The Foreign Service Journal, April 2023

64 APRIL 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The seminarians had such names as Niels Nikolaj Nathanielsen and Karlina Kirsten Kathrine Kleist—cultural mixtures of Danish and Inuit background. Their DNA seemed to come equally from both parts of the world. Their first language was Greenlandic, one of the most gram- matically complex languages known, and all spoke at least some Danish. Ingmar was nearly alone in having mastered Eng- lish (a little key to the coming narrative). As I got to know Ingmar on my first and second trips to Nuuk, I learned about his youth on the northern coast of one of the coldest places on earth, when he “communicated,” he said, with walruses and other sea mammals from his tiny motorboat as they followed him through the Arctic waters. Ingmar also shared how his parents had sent him to Copenhagen for high school in the early 1940s. At the time, Greenlanders and Americans saw the possibility of German encroachment, even invasion, of Greenland, as naval rivalry in the North Atlantic turned into war. They believed that Nazi-occupied Denmark might be safer for him. Thoroughly Inuit, he became accultur- ated to Danish ways of doing and seeing things, then had to relearn his native language when he returned to Greenland after the war. He never left his roots again. In fact, during the 1990s, he served as vice president of the Inuit Circumpolar Coun- cil, which includes all countries touching the Arctic, and traced Inuit oral tradition and storytelling to verify migration pat- terns from tens of thousands of years ago. b Late in 1987, on my second trip to Nuuk, Ingmar suggested we work together on a study tour to the United States for the entire graduating class. Each spring, he and the students visited a foreign country. For many, it was the first time they’d ever been outside Greenland. That year they had visited the Soviet Union. Previous trips had taken them to Japan and points east. Thrilled, I built a case for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) backing in the form of “picking up” the group once they arrived in New York, and organizing contacts and events in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Even lacking diplomatic presence in Greenland, ECA made a wonderful leap of faith and energetically took up the task. As far as anyone could remember, this would be the first Greenlandic del- egation visit ever officially sponsored by the U.S. government. I reminded ECA that Greenlanders really do not speak English and would need a Danish interpreter to make the visit worthwhile. “No problem,” they said. “We can surely find one.” I called every month or so to see if they had come up with an interpreter. “Noth- ing yet,” they said, “but you’ll see. We’ll get one.” Three weeks before the trip, the happi- est news came: ECA had given up trying to locate a Danish-English interpreter and asked if I would fill in. I quickly made plans and traveled from Copenhagen to New York to meet the group. Imagine the culture shock of students who’d never been away from home, and suddenly had to negotiate the New York subway. We also scoured the city on a char- tered bus, the driver a thoroughgoing New Yorker proud to explain his town to newcomers. We drove past Yankee Stadium, which he pointed out with pride to the 30 students plus Ingmar. “Any ques- tions?” One student asked howmany people could fit in Yankee Stadium. “Oh, probably 70,000,” said the driver boastfully. A long silence came over the group. “Anything wrong?” said the driver as the three dozen youngsters stared, bewil- dered, out the bus window. “70,000?” said one. “That’s more than the population of our country.” b Ingmar loved that trip, which included Ellis Island, Chinatown, and the Battery. One evening, he and I ventured through Greenwich Village. A group of Greenlandic students, circa 1987. (Inset) A photo of Ingmar Egede, then rector of the Ilinniarfissuaq, the single institution of higher learning in Nuuk, Greenland. COURTESYOFDANWHITMAN