The culture of Greenland has much in common with Greenlandic Inuit tradition, as the majority of people are descended from Inuit. Many people still go ice fishing and there are annual dog-sled races in which everyone with a team participates.
However, Greenland has now become somewhat of a tourist attraction. It holds contests to attract tourists such as dog racing, ice fishing, hiking, and cross country racing.
Inuit
Inuit account for 81% (2005) of the population of Greenland. Hunting is iconic to their culture and most Greenlanders still hunt at least part-time to supplement their diet and provide skins for clothing and kayaks.
Thule region
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 northernmost year-round communities on earth (Siorapaluk, Moriusaq, Savissivik, Qeqertat, and Qaanaaq) are in the Thule region. Siorapaluk, with approximately 80 residents, is just 730 nautical miles (1,360 km) from the North Pole.
Currently, though most families in the Thule region need at least one member in salaried employment in order to pay for electricity and other modern amenities, hunting remains a revered profession. Traditional foods like seal, walrus, narwhal and caribou are consumed frequently. Hunters still wear hand-made polar bear skin garments, caribou anoraks and skin boots for warmth on winter hunting trips. Many of the men maintain world-class kayaking and harpoon-throwing skills.
Inuit identity as hunters
Cultural status of the hunting experience
Hunting has always been an important aspect of the Greenland Inuit culture:
"The Inuit culture is the most pure hunting culture in existence. Having adapted to the extreme living conditions in the High Arctic of the North American continent for at least four thousand years, Inuit are not even hunter-gatherers. Inuit are hunters, pure and simple." (Henriette Rasmussen, Minister in Greenland Home Rule Government)
Even today hunting is important as stated by the Greenland Home Rule Government:
"Hunting is the heart and soul of Greenlandic culture.... Hunting is also very important from a cultural perspective. In a society such as Greenland, which for centuries was based on subsistence hunting (until about 50 years ago), hunting is still of great cultural importance. Irrespective of the fact that most live like wage-earners in a modern industrial society, many Greenlanders' identity is still deeply rooted in the hunting."
Reindeer hunting has a special status in the hearts of the populace. Shooting a musk ox provides four times as much meat as a reindeer, but "Greenlanders would much rather have caribou or reindeer meat than musk or ox meat," says Josephine Nymand. "But the experience is just as important as the meat," points out Peter Nielsen, Head of Office at the Ministry of Environment and Nature. "It is simply the most wonderful part of the year. The trips in for the caribou hunt in the beautiful autumn weather have a great social and physical meaning for people's wellbeing. It has many functions."
Inuit culture
The long history of mutual dependence between humans and reindeer necessitates continuing efforts to safeguard their relationship and the welfare of both parties. Reindeer hunting – which is also commonplace in many other parts of the world – is considered so vital to the cultural heritage of certain groups that there is an attempt being made to get it placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
The identity of the Inuit is closely tied to their geography, history and their attitudes toward hunting – "For Inuit, ecology, hunting and culture are synonymous". Their identity as hunters is under attack. Those attacks are "... viewed in the Arctic as a direct assault on culture, identity as well as sustainable use", and Inuit are reacting:
"... for the Inuit, animal rights campaigns are just the latest in a long litany of religious, industry, and government policies imposed by outsiders – policies which ignore Inuit values and realities, and threaten the survival of one of the world's last remaining aboriginal hunting cultures."