In the year 1855 the population of the South Inspectorate consisted of 6128 aboriginal Greenlanders, or Esquimaux, and 120 Europeans; that of the North Inspectorate, of 3516 of the former, and 128 of the latter; a very small number if we consider that it is scattered over a space of 12° of latitude. In a country like this, such towns as Godhavn, with 150 inhabitants, or Godthaab, the most populous of all, with 330, pass for considerable cities.
But, in spite of its scanty population, Greenland is a valuable possession of the Danish crown, or rather of the Danish company, which entirely monopolizes the trade, and manages its affairs so well that the Greenlander receives for his produce only about the sixth part of its price at Copenhagen. According to the average of six years (1850–1855), the total value of the exports from Greenland amounted to 378,588 rix-dollars; that of the importations from Denmark, to 164,215; but in the latter sum was included not only the price paid to the Greenlanders for their goods, but all the stores and provisions necessary for the agents and servants of the company, the missionaries, and the administration of the colony. The trifling amount which, after all deductions and charges, the poor Greenlander receives for his seal-skins or his blubber, he generally spends in tobacco, candy-sugar, coffee, and sea-biscuits, for his real wants are amply supplied by his own country, and he has not yet learned to invest his gains more profitably. Like all other Esquimaux, he depends chiefly upon the sea for his subsistence. Of the various species of Phocæ found in the Greenland waters the most valuable is the hispid seal (Phoca hispida), both from its numbers and from its frequenting the fjords during the whole year; while the larger Greenland seal (Phoca grœnlandica) is not stationary like the former, but leaves the coast from March to May, and from July to September. The Cystophora cristata, or hooded seal, remarkable for a globular sac, capable of inflation, on the head of the male, appears in the fjords only from April till June. It is the most pugnacious of all the seals. In the southern districts, where the seal-hunting must be chiefly carried on in open water, the Greenlander relies upon his boat, the kayak. When the animal is struck, the barbed point of the harpoon detaches itself, by an ingenious mechanism, from the shaft, which otherwise would be broken by its violent contortions; and as the line is attached to a bladder, it can easily be recovered.
Among the cetaceans, the white dolphin (Delphinopterus leucas) and the narwhal (Monodon monoceros) are the most valuable to the Greenlanders of the North Inspectorate, from 500 to 600 of these huge animals being annually caught. The former makes its appearance a short time after the breaking up of the ice, and again in autumn; in summer it seeks the open sea. Sometimes large herds of the white dolphins are cut off from the sea by the closing in of the ice in the neighborhood of the land, so that several hundred may be killed in the course of a few days. The narwhal is caught only in the Omenak fjord, which it visits regularly in November. As its chase is both difficult and dangerous, the Greenlanders generally hunt it in company, so that after a narwhal has been struck with the first harpoon or lance, others are ready to follow up the advantage. The larger whales are now seldom caught, but the dead body of a fin-back is not seldom cast ashore, and affords a rich harvest to the neighborhood. Sometimes masses of oil, evidently proceeding from dead whales, are found floating in the fjords. In 1854 ninety-five tons of this matter were collected near Holsteinburg.
The fishes likewise amply contribute to supply the Greenlander’s wants. The shark-fishery (Scymnus microcephalus) is of considerable importance. The entrails of seals and other offal are placed in the openings of the ice to attract these sharks to the spot, where they are caught in various ways, particularly by torch-light, which brings them to the surface. The fishermen, watching the moment, strike them with a sharp hook, and then drag them upon the ice. They are also caught with strong iron angles attached to chains. They are captured for the sake of their livers, which yield a good deal of oil. It has very recently been ascertained that a valuable substance resembling spermaceti may be expressed from the carcass which was formerly wasted, and for this purpose powerful screw presses are now employed. About 30,000 of these gluttonous animals are caught every year, and the fishery may be greatly extended, as the bottom of the ice-fjords absolutely swarms with them. Their capture is attended with far less trouble and danger than in Iceland, where they are pursued in boats, and in a capricious and tempestuous sea. Improving upon the old Esquimaux methods of fishing or hunting, the Danish residents set nets for the white whale or the seal; for the former, they are attached to the shore, and extend off at right angles, so as to intercept them in their autumnal southern migration, when they swim close along the rocks to avoid the grampus. When the white whale is stopped by the net, it often appears at first to be unconscious of the fact, and continues to swim against it, and then allows the boat to approach it from behind. If entangled in the net, it is soon drowned, as, like all the whale tribe, it is obliged to come to the surface to breathe.
A large quantity of cod are caught in various parts of the South Inspectorate, particularly at Fiskernasset, which, being less subject to fogs and more exposed to the sea-wind, offers peculiar advantages for the drying of the fish. The capelin (Mallotus villosus), which in May and June visits the coasts of Greenland in great numbers, is eaten both fresh or laid upon the rocks to dry for the winter. The sea-wolf, the lump-fish, the bull-head, the Norway haddock, the salmon-trout, are likewise important articles of food. The halibut grows to a huge size, and a smaller species (Hippoglossus pinguis) is fished for at the depth of 180 or even 380 fathoms. The banks frequented by this fish are most valuable to the neighboring Greenlanders. Many are no doubt still undiscovered, others may be known by the dead fish floating on the surface, or by the seals diving out of the water with a flat fish in their mouth. Long-tailed crabs are easily caught in many parts, and the common mussel may be gathered almost everywhere at ebb tide.
Crowds of birds nestle during the summer on the rocky shores, particularly at Upernavik, where the largest breeding-places are found. They are generally killed with small blunted arrows. In the ice-fjord of Jacobshavn the gulls are caught ingeniously by floating traps on which something brilliant or resembling a fish is fixed. The eggs of the sea-birds are gathered in vast numbers, and the feathers and skins of the eider-duck and auk are both exported and used for the lining of boots.
Compared with the wealth of the seas, the land is very poor. The chase of the reindeer is, however, important, as its skin affords both a warmer and a softer clothing than that of the seal, and serves moreover as a bed-cover or a sledge-carpet. Reindeer-hunting is a favorite summer occupation of the Greenlanders, who annually kill from 10,000 to 20,000, and export about one-half of the skins. Only a few cows, sheep, and goats are kept at Julianshaab. For want of hay they are fed with fish during the winter. In South Greenland the potato is cultivated by the European residents as a luxury. The plant never flowers, and even buds are rare. Turnips, cabbages, salad, and spinach likewise grow in South Greenland, but barley sown in the gardens scarcely ever comes to ear. In summer the windows of the houses are gay with geraniums and fuchsias and other flowers of a more temperate zone.
Among the indigenous plants, the berries of the Empetrum nigrum, Vaccinium uliginosum, and Vaccinium vitis idæa furnish the Greenlanders with their only vegetable food. While the coasts exposed to the bleak sea-winds afford scanty traces of vegetation, the valleys and hill slopes of the more sheltered fjords are green during the summer, and justify the name bestowed by Erick on the land of his adoption. Forests are of course out of the question in Greenland, though in some places the birch attains a not inconsiderable size. Thus in a dell at the upper end of Lichtenau Fjord a thicket of these trees, fifteen feet high, surrounds a little lake fed by a waterfall, the largest hitherto known in Greenland. More generally, however, the trees, such as the beech, the willow, the elder, etc., merely creep along the ground, where the dense matting of their roots and branches, mingled with bushes of the empetrum, or with mosses, lichens, and fallen leaves, forms a kind of turf which is used as fuel by the Danes.
In some measure the sea makes up for the want of timber by casting on the shore a quantity of drift-wood, the origin of which is still a matter of doubt, some tracing it to the North American rivers, others to those of Siberia. It consists mostly of the uprooted trunks of coniferous trees. Sometimes also large pieces of bark, such as those of which the Indians make their canoes, and sewn together with threads of hair, and drifted into the fjords.
The mineral kingdom, though it has within the last few years attracted the attention of speculators, will hardly ever realize their hopes. Several attempts to work the lead and copper ores at Nanursoak and in the Arksak fjord have miserably failed. The cost of transport is immense, and the difficulty of obtaining the necessary workmen presents an insuperable obstacle to all mining operations in Greenland.