About The Greenland Affair

The Greenland Affair is a cultural and historical project dedicated to sharing Iceland's unique perspective on Greenland's early Norse history.

At its heart lies a simple truth: Greenland's European chapter begins with Erik the Red sailing from Iceland around 985 AD. For several centuries, the Norse settlements on Greenland - Eystribyggð and Vestribyggð - formed part of the same cultural, legal, and kinship sphere as Iceland. Laws were shared, families connected, and the spirit of exploration linked these lands across the North Atlantic.

This story of Erik the Red is preserved primarily through medieval Icelandic texts, supplemented by archaeology. These writings, composed in Iceland centuries after the events, are the reason we know the names, motivations, and details of Erik the Red, his son Leif Erikson, and the voyages to Vinland. Without Iceland's tradition of recording and safeguarding oral memory in writing, much of this North Atlantic heritage would be reduced to anonymous archaeological traces.

In the early 20th century, this ancient connection was revived in Icelandic public discourse. The 1914 article by poet and thinker Einar Benediktsson in Ingólfur marked the modern spark, framing Greenland as a shared legacy rooted in Iceland's settler society. The discussion, later known as Grænlandsmálið ("The Greenland Affair," with the term gaining traction in the 1920s), peaked in the 1930s-1950s before fading after Denmark's 1953 constitutional change formally integrated Greenland as an equal part of the Danish realm.

This project does not revisit old claims or engage with modern politics. Instead, it translates and presents overlooked Icelandic sources - early 20th-century writings and parliamentary debates - into English for the first time. The aim is modest yet meaningful: to make these Icelandic threads accessible, especially to Greenlanders, so they can draw from them as they wish in their own narratives of identity, origins, and self-determination.

Iceland's role as guardian of these stories - through centuries of manuscript preservation - continues today. The Greenland Affair is a continuation of that tradition: a quiet offering of shared history across the sea.