw a handful of coins at the crowd.

The drum dance used to be kind of a battle; so if you couldn’t settle a dispute through dialogue, you could “dance it out”. The small drums are from the most northern part of Greenland, Qaanaaq.

The mask dance was re-invented in the 1970s by a theatre group, because it had been forgotten. The mask dance has three main functions: to entertain, to teach children about fear and how to deal with it. It also has a role in courtship.

The northwest corner of Greenland is known as the Thule region. It is roughly the size of Germany, but inhabited by less than 1,000 people. The total population of the island is only around 57,000 people.

Hunting is the heart and soul of Greenlandic culture. Hunters still wear hand-made polar bear skin garments, caribou anoraks and skin boots for warmth on winter hunting trips. The hunting of polar bears is regulated in Greenland. Only a certain number can be killed, limited to 30 per year per community, and can only be undertaken by a licensed and registered hunter. The Inuit culture is the most pure hunting culture in existence.

Raw whale skin is my favorite Greenlandic snack.

In Greenland, we celebrate the New Year twice. Because Greenland was colonized by the Danes and because the time difference between Greenland and Denmark is 4 hours, when the clock hits 12 in Denmark, i.e. 8 PM in Greenland.