Hello.

Welcome.

Evan Dawson with you on sexy news this afternoon.

Great to have you.

Tech issues.

Just a few of those.

We'll get those figured out, but it's great to have you on this Tuesday afternoon.

And our connection this hour was made on a trip to Greenland.

Now, in the past year, Americans have heard more about Greenland than probably ever before.

President Trump is determined to acquire Greenland for our own purposes, he says.

He talks often about Greenland, valuable minerals, its strategic location.

I almost never hear him talk about Greenland.

People who, by the way, have said they don't want to be Americans.

57,000 people live in Greenland.

You can fly from Rochester to nuke on certain days.

That's the Greenland capital for about $1,500.

The weather in Greenland is warmer than Rochester by quite a bit for the past month.

This Saturday, the high in Rochester is nine degrees.

In New York it's 31.

We can talk about Greenland as a thing to possess or a commodity, a strategic asset, or we can get to know it better by talking to people who spent time there.

And that's what we aim to do this hour.

My guests include Dennis Faber, who is a Guggenheim Fellow.

Professor emeritus in RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.

Lived in Greenland for about a year and a half and has a lot to say about it.

Welcome back.

Welcome to the program for the first time, Dennis.

Great.

Thank you very much.

And welcome back to learn.

Patrick, a freelance photojournalist who also has spent some time in Greenland.

Not as much time as Dennis, but that's all right.

Nobody's it's not it's not a scoreboard here.

It's great to see you in person.

Nice to have you back here.

Yes.

Thank you.

So, I, I want to start by by asking Dennis, how does one come to live in Greenland for a year and a half?

What happened?

Well, I received, National Science Foundation award to do, social sciences in Greenland.

Photography per se.

I worked with two, social scientists in this project and a historian who was Greenlandic.

So two of us were from the United States, one from Denmark and one from Greenland.

And so it took a year and a half to do that project, to do the work.

And, when was this, by the way, 2016, 2017.

Okay.

And, Lauren, you were in Greenland for a couple of weeks back in 2021.

Yep.

I was there in 2020, 21, in August.

And what was the reason for your trip?

I at the time was working as a staff photographer at the Post and Courier, which is the daily newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, and a reporter there named Tony Bartel.

Me, he got a grant from the Pulitzer Center to do a story about how ice melt is in Greenland, is impacting sea level rise in Charleston.

Yeah.

Listeners may recall we've talked to there's a paleo climatologist, the University of Rochester, Vos Petrenko, who we're hoping to have on the program sometime in the coming weeks, who has led a team that has done work there.

And it's really important, hard climatological work.

But obviously the kind of work that Dennis and Lauren do, very different.

You are many things, Dennis.

You're not a paleo climatologist.

I don't think so.

But, I let's start with a little bit about what you think the misperceptions are that Americans might have.

We heard President Trump last month, three different times in Davos refer to Greenland as Iceland.

And then the white House said, no, he meant to say that because it's very icy there.

It's all ice and Greenland, which, you know, I guess we can't just admit that we misspoke anymore.

But what do you think people get wrong when they think about Greenland?

First and foremost, what is I it really kind of upsets me when I hear people call Greenland, Iceland, and I've heard it a lot.

So it's not unusual.

But when the president does it, it's that's pretty unusual.

But, what was the question?

So so when you do think about when Americans do think about Greenland, when you tell folks, yeah, I spent time in Greenland, was there for a year and a half, now they're hearing all this geopolitical intrigue.

What do you think people get wrong when they think about Greenland?

Well, they think for one, it's always, you know, boy, it's really cold there, isn't it?

Isn't there a lot of snow and ice and there is, but I don't think it's any colder than Rochester.

No.

In fact, for most of this winter it's been warmer.

Yeah.

Just.

And when I was there, I mean, I've been in temperatures 25 below zero.

And I still felt colder in Rochester when it was five below.

Probably just what we're conditioned I think.

Yeah, maybe the clothing I was wearing was a little different too.

But, but I think that's the main thing they and really the relationship between Iceland and Greenland, I just don't think people know anything about Greenland.

Yeah.

We're going to talk this hour about what our guests just, you know, how they interacted with the people.

You know, Dennis has some photography that we're going to share.

If you're watching on YouTube, and some of it kind of feels like a bygone era when the United States Greenland relationship was probably better than it is right now.

We'll we'll talk about that.

Lauren, when you were getting ready to go to Greenland five years ago, what did you know about Greenland before you went?

I really, embarrassingly did not know a lot.

I think I knew what a lot of Americans knew, which, you know, in high school we learned, you know, the fun fact, like, did you know that Greenland actually, ice and Iceland is actually green.

And I think that's, you know, basically the nugget of knowledge a lot of people have, I think people have more knowledge now since it's been in the news so much, but I really didn't know a lot about it before I went.

When I found out I was going and going, I only had a couple weeks to prepare, so I was just googling anything I could to find out more about it.

And you went in August, you said.

Yeah.

So, I'm just very curious, but what the weather was like when you were there.

Yeah.

Kind of depends where you are.

But, where I was, it was generally generally like in the 60s.

So I had a light jacket on.

It was lovely.

Yeah, it was nice.

I mean, it was an escape from the heat of South Carolina at the time, so I'm very different.

Yeah.

And, you know, Dennis, you spent more extended time in.

In fact, you're going to go back to Greenland.

Is that right?

Yeah.

The end of this month.

Okay.

Oh, the end of this month.

Right.

And I was there this summer, in August, August, September.

It was beautiful.

Every day the sun was up Butte beautiful blue skies.

I actually by the end of my stay there, I was sick of the sun and sick of the light all day long.

And, And I wanted more atmosphere for photography.

Sure.

But, yeah, it was, it was beautiful there the whole time.

Yeah, I this time of year, I imagine it quite dark a lot.

But is that right?

Well, December would be the dark of that 24 hours in the north.

And, but now it's probably a little darker than here, but not a lot.

And you're there.

And when you're there in August, you had a lot of sunlight.

Yeah.

The sun never went down when I was there, so it actually made it made it really hard not to work as a photographer because it's like golden hour for 12 hours and you're like, I need to be out photographing in there.

So yeah, it was really cool.

I loved it, I couldn't get enough of it.

How were the people that you got to know in Greenland?

Yeah.

It is just such a different way of life than we have here.

It was really amazing to experience and I only got to experience it for two weeks.

But, the people were kind to me.

It was at the time when I, it was difficult to communicate with a lot of Greenlanders because, Greenland is their language, and it was not in Google Translate at the time that I went.

I think it was just added to Google Translate in 2024.

So, you know, it wasn't at times we had someone who could translate for us, but it's as dead as I could talk about.

It's so expensive to be there that we had a limited budget and couldn't afford a translator the whole time.

So, so yeah, I mean, there's a lot of Danish people there, so communicating with them was obviously easy.

But, with the Inuit, you know, it was more difficult.

But they were very responsive to my presence there.

Whenever I, you know, there was a day I went to, like, a bunch of boats and asked to photograph some fishing.

I would just kind of hold up my camera and, you know, do one of these, and we'd communicate that way.

And they were always more than willing to let me photograph them.

I mean, it was obviously a very different time in geopolitics.

So I don't know how much conversation you had, if any, about what they thought of the United States at the time.

No.

Yeah.

Our focus was really on ice melt and the impact on South Carolina.

So it wasn't really about the culture there, although like, the reporter didn't talk much about the people living there.

But I wanted to make sure and my photographs that I showed what it's like to live there, because I think it's important for people to see that people call this place home and that they have a history of traditions and an important way of life there that we don't really experience here.

When you say the way of life is very different than we're used to, what's the biggest difference?

I mean, just seeing how people live off the land, they're still, you know, they hunt for their food by sled dog, sometimes by, snowmobile oil, fishing.

They have to hunt, you know, they have to hunt for their food.

Some for some people, I'm sure not everyone does.

But some people hunt for their food and freeze it for the winters.

And, they depend a lot on the land and the health of the land there.

Dennis, when you're there for an extended time, what were your observations about the biggest differences and ways of life?

I think a lot of what Laura, talked about, you know, the hunting there, the respect for the environment and being in the environment all the time.

And, one of the places I lived, you know, we didn't have running water, there was a community shower, there was just a little heater in the middle of the little house that I had.

But there's a lot I think there's probably more similarities and differences.

You know, they're concerned with, you know, making a living, you know, putting food on the table.

They have big screen televisions.

I think everybody had bigger screen TV than I have.

And they all have cell phones.

And this is in very remote areas as well, not just the capital.

Right, right.

And I was probably between 3 and 400 miles north of the capital.

Wow.

And in a very remote area.

But the, you know, people knew knew what was going on in the world.

And, you know, another thing that I realized, just like the kids, they were running around all the time, there was no they have to be in at a certain time.

There's there was nothing like that.

There was no worry about them doing something or being in a dangerous situation.

If they're in a dangerous situation, it's probably because of them doing it there.

So like there was one day I was there was this really steep cliff in the middle of winter, and these kids found this door and they were going to sled down on the door, and they they were smart enough to send the door down first before they went down.

And the door broke up into a thousand pieces.

And I thought, oh, they're not going to be sled riding down this cliff.

And then they started going down just on their butts, or had first, and I don't know how they survived the things they do, but they're fearless.

So, you know, the kids are really something else.

They're they're I'm thinking about kids in this context because last month, The New York Times, covered a series of protest marches, mainly in Greenland's capital of Nuuk.

But also in some a couple of other towns.

And people were demonstrating against a United States essentially possible invasion, takeover, purchase, whatever.

And one woman talked to the New York Times and said that, you know, that she's in her 40s, that she has young children, but her parents also live with them.

And she said, if the United States comes, we're leaving.

I won't have my children be part of an occupied country or an occupied territory.

Greenland is an autonomous region or nation within Denmark.

And she said, we won't stay.

But she also said, I don't think my parents are too elderly.

I don't think that they could move.

I think that they would have to stay and endure whatever happened.

And, you know, I'm sure the white House would say that's alarmist, that's ridiculous, because, you know, no one wants to hurt them.

Trump talked about giving everyone in Greenland $100,000.

You know, which, I wonder what they would say about that.

But they were thinking about their kids.

And as much as you can describe growing up in a place like that and feeling fearless, these are parents with the same kind of concerns for their kids as we have in any part of the world, and the expression, every reporter I saw who was covering these demonstrations, I didn't see anybody who talked to parents who said, yeah, I want my kids to grow up in an American.

I mean, I just didn't see it.

Does that surprise you now, Denis, having been there ten years ago and seeing what it was like ten years ago, and now with the relationship like any surprise there?

No, not at all.

I mean, they they don't they apparently have more animosity towards United States in the last six months than they did in the last 50 years.

But, what people would tell me is, first of all, they don't want to be part of Denmark either.

They want to be their own country.

Yep.

And they were saying that if the United States takes over, then now we're occupied by a whole new country, a new set of laws.

And, you know, they there's so much uncertainty in that type of situation.

Did you talk about this last summer when you said last summer.

Yeah, this past summer.

Yeah, yeah.

How much were people talking about it?

Not a lot.

Okay.

But you, they all knew they are.

They all felt that way.

You know, it would it would come up.

Sometimes I would ask questions about it, but it was always the same answer in any sense for you embarrassed to talk about it.

It was.

It's strange.

Now I, you know, it's I don't like talking about it.

Right.

It's part of the situation right now and everybody's very nice, you know, it's not you know, they all I'm all I'm comfortable with everyone.

And I'm sure with Lauren it's the same thing.

You know, people are very friendly that they don't.

They're not looking at us all.

There's the Americans.

Well to to your point, Denis, in the last six, 12 months, a lot has changed with the American Greenland relationship.

When Lauren was there five years ago, there was no reason for it to be a bad relationship.

I mean, I, I can't I can't even understand what would have been.

It wasn't even a topic of conversation, you said.

Right.

It was only people in the first administration, Trump's administration, there was talks about Greenland.

And so when I was there, as soon as I said I was American, that was generally the first like thing that people said to me.

It was kind of make a joke about it about five years ago.

Wow.

Yeah.

But it was a joke at the time.

It didn't seem like a serious, like something that was seriously going to happen.

At least that's not how they portrayed it to me.

So I wonder how much that's changed now.

I'm sure it's changed.

Yeah, that's an interesting observation, Denis.

When you're there last summer, are people joking about it or is it more serious?

No.

It's serious definitely.

And I you know, I wasn't there during the demonstrations and, you know, it really.

At this, you know, within a month or two, it's gotten very bad.

And, you don't see Greenlanders protesting like that.

You know, they're very easygoing.

So obviously it has a lot of meaning to them to get out, you know, protest.

We're talking to two people who spent time in Greenland, Denis Bar, who's a Guggenheim fellow and professor emeritus in RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.

Lauren Petrarca, a freelance photojournalist.

Questions?

Comments.

If you want to email the program connections A cyborg connections to Hawk.

If you're watching on YouTube, you can join the chat there.

You can call us toll free at 844295 talk.

It's (844) 295-8255.

Michael wrote in to ask, how is the health care in Greenland?

So Denis, is there longer?

You did.

Hopefully you didn't need the health care system.

When you're you're there for two weeks.

Lauren.

No, you did not.

Okay.

Denis.

It's not very prevalent.

I mean, everyone has health insurance.

It's a national health insurance.

If people I know.

A friend of mine was going to Denmark for cancer treatment last time I was there and yeah, health.

The health situation is very good as long as there are doctors around the the place I lived in, that was very remote.

Is Laura Sweat?

There was no doctor.

You had the closest doctor was, like 90 miles away by boat or helicopter, if you could get a helicopter there.

So, if there were was an emergency, there wasn't any easy connect.

But I think for the most part, the the health care is actually pretty good.

There.

It's under the Danish umbrella, their system.

Okay.

So it's universal health care.

Yeah.

But in the remote areas you're going to go a long way.

I mean look in this country if you live in rural areas yeah it'll be the same losing access pretty fast.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

So that was that was Michael's question.

And is it, you know, Greg, Greg emailed to ask other grocery stores do Greenlanders, you know, do they have basic markets to go grab food because you talked about hunting, lowering your smile.

And over there, yes.

Yes, they do have grocery stores.

At least.

I was in the town of Allulose at, they had a they had two grocery stores, I think, pretty nice grocery store.

Yeah, they were nice.

And I also got to go into their school, which was beautiful.

It was gorgeous.

Really, really nice.

What level?

School.

I think it was K through 12.

You know, it's a small, very small town, so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A Lula said is where you were.

Yes.

Do you spend any time in the capital Nuuk?

I didn't, I didn't get to go to New York.

I went to this at and then also King or Lou Schrock.

Okay.

And were you in the capital at all?

Dennis.

Okay.

Yeah.

I don't know, a 57,000 people in Greenland.

I mean, probably half or more in the Capitol.

Eyewitnesses.

Well, the capital is really growing.

It's probably one of the few places in Greenland that is growing.

When I was there, there were about 15,000.

Now there's about 18,000.

And they're figuring they'll be 20,000 before long.

Okay.

Is there talk about climate change among the people of Greenland, about how it's affecting them?

Not so much, but I well, I hear a lot of it now since I'm going back in the winter, the one thing I wanted to do was to go back, be able to walk on the frozen fjords, because that's where everything's happening in the winter, because, you know, hunters are out.

The fishermen are out there fishing.

They have holes in the ice for fishing.

And it's just it ain't.

It extends the land so much, like, you know, the land, for the most part, is rock and mountains and very rugged areas to walk in the winter, you can walk on the frozen fjords and people.

There's one photograph that I sent you of, a husband and wife pushing a baby carriage on the ice.

And that was their daily walk with the child.

I think that we're looking at it right now on YouTube.

So if you're watching on YouTube, what an extreme unordinary image that is.

Yeah.

I mean, that is you don't see that anywhere in the world that is right now.

So yeah, it's two people with a baby carriage.

Yeah.

And a vast snow ice landscape.

Amazing.

So, yeah, it's I think it's pretty bad.

What's happening?

So this year, the in terms of climate change, yes.

People, I just talked to a person two days ago.

They said this is the worst winter they've ever had.

There's no snow and there's no ice.

And they talk.

The worst is and things aren't even freezing.

I mean, maybe not all the way through.

Yeah.

And the other person in Almanac where I'm going to be staying because that was taken in Almanac, the one we just looked at and that fjord is not frozen.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's can you even imagine in Greenland of all places.

But as I said, if you I've been watching the weather nuke every once a while out of curiosity.

They are.

They've been warmer than Rochester every time I've checked them all winter long.

Now we're having a very cold winter, but wow.

We're going to get back to that a little bit more on that subject in just a second.

Let me grab Sally and Rochester on the phone.

Hi, Sally.

Go ahead.

Hi, everybody.

I have a couple of questions for Dennis.

Dennis, I know you've got a great photography book out on Greenland.

Can I buy it locally?

And would you tell me where?

And number two, what's the food like in Greenland?

Are they eating just like Rochester?

Do they have a special kind of interesting diet that we might want to learn more about?

And how do they shop for groceries?

Well, my answer off their letters.

Okay.

So let's start, let's start with the the first one here.

This is the book she's talking about.

Yes.

Called North by Nuuk, Greenland, after Rockwell Kent from Dennis death.

So there you go.

And you can buy it through the Wright Press so you can still get it.

Yeah.

Just go online.

All right.

Press is.

It is beautiful.

Dennis knows what he's doing.

Loren can can probably verify that.

Yeah.

Talented man.

They're very talented.

And we're going to show you in our second half hour.

We'll show you more if you're on YouTube of more of the images.

But but all right.

Press is the answer to that for that one.

If you want to check out more of that and eBay and, you know, the usual Amazon.

And she's also asking.

Yeah, I mean, like the, the food, what do they eat and what was your diet for a year and a half?

Loren you're there in August for a couple of weeks.

What was what was your diet there?

Well, I have a fun fact.

I was actually mostly vegan during my visit.

And you came out after two weeks?

Not vegan.

Anyway.

Well, I ate fish at the time, so luckily, the fish, which they boil their fish.

So I was pretty sick of boiled fish by the end of it.

But they eat muskox, so muskox burgers were on the menu a lot.

Us reindeer seal.

Yeah.

Well, reindeer.

Reindeer is so good, I, I, I regret not experiencing.

Yeah, it's very good.

I was in, ocelot, which is a small town near a Lula set, and I was walking along with a friend, and we came to this stand, and the person was selling well, meat.

And basically it was kind of sushi at the time.

And he had, you know, some small pieces.

And, you know, I, I asked him what it was.

He said it was well, and and no, like Laurence said, very few people speak English there, so and I don't speak Greenlandic, but we somehow communicate.

So he cut a piece for me and it was almost frozen because it was probably ten below when we were walking around, and I had it was so it was the best sushi I think I've ever eaten.

And it wasn't prepared sushi at all.

And so we had a couple pieces together and it was very, very good.

But there not a lot of vegetables because you only get them in the summer.

Do their markets or the supermarkets have any.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I imagine they'd be expensive.

They are.

There was in one supermarket, there was a tiny little watermelon that had a big rotten spot on it and it was like $8.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of their, vegetables are shipped in too.

So when you go to the grocery store, it's, you know, it looks like they're on the last day or you kind of got to eat them right away.

Okay.

Muskox burger, you have any of that?

Dennis?

No.

I always had muskox that was roasted, and I wish I had the burgers.

They were.

I was roasted muskox.

I hate to say it, but they always overcook it.

So it was dry, okay.

And it looked beautiful.

You know, when you slice, you have prepared it a little differently.

Okay.

And did you have reindeer?

I had reindeer a number of times that just like good venison is great.

It's better than venison.

Better.

It's more like elk.

I would say.

Now, if they come on, give us the culinary difference.

Elk.

Reindeer.

Wow.

Listen, I think it's just it's not as gamey, okay?

Maybe it's, deer is, but, I like how you say that.

Like, most people have had elk.

Yeah, I that's kind of what stopped me.

I said, oh, it's like elk as a comparison.

Thank you Dennis.

And he does.

But I've eaten a lot of wow.

But but it's the fish is amazing.

It was funny.

My friend a Benjamin, he.

It was my birthday, actually, and he was fishing.

It just he took a long line out into the bay, like, not even 100 yards, and dropped it into the bay.

It had probably five, six hooks on it.

And then he came back and he waited two hours or so, and then he started pulling the line in, and he had every hook, had fish on it, and he had, I think, 3 or 4 wolf fish, which are about three, 3 or 4ft long, big, big teeth, they look like their heads look like a pit bull and a wolf fish.

Yeah.

Okay.

And, I think they call it a wolf fish for the teeth.

But, but anyways, he ended up, he knew it was my birthday, and he ended up boiling the fish for me, and we set that.

Four of us sat down at the table, and there was a pile of fish in the center of the table, and I had a fork, and everybody else had a fork, and we just ate off of the center of the other dish.

I'm looking at a wolf fish right now.

Yeah.

Everybody listens.

Googling a wolf fish it.

Yeah, okay, I get I see where it gets its name.

Looks like a pit bull.

Right.

But you enjoyed it.

Yeah.

It's great.

And the funny thing, I came back to Rochester.

This was right around Christmas.

We were having dinner at Rocco's, which I think is a really good place.

Yeah, they had wolf fish on the menu and it was like, I don't know, $40 and, you know, I didn't pay once for wolf fish.

And did you have the wolf fish at Rocca?

No you didn't.

Okay.

I want to know how it travels.

After we take our only break, we've got, some questions from a number of folks who are wondering about a range of issues.

First of all, someone on YouTube says they need to have a Nick Tahoe satellite location now.

I think they're doing just fine with what they got there.

I think.

I mean, now if you're a vegan or if you're pescatarian, it's a lot of fish.

As Lauren said, you get used to a lot of boiled fish, but I think they're doing just fine.

Some questions on gun culture and crime in Greenland.

Some more questions just on the relationship between the United States, Greenland, you know, some observations from our guests.

Both of our guests have spent some time in Greenland.

Dennis Abar is a Guggenheim fellow and professor emeritus and.

All right, School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.

Then there are a number of times lived there for the better part of a year and a half and is going back at the end of this year.

Lauren Petrarca, a freelance photojournalist with ER, was there for a couple of weeks, covering a number of issues related to climate change.

But five years ago.

And we'll come right back with more of your questions on the other side of this only break of the hour.

Coming up in our second hour, my colleague Raquel Stephen joins us and we're going to meet Brianna Cromartie, who is the owner of Cromartie Fitness in Rochester.

Throughout Black History Month, there's often a focus on just a few names and a few stories that are well known Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr.

But we're going to be shining the spotlight on local black leaders whose names you probably don't know.

But Raquel says you should.

That starts next hour.

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All right.

A couple questions on tourism here.

I don't know how many Americans, might be thinking about Greenland as a tourist idea or how many people around the world with all the attention on Greenland.

Again, it's it's a small, you know, it's a small country.

I mean, we talk about Greenland as a country.

It's an independent region of Greenland, 57,000 people.

David says I was in Greenland on a cruise a few summers ago.

In August, we spent a few hours walking around a village on the East coast.

We were asked not to purchase items in their grocery store because the locals depended on the items there, and the only received a couple of shipments per year.

So yeah, an interesting little look in there.

So I imagine the cruise industry may pop in and there that's a little different than, hey, I want to go to Greenland for a week or two weeks like Lauren did.

What would you tell people if they're thinking about that?

Lauren?

I'll say it's very expensive.

First off, there was actually, for the first time, a direct flight added this year from Newark to Newark.

So it's the first time there's been a direct flight from the US to Greenland.

So that maybe makes it easier.

When I went, I had to fly to Copenhagen and then over to King Louis Rock and then hop on a flight to LA.

So it's a lot of hopping on different flights.

But also visiting there.

They, they have where I was in a Louis that they have breweries, they have, you know, restaurants.

There's not a lot, but, you know, you can have a beer at this brewery while looking out at icebergs going by.

It's incredible.

And, Dennis, do you think that there is going to be even a small surge in tourism?

I don't know if they have the infrastructure for it.

Do you think that that could happen?

I don't know if the misperception of Greenland kind of remains them, that I don't think there's going to be a lot of tourism, but the more people that go there, the more impressed they are by the country, the landscape.

And I know Lauren would agree it's the most amazing landscape you're going to see anywhere.

It's incredible and it's unbelievable.

We're looking at some again, if you're joining us on YouTube, Dennis Bob's work, you're seeing some of it and it some of it just looks fake.

I mean, it's just been beautiful.

The landscape that they're both talking about right now, this beautiful blue skies, flat, gorgeous light.

And, you know, as you said, having a beer, watching ice drift by the water is just it's where I'll see you building.

Having a beer.

Yeah.

I'm looking.

I actually went on a cruise where they, not a cruise, but a little excursion into the icebergs on a boat and they broke off ice from the water, made cocktails for us.

Where?

That.

Oh, that was really cool.

But another thing I want to add is, while I was there, a lot of the people I talked to, especially from Denmark, were visiting.

They were either teachers or scientists who wanted to see climate change for their own eyes.

So I met this one teacher, I think she was at a middle school, and she went just to take pictures to bring back to her students to show them what's happening there.

So there is a lot of tourism there around climate change, which I found very interesting.

Yeah.

For sure.

I mean, to Denis's point about them feeling like the Greenlanders feeling like this has been a bad winter or an unusual winter because it's been so warm compared to what they're what they're typically seeing fjords, perhaps not even freezing over.

I mean, a lot a lot of change every year is going to be a little different.

The president of the United States recently said, oh, the South is getting a snowstorm.

Where does that climate change?

And I'm going like, like like, man, that is like what?

Like, what are we doing here?

But what did you take home with you, Lauren?

You're on assignment essentially thinking about climate change.

You were living in Charleston at the time, South Carolina.

So what were some of the takeaways for you on that particular project?

Just to see it with my own eyes was, you know, I'm someone that I went into photojournalism because I wanted to cover issues related to climate change.

So to see it was, I don't I don't even know how to explain it.

It's like when you're by a glacier and you can hear the ice breaking off.

Yeah.

From the ice sheet, it is like thunder.

It literally sounds like thunder.

And you can feel it in your bones, and it's like you just feel the effects of climate change.

I don't know if I can really describe that better than that, but, it was.

Yeah, it was life changing and it's it changed me.

And, you know, I already believed in climate change, but, to see it with your own eyes is incredible.

And I wonder in a moment like that, when you're hearing the cracking.

You said it sounds like thunder.

Yeah.

Does it make you feel, for lack of a better word, small and sort of powerless to the force of climate change?

So small.

Yes, yes.

And in terms of people, they're talking about climate change, too.

I will say that I did speak to some people who, you know, everyday people who told me how it affects them.

Like once I was out hiking and I met this young man collecting berries, and he said that, you know, at this time he wasn't able to collect berries before because there would be ice.

Or when I, when I did get to hike out on the ice sheet, which was incredible.

And the guide said he goes out there every day, and he just told us how much he's witnessed it melt from year to year.

So, you know, people there are definitely noticing it.

You agree with that, Dennis?

Yeah, just a couple examples.

The book that I did dealt with, I was inspired by Rockwell Kent's time in Greenland.

He was there in the early 30s and he lived in a slower sweat most of the time, which is the further north that I lived when I was in Greenland.

And you could look across the fjord and it was just a long stretch, a panorama of mountains over there.

There were 2 or 3 glaciers coming down into the fjords.

And and Kent's photographs, those glaciers came all the way down to the fjords.

And they were they were tall.

Now the glaciers, they don't even make it to the fjord anymore.

It's just running water with stones and rocks and everything.

The glaciers are still there, but they've resided quite a bit.

Yeah, connections.

Others might remember.

Last year we interviewed a journalist who took a journey to the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica.

It's known as the Doomsday Glacier because scientists fear that if it sort of breaks and melts, there's no telling what happens to the world.

The follow up piece that came out this past week about that, maybe we'll throw it in our show notes has a concluding line that I just never expected to read.

They're talking about geoengineering, and they're talking about building a 500 mile long, you know, 50ft wall to try to block a glacier melt.

And it feels absurd when you read about it.

But one of the scientists who was interviewed said, if the human species exists in a thousand years on this planet, we will absolutely be geoengineering.

It is how we will survive.

And he said, we might as well start now.

Now some of his colleagues disagreed, but that is something to think about.

We don't think long term as a species.

A thousand years on this planet is not long term for our species.

It's very long term.

So just it's amazing.

I'm just thinking about, you know, Lauren hearing the the thunderous crack and you go, wow, we are small.

We are really we've done some things and we may not be able to stop.

I have a small story for you.

There was this was in the spring.

We were there.

The whole town of its law.

What was at the dock waiting for the first supply of the year to come in.

And everybody was excited.

We're all standing there and we're getting eaten by mosquitoes like crazy.

And, And actually, I should interject.

Do you know why God put mosquitoes in Greenland?

And no.

So it couldn't compete with heaven.

Oh, is that a Greenlandic joke?

Is that what they say?

Yeah, I love it.

That's pretty good, right?

But anyway, so while we were there and they were starting to bring things in from the ship, here comes this kayaker up on the shore.

And as soon as I saw him, I went down to him and I go, you know, where are you coming from?

And he goes somewhere north of here.

And I was asking them what it's like kayaking these fjords and the remote, remote areas.

And he said, like, I would wake up in the morning, I'm on an island and I look across, I have my all his devices to tell him where he's at and where he's going, and he goes, well, I can make it over to that.

That island today.

And he says he takes off rowing or paddling and he's paddling and paddling and paddling and paddling.

And he feels like I haven't even gotten close to this place.

And he says, you just have.

You don't realize how far everything is and what it takes to get to any of these places.

Talking to Dennis Faber and Lauren Petrarca about their time in Greenland.

Back just a few more of your questions here.

Let's see here.

So Ben says, no question.

I just wanted to say I have Dennis's book and just wanted to say I really enjoyed the photography in it.

I think it might be a sign one.

I picked it up last year at an antique and rare book convention over by the Calkins Road Wegmans.

You're in the rare book category, isn't it?

But Ben, really appreciate that.

Really liked it.

Caleb says Evan, I saw somewhere that Greenlanders don't own the land, but they own lots.

Kind of like a social program.

Do your guests know more details on land ownership in Greenland?

They don't own land and they don't own lots.

You know, they can they can get permission to build on the land.

So you can have two houses, you know, one in town and one out on the fjord or something.

But you have to get permission to do that.

And it's kind of nice.

You know, I would walk through people's property.

Well, it's not their property, all the time.

And you don't worry about it.

Nobody, you know, thinks twice about it.

I didn't know that.

I wish I did.

For your next trip, Laurent.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, so, more from YouTube.

So, number of questions there.

What is the gun culture like in Greenland?

My guess is that there are lots of guns and very little violent crime.

Is that right?

How do they do it?

What do you know about Denis?

You're there a lot.

That is right.

That's correct.

Yes, sir.

Almost everybody has a gun because most everyone is a hunter.

A lot of guns are in really poor condition, but they still shoot and they shoot straight, and they are really good shots.

And the thing that, you would not be used to for sure, if you're sitting on an airplane and here comes a person carrying a rifle onto the airplane.

That happens all the time.

Yeah, no big deal, right?

Right.

Are you, are you a hunter?

I have hunted when I was younger.

Did you hunt in Greenland?

No.

Okay.

No, I went fishing all the time.

Okay, okay.

And but I also connected this question is, is there much crime in Greenland?

I didn't see much.

I don't know much.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know much either, but I would assume I mean, it's such small communities.

Yeah.

Everyone knows each other.

I would kind of assume.

Yeah.

Not.

But I don't want to guess.

I think the crime is mostly like drunkenness or something like that.

I don't know of anyone having something that was stolen.

So here are some other points.

I got an email asking if we're going to see a Trump nuke or a Trump Greenland like a Trump Tower.

Greenland.

I got Trump hotel.

I don't think so.

I don't think that that even the Trump family probably thinks is not the right investment.

I don't, but you know what?

I don't know anymore, guys, I don't know, maybe, I don't know that that's the type of clientele that the folks who go seeing Trump properties around the world are probably not going.

David, who wrote in before, said, A lot of people go to Greenland for kayaking.

I don't know that there's a ton of avid kayakers who live in tents, who also stay in Trump properties around the world, so I don't know if that's the right fit, but I make no predictions, I don't know.

Also on YouTube, a listener says If Greenland were to be owned, quote unquote by another country, it should perhaps be Canada.

It's closer than the United States talking about Greenland becoming part of the U.S.

this is crazy.

It's insane.

You'd be thought of as an idiot to even bring up such a crazy idea.

I okay, I mean, right, I mean, so so let's get back to this.

The one of the points Dennis made earlier is when you talk to people in Greenland, when you've been there multiple times, they didn't want to be part of the United States, but they most of them also would like to not be a part of Denmark.

Eventually they would love to be fully independent.

Yes.

You know, they have a prime minister in Parliament.

They would like to be their autonomous, but they'd like to be recognized as an independent nation.

And what is interesting to me is, despite the friction with Denmark, it looks to me like this has rallied the Greenlanders, at least away from the United States and toward Denmark.

If they.

That'd be toward anybody else.

Dennis, what do you see?

I do you know, I think if you get right down to it, they don't want to be owned or controlled by anybody.

They have their own parliament.

But but Denmark still has a lot to do with what goes on in Greenland.

Sure.

And I part of it, it's because of finances.

You know, I don't know if Greenland can even survive on with their economy.

You know, their, their biggest market is fishing.

And I don't think you're going to run the country off of fishing.

I mean, I'm looking at your aerial photo aerial, your photos of, and it's unbelieve beautiful.

I'm looking through Dennis's book, but I wanted to find that one photo you had of it said the United States of, United States of Greenland.

Denis.

It's in the front.

Okay, so.

But can you explain the image here?

I don't want to just talk about it.

It's it's a United States of Greenland.

The flag is.

It's a flag.

Yeah.

Oh, what do you make of the fact that this.

Because this is ten years ago, right.

So someone puts puts us a flag up and it says United States of Greenland and I, you know, I don't know if that meant at the time they'd rather be associated with the United States or the relationship was good or, or what you thought was facetious.

Oh, was facetious.

Oh, it's.

Well, actually, that's a flag of Greenland.

Yeah, the red and white and then obviously a few stars.

Stars?

Yeah.

White stars and.

Yeah, it's, there's some great graffiti in Greenland, and it's really, I think Banksy kind of inspired graffiti.

But there's also other graffiti.

You talk about how difficult Greenlandic is.

There is a word that was written on the side of this building, and it was probably 2015 to 20 yards long and one word.

Yeah, one word.

And I asked my friend who was Greenlandic, what does that mean?

And he goes, well, it's something like it means I'm too lazy to do that.

So, yeah.

So the graffiti is a little bit all over the place.

Boy, down to our last minute or so long as you continue to watch the the story of Greenland unfold internationally, has it been surreal for you?

What is it like having been there, one of the few Americans who's been there seeing the way people talk about Greenland?

Yeah, I think Greenlanders are just left out of the conversation, which, is hard to see.

You know, they have this rich cultural history, that's really important to them.

And I think they need to be a part of the conversation.

I also just Greenland is so important to the rest of the world in terms of climate change and if any country is in there to go in there and strip it of its resources.

And, I think we're all in trouble.

So I think that should be kept in mind.

Denis, what do you think?

Well, I think the Greenlanders are intelligent people.

They're educated.

They're aware of what's happening in the world.

But they're also aware of their environment and how to survive in that environment.

And they love the environment.

They love where they're at, and they don't want to live anywhere else, and they don't want to be controlled by anybody else.

Well, I appreciate some of the, the really the, the humanizing aspect here.

I'm searching for a better word.

But I mean, my goodness, we keep talking about Greenland, Earth.

The international community is debating Greenland.

The Trump administration's talking about it like it's just a place of resources to be mined and its people and it's culture.

And as Lauren said, it is a very important place in the world for the safety and the future for all of us.

So thank you, Dennis, for ball, Lauren Petrarca for being here, for sharing your experiences, your photography and your great work on this.

And we do appreciate your voices.

Thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you.

Thank you Ivan.

Great conversation.

More connections coming up in just a moment.

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