DUBCAST #75: Greenland is a Qajaq Nation!

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In this special editorial episode of The Dubcast with Dubside, Dubside examines one of the most important questions facing Greenland today: What does Greenland’s path toward independence mean—not only for Greenlanders, but for the history of Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas?

Drawing on conversations from previous episodes, including his interview with Greenland’s representative to the United States, Kenneth Høegh, Dubside explores Greenland’s unique political position and argues that the discussion surrounding Greenland has been framed too narrowly as one of military strategy, rare earth minerals, and international security.

Instead, he suggests that Greenland should also be understood as an Indigenous rights story.

Along the way, he examines the 1925 Guna Revolution in Panama, the Lakota struggle to reclaim the Black Hills, the Navajo Nation, Bolivia’s Indigenous political movement, and the remarkable fact that Greenland’s Inuit population has maintained both its language and its cultural identity while remaining the overwhelming majority in its homeland.

Finally, Dubside presents his five-point plan for changing how the world thinks about Greenland. His conclusion is simple but powerful:

GREENLAND IS A QAJAQ NATION.

More than just a boat, the Greenland qajaq represents an entire culture—one built around skilled seal hunters, language, music, art, craftsmanship, history, and a deep connection between people and place. Understanding the qajaq, Dubside argues, is one of the best ways to understand Greenland itself.

Whether you’re interested in Greenlandic culture, Indigenous history, Arctic politics, or the origins of traditional kayaking, this episode offers a thoughtful perspective on why Greenland’s future matters—and why preserving its unique cultural identity matters just as much.

"GREENLAND IS A QAJAQ NATION!" t-shirts on Fourthwall

Help support Team Qajaq USA'S journey to Greenland

The official limited edition black Qajaq USA Team Jacket at The Dubside Supply Company

Transcript

[DUBSIDE]
Welcome to the Dubcast with Dubside. This is Dubcast number 75, in full video. 
 
I'm going to talk about Greenland's political situation. 

Back in December of 2023, I interviewed on this podcast, as a special guest, Mr. Kenneth Høegh, the Greenland plenipotentiary, top diplomat from Greenland, stationed in Washington, D.C. And I asked him about Greenland's becoming a fully independent nation. And let's listen back to that right now, an excerpt of that. 

I want to consider the overall ramifications of Greenland becoming a full country.

And that this would be, unless I'm mistaken, the first time since colonization for the entire American continent, north and south, that indigenous people will have their own country. And so this is a momentous occasion for all indigenous people on the whole continent, for a country to actually be controlled by the indigenous people. 

[KENNETH HØEGH]

And already, Greenland is autonomous. 

It has a high degree of autonomy. So I guess we can already celebrate a bit. 

[DUBSIDE]

Alright.

So I said there that this would be the first time an indigenous group in the western hemisphere would have their own independent nation after colonialism. That is actually not true. I learned a little piece of history I didn't know before. 

In 1925, the Guna Yala people of eastern Panama staged a revolution and declared independence from the government of Panama. So they have the title of being the first indigenous people to have their own independent nation. Now they, shortly thereafter, in just a matter of days, they, with some outside arbitration and help, they renegotiated the deal. 

And they came to terms that allowed them to have autonomy in the nation of Panama in exchange for a number of other concessions. But to get that, they agreed to withdraw their Declaration of Independence. So they are no longer an independent nation. They were, only for a very short time, they were. 

Now, I interviewed Maddie Murphy on this podcast some time ago, and we didn't discuss this during the interview. But later on, she has been to Panama, and she told me that she'd visited that region. 

And to get there, you have to show your passport, because the GunaYala people are still exercising their autonomy and their right to control who comes into their region and who doesn't. So even though they're not an independent nation, but they still have autonomy within the state of Panama, kind of like a home rule thing that Greenland has. So for Greenland to become independent, we'd have to call that the first time indigenous people have had a sustained nation of their own since colonialism.

So we also should note that Bolivia is another case of note. Bolivia in the early 2000s elected an indigenous president, Evo Morales. And Bolivia is almost, I think it's predominantly, maybe 50 to 60 percent indigenous people in Bolivia, which is rather remarkable.

Evo Morales is no longer the president, and it's not quite the same as having an indigenous government from top to bottom as Greenland will have. So a little bit different from a fully independent nation, but we have to note that Bolivia has that situation. Now, these are the outliers. 

The general trend of things is quite a bit different for indigenous peoples. But I should also make mention of the Zapotecs in Mexico, who have had close to a revolution. They're not an independent nation, but they've certainly made their voice heard to the Mexican government for quite a long time and are very well organized. 

But the general idea for indigenous people, the general trend, is not nearly as positive. And so let's take a look at, for example, the Lakota people in the Midwest, who had an area in South Dakota called the Black Hills, which they considered to be a sacred land. And in 1868, the U.S. government made a treaty, kind of forced it on them to reduce the tension between settlers coming in and the Lakota people themselves. 

And so the treaty said that everything west of the Missouri River would be Lakota territory, and that encompassed all the Black Hills. And shortly thereafter, some white settlers went into the Black Hills and discovered gold, which changed the situation quite a bit. And so the U.S. government decided to renegotiate the whole thing and by various underhanded means, enforced new treaties on the Lakota people and made inroads and eventually got to where we are today, where the Lakota have a small number reservations, got to be less than, I don't know, 10% of the total land of the Black Hills.

And they are nowhere near a majority of the total population of that area. But that's what they came up against in dealing with the influx of Europeans in the North American continent. Now we should also note the Navajo Nation in the New Mexico, Arizona area.

They've fared maybe a little bit better. They have purchased back a lot of land that was taken from them after they were pushed onto smaller reservations. And at this point in pooling their resources, they've been able to acquire about half of their original territory.

And their language is doing fairly well. They're speaking their language quite a bit. And there are maybe 200,000 to 300,000 Navajo people in the U.S. They're maybe the first or the second largest Native American group in the United States.

So you see the general trend here is, it starts off in 1492 with the continent is 100% indigenous people. They control all their land, they speak their own language, and they're running their own government. And over time, there's an influx of Europeans and other foreigners.

And the language being spoken starts to decline as other European languages become dominant. And the numbers of people in the population, as a percentage of the overall population, the indigenous people's population numbers shrink down. So they're not the majority in their own land. 

And they no longer have their own sovereignty. They're under the control of another government. And so what I find historically significant about Greenland's becoming independent is that that would signal the end of arising European dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

If you put this on a graph, you'd see that 1492 starting at zero, that's Europeans coming in. And this is a graph over time of European dominance in the Western Hemisphere. And by taking over governments, by taking over land, by putting in foreign population, and having fewer people speak their own language, that dominance would just goes up and up and up and up and up. 

Now, we might put a little jog in 1925 with the Guna Yala, but more or less, that trend continues to rise. And so I feel that Greenland becoming independent, the historical significance of that indicates that that looks like a rounding off of the rise European dominance. And it's starting to decline as the indigenous peoples become more in control of their own land. 

Well, I could also look at some of the other native groups. There were the Aztecs, the Incans, the Mayans, which had very complex civilizations in Central America and South America. And they're all no more. 

They're descendants of those peoples, but their cities and things lay in ruins these days. 

So the groups that were on the East Coast, like say of the US, probably fared the worst because they got run over first. And so many of those groups don't exist at all today, or they were numbers were decimated, they assimilated into other groups and their history is almost forgotten, unfortunately.

So of course, their language is gone, and they have 0% of their original territory and their numbers are a teeny little percentage of the population of the US. And so overall, the US is what, like 5% Native American. And the amount of land, native held land in the US is probably less than 5%, I don't know, 5 to 10%. 

Can't be more than that. And the languages spoken are not nearly as predominant as the English and Spanish languages. And every group in the US is under the control of the US government that we have. 

Reservations can set their own laws on their own land, have some level of autonomy, but the government of the US controls them on the international stage. 

So compare that to Greenland's situation. So Greenland is standing to get full sovereignty as an independent nation. That's what's coming down the road anyway. The Greenland language, Greenlandic or Kalaallisut, is thriving, is doing very well. There are TV channels, books, a whole history of that language. 

And so many, I would say the majority speak it as their native first tongue. So there's no danger of that language going away. 

Interestingly, the population of Greenland, while it's small, the Inuit people have never been a minority in their own country, which is rather unusual. 

Anywhere else, even Bolivia is close to that. But anywhere else, the foreigners and Europeans and other foreigners coming in just outnumber the indigenous people by a substantial amount. 

But the most amazing thing about Greenland becoming independent, and this is startling, they will retain 100% of their original territory, all of it. 

I mean, even Bolivia doesn't have its original landmass, if we assume that's what the Quechua people and the Aymarans had. Bolivia has been chopped into by Brazil and Peru, I think, over the years. But for Greenland to have everything that they started with, that's incredible. 

I mean, there’s Nunavut in Canada, which it's still under the control of the Canadian government. It's not an independent nation. And if those people had farther down into the rest of Canada originally, that's sort of academic. 

But for Greenland to have 100% of their original land, I mean, imagine if the Lakota still had all of the Black Hills, never lost any of it. That's really something. 

So Greenland becoming an independent nation, back in 2023, I talked to Kenneth Høegh about it, and it was pretty much in the works. 

They had the financing thing to get figured out, and they're boosting tourism and other things, mineral exploration to pay what the Danish government used to subsidize them for, but that was pretty much in the works. And the feeling was that, as Kenneth said to me, he talked about what it takes to be an independent nation. We can hear what he said, or I can just tell you, he talked about, you have to have some good friends in the world, powerful friends, superpowers, ideally. 

And they were looking towards the U.S. as a natural ally, and that would be a partnership in helping them become independent from Denmark, as they had been wanting to do for quite some time. Well, they had, as I chronicled on this podcast, an event at the Danish embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Danish ambassador made some remarks, and it was kind of a good-feeling type of thing about the coming airport that had just been opened and the building of a new relationship with the United States. Let's just take a listen to what he said.

[DANISH AMBASSADOR]
Tonight we celebrate the Greenland-American relationship, and at the same time the close relationship between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States, a relationship that goes way back, a relationship so close that we are so proud to call the United States our friend and our closest ally, and a relationship that will only be closer now with the new international airport. You have already seen that. From Newark to Nuuk. 

It could be the title of a book or a movie. Maybe it will be someday. For now, it is the title, from Newark to Nuuk, of a new beginning where a direct flight from the United States to Greenland will strengthen not only the relationship between the two countries, but also create options for economic growth and development. 

It will open up opportunities for many Americans to visit and explore the beautiful country of Greenland. 

[DUBSIDE]
Well, as I noted in that episode, those remarks were recorded at that event the day before the U.S. presidential election. And as we know, a new administration came in and it pretty much turned everything upside down as far as Greenland was concerned.

The idea of buying Greenland was brought up, and Greenlanders from that day till now have been consistent in saying, “We are not for sale.”

To get a sense of what it means for the indigenous perspective on buying and selling land, here's a good example. We go back to the Lakota people on the Black Hills.

They had this treaty from 1868 saying that the Black Hills was theirs, and then other treaties came after that which weren't really done properly. Well, the Lakota people kept track of their history very carefully, and they filed suit against the government of the United States, claiming that they had the Black Hills. They had a treaty that said it was theirs, and the U.S. had not held up their side of the treaty. 

And so this slowly went through the courts until it got to the Supreme Court, and in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lakota people. They said, yes, you do have legitimate claim to the Black Hills. And, of course, they couldn't give them back the Black Hills because there was plenty of other people with title to the land that they had paid for, and just from the U.S. perspective, you just can't easily resolve it that way. 

So they calculated somehow that the adequate compensation for what was taken from the Lakota people to the amount of $106 million. This is 1980. $106 million. 

Here's that money, and everything's fine. Well, that's not the way Lakota people work. They wouldn't take the money. 

Their position was, it's our land, our Black Hills. You gave it to us, and we don't want money. Money doesn't work.  It's got to be the land. So, the money sat in a bank account, where it drew interest. And the Lakota people, you know, they're on the reservations that they have. 

I understand it's bleak. There's poverty there. You know, they could certainly use an influx of money.

That $106 million is now over a billion dollars, and they won't take it. They know, as soon as they take the money, they've given up any claim to the original, full, all of the Black Hills. And they will not do that. 

It's not worth the money. You can't put a value on it in money. It is their land. 

That's how Greenlanders feel when somebody says, we want to buy Greenland. It's rather offensive. In fact, the prime minister at the time, Kim Kielsen, had issued a statement, said, you know, buying and selling land isn't what we do here. 

That's not how we operate, and it just doesn't work. It doesn't go anywhere, that whole idea. And so I talked to Kenneth in that original interview I did—we played excerpt earlier—about the idea of land ownership in Greenland, and they have a very unique way of working that. 

And so he explains how it came out that way. But you do not own land in Greenland. The government controls all the land. 

You can buy a house, you know, build your house or buy a house, but the land around it is not yours. You can use it and get licensed to use it for a while, but you don't own the land. So when Greenland becomes independent, they will truly have all their land.

There is no Danish citizen, there's no one anywhere in the world who says, I own this property in Greenland. It doesn't work that way. If you gave the Black Hills back to the Lakota people, you have to resolve all these people that have title deeds to some areas of that land there, so it gets kind of sticky. 

But Greenland is not like that. Nobody owns the land in Greenland. The government controls all of it.

And so when they become an independent nation, they will really have all of their land. Well, the mainstream dialogue we've been hearing recently on Greenland characterizes it as a matter of global security and mineral rights. Global security because of Greenland's unique geographic location and the presence of rare earth minerals, which relate to global security as well. 

And in this characterization, there's really no consideration for the people of Greenland. They just have to be in the way of a real estate deal. And I don't agree with that characterization. 

Greenland is properly viewed as a matter of indigenous rights. And if the U.S. is going to continue exercising imperialism, as it seems to be the case, I don't want them to be doing anything, us to be doing anything, where years from now we'll be asked to pay reparations on or give apologies for. Why don't we just get it right the first time? So if our leaders are misunderstanding the situation, we must rely on the grassroots to set things straight. 

And so to properly understand and view the Greenland situation, I have a five-point plan. 

So here's point number one. Add qajaqs to the discussion because Greenland is a qajaq nation. 

So if I were to say, for example, Jamaica, you'd probably think of reggae music. Jamaica is associated with reggae music. It just kind of naturally comes to mind. 

If I were to talk about the country of Nepal, you might think of the Mount Everest climbers and the Sherpas that they hire, the mountain guides. Sherpas come from Nepal. That's a big part of their public perception. 

So the qajaq needs to be part of Greenland. When you mention Greenland, you need to think about qajaqs because I remember when I was a kid, all they said about Greenland was it was covered with ice. When you say Greenland, you think of there's a big island and it's just covered with a sheet of ice. 

But no, it's qajaqs. Greenland is about the qajaq because Greenland is a qajaq nation. Step two, make a distinction between a kayak, K-A-Y-A-K, and a qajaq, Q-A-J-A-Q. 

The difference between a kayak and a qajaq is like the difference between a water pistol and an assault rifle. One of them is a toy you have fun playing with and the other one has life and death consequences. So the watercraft that you buy at the chain sporting stores in this country made out of plastic, that is a kayak. 

What they have in Greenland, skin on a frame, used by seal hunters, that is a qajaq. Greenland is a qajaq nation. Step number three, expand on the idea of the qajaq to include the operator of the qajaq, the seal hunter. 

And the qajaq was just one part of the seal hunter's toolkit that included the harpoon and the tuilik and the learning, knowing how to roll a qajaq, knowing how to paddle a qajaq, quite a number of skills. And this took a lifetime of training and it was not a safe job. Plenty of people lost their lives hunting seals from a qajaq. 

And so if you relate it to, say, the knights in medieval times or maybe in modern times, a fighter pilot, these were very respected members of society, quite brave to do what they did and a very significant piece of the culture. And so the seal hunter is a very very significant part of that whole piece of Greenland society and Greenland is a qajaq nation. Step number four, expand from the seal hunter to all the other aspects of Greenland culture, such as music. 

I've interviewed Christian Ellsner, a member of the band Nanook on this podcast, and noted that their band turned down a Sony record contract because they would have had to sing in English and they wanted to keep singing in their own native language. That's awesome. There is art in Greenland, including film and video. 

I interviewed Inuk Silius Høegh on this podcast, who's made films and art for many years, some of them very, very unique and interesting. There is Greenlandic food. I've talked about that a bit on this podcast, eating musk ox or seal or things like that. 

There's a whole level of Greenlandic cuisine that I haven't delved into that far, but it's quite extensive and unique. There is Greenlandic clothing. I mentioned that Bolt Lamar guys who have their own clothing line. 

There's other fashion designers in Greenland. And the Greenlandic language, of course, is very unique and special. I've given you some examples of that a little bit here and there on this podcast. 

So there's a whole amazing society and culture in Greenland. It is far more than just a big sheet of ice because Greenland is a qajaq nation. Step number five, based on the previous four steps, we can conclude that Greenland is a unique and remarkable place with unique and remarkable people and a unique and remarkable history and a unique and remarkable culture. 

And it follows naturally that these people have a right to determine their own future. And Greenland is a qajaq nation. 

Now, if you forget everything else I said in this podcast and you forget that I described how the Lakota people turned down a billion dollars because they wanted to keep the right to the Black Hills.

If you forget what I said about the Guna Yala in Panama in 1925. If you forget that I mentioned how remarkable it is that Greenland will retain 100% of their original territory. If you forget that I feel the dialogue on Greenland has been mischaracterized as a matter of global security and is more properly viewed as a matter of indigenous rights. 

If you lose track of all these things, just remember this one thing. Greenland is a qajaq nation. 

Thank you for listening to the Dubcast with Dubside.