Greenland is a lot more than an object of Donald Trump's territorial ambitions. It's a place whose small population is facing big questions – about climate change, economic development, and identity. Today we bring you a reporter's notebook, traveling with NPR's Juana Summers and her team through Greenland at a time of huge political uncertainty. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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When you're on the road as a reporter, you're bound to pick up some local vernacular.
There's this word that a woman that we met in Greenland told us. It's called sila, which means weather. But it also means, like, you can't control the weather. You just have to adapt around it.
That, of course, is all things considered co-host Juana Summers. Last month, she and a team went to Greenland for a reporting trip and encountered a ton of sila.
One thing to know about traveling in Greenland is that there are not roads between the major towns and cities. So you've got to take these little small flights on Air Greenland to get from place to place.
One place they were trying to get to was a little town north of the Arctic Circle called Alulisat. But the Sela had other ideas. They had days of high winds and icy tarmacs.
We were supposed to leave on a Thursday. No flight happens. The next day we get up. We pack all our stuff. We get to the airport. We get on a plane. Plane gets diverted. We land in a completely different part of Greenland. We're there for like a half hour or something like that. Back on the plane. The cycle plays out over and over again. Finally, I think this is on Sunday. Pack up all our stuff.
Leave the hotel. Get on the plane again. Plane gets diverted again to this place called Asiat. So we're now here at the Asiat Airport in Greenland. On our way, we're attempting again for the third time to fly to Ilulissat. We're going to see if we're going to make it.
And finally, after about two hours of sitting there and wondering what's going to happen, this announcement comes over the loudspeaker. It is in either Greenlandic or Danish languages. I do not speak. I didn't have to understand those languages to know what was happening because everybody started cheering. And we actually made it four days later.
Understand that it seems like we're going to make an attempt to fly to Alulisat.
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