Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-02-25
Greenland Once Again
Has Pioneer Formers
Agricultural Community
Recalls Days Of Norsemen
By Thomos R. Henry


A thousand years ago. Southern
Greenland was country Of orchards
and pastures.
The Norsemen Eric the Red brought
from Iceland came as pioneer farmers.
For three or four centuries they main
tanned an agricultural colony in the
shadow Of the great glaciers. They
predated Columbus by almost 500
years.
Then something happened to them
perhaps suddenly and perhaps over
few generations. It is possible that
there was change in the weather.
Crops became poorer and poorer. Bones
in the ancient graveyards show signs
of severe malnutrition. In the end,
some have maintained, the last survi-
vors were wiped out by hostile Eskimos.
The once thriving land reverted to
the onward pressing ice. The white
mans day was over and his place taken
by a few villages Of seal-hunting
aboriginals.
Now it is becoming farmland again.
New sheep ranches are being estab-
lished, sometimes on the very sites of
the ancient Morse farms. The new
farmers are Greenlanders-a distinct
people not entirely Eskimo. and with
a long record of progressiveness under
the enlightened colonial policy of the
Danish government.
Reversion of Climate.
Perhaps a reversion Of the climate
back to that Of the days of Eric the
Reds settlement has made this develop
ment possible. 1t is bringing about
notable changes in the aboriginal ways
OF life. as reported in the journal Of the
Arctic Institute Of North America.
There are now" reports Miss M. c.
Findlay, who spent the past summer
there on research grant from the in
stitute, go full-time and $50 part-time
sheep farmers. All the farms are built
on the sites OF medieval Viking home
steads. 1t is as though the very same
Norsemen had come back with their
nocks and herds and taken up domestic
life again. The best Greenlandic farms
today remind one constantly of their
1celandic counterparts, and the latter
have continued in an unbroken line
since the same Vikings founded them
in the tenth century.
on its fenced homestead with stalls and
sheep folds nearby. The farmhouse is
of wood and may have from four TO
eight rooms in two stories. Inside the
kitchen bread is baked. The farm dogs
lie around the porch and the hens are
scratching on the grass in front of the
house. On the water of the ford, a
couple of hundred yards away, is the
motor boat that connects with the
trading store at the nearby settlement.
This is dramatic change from the
old seal hunting routine and it is rare
to find Greenlander who has gone
straight from the kayak to the scythe.
Sheep farming has taken the best
of the young men and there still is
room for more Of them.
Sites Are Available.
Away from the coastline untenanted
Viking sites are still waiting for the
Greenlander who is brave enough to
leave the outer coast with its seals
and take to sheep"
The Vikings. it is known. kept cattle
and had apple orchards. 1t is doubtful
whether today the heritage is lush
enough in many places to provide cat
tie pasture or whether any ordinary
varieties of apples could stand the still
quite severe Greenland winters.
The hillsides, clear of ice and snow
during the summer months, afford ex-
cellent sheep ranges and the demand
for such agricultural products as can
be grown is great. With its farms
and with the vast airfields and weather
stations established as a result of the
last war and present war threats-it
appears as If one of the earth's most
neglected lands is coming back
Only the southern coast is suitable
for farming. The greater part of the
island is buried in eternal ice.