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I Went to Greenland and Saw a Warning for Canada

How the resource-rich Arctic territory braced for invasion

I Went to Greenland and Saw a Warning for Canada

How the resource-rich Arctic territory braced for invasion

WORDS AND PICTURES BY BRETT POPPLEWELL

Published 6:30, April 15, 2026

BEFORE HE PULLED his hunting rifle out of storage and brought it to his bedroom to keep it close at night, Jan Køhler had been preparing, mentally and emotionally, in case the American military descended on the Greenlandic capital. He didn’t know which way they’d come. But if they did, he assumed the battle would be quick.

It was January 24, and he had been glued to the news for days, monitoring Donald Trump’s every word about Greenland, about America’s “absolute necessity” to own the world’s largest island, and the president’s refusal to rule out the use of force. Køhler had watched from his window as Danish military planes flew in to reinforce the city. Roughly 100 Danish troops had already arrived, and more were on their way.

The soldiers weren’t hard to find. Many of them were staying in the city’s hotels. They’d arrived with live ammunition and orders to “immediately take up the fight” in the event of an attack. But Køhler knew, as did everyone else, that if there were to be a war, the Danes would be overrun quickly. And so he prepared.

The fifty-one-year-old Danish-born father of three had never been a soldier and had never really thought about shooting someone either. A week earlier, he’d helped organize the biggest protest in Greenland’s history, a peaceful march down the streets of Nuuk and toward the United States consulate. He’d chanted with 5,000 others as they surrounded the structure, a red clapboard house perched—like most things in Nuuk—on the side of a rocky hill overlooking the fjord. He’d cheered as his fellow protesters carried Greenland’s flag on a staff and speared it into a nearby snowbank.

He slept a bit easier after the protest. Easier still in the days that followed as world leaders descended on Davos to deride Trump for jeopardizing the whole world order over his demands for Greenland. Køhler had felt some relief when Trump took the stage and offered what sounded like a concession: “We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that.”

Whatever sense of calm Køhler felt during the Davos speech dissipated when the president made it clear he expected the US to be granted sovereignty over parts of the island anyway.

Soon, Greenland’s government released a preparedness handbook advising households to keep at least five days’ worth of essential supplies on hand: food, water, medicine, warm clothes, radios, hunting weapons, and ammunition. The new guidance was, as one minister described it, an “insurance policy.” Like many, Køhler took the messaging seriously and began stocking up. He wasn’t political by nature. Nor was he prone to violence or violent thoughts. He was happily married, and enjoyed sailing in the fjord with his family. He had lived in Nuuk for half his life and couldn’t imagine moving anywhere else. The city made him feel as if he was living at the edge of the world—and, in some ways, he was.

Køhler knew every twist and turn of the 120 kilometres of roads that knit Nuuk together. But short of fleeing to Denmark, he figured there wasn’t much he could do if American troops entered the city. He suspected others might take the fastest available way out of town: head west, then north to where the reindeer roam, and carry on past the remains of Inuit villages and Norse settlements until they reached the Ice Sheet. There were countless residents with escape plans. Young and old, with children and grandparents and pets, all quietly prepared to abandon the city and run for the hills. He was determined to stay.

The hour was getting late. The northern lights were glowing in the sky. An unseasonably warm wind filtered through the fjord. Then everything clicked as the electricity cut out and the capital turned black. Køhler looked out into the darkness and remembered something he’d read in the news about how, weeks earlier, the American military had knocked out the power in Caracas before dropping into the city to oust Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

This is it, Køhler thought. This is how it starts.

IN THE OPENING salvos of 2026, Greenland felt at the centre of everything. What may have seemed abstract to those watching from afar felt both real and urgent for the people of Nuuk. By mid-January, the threat of invasion left citizens awake in the night and transformed the port city from an otherwise quiet Arctic outpost of 20,000 people into a rallying point for North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops and ambassadors. French soldiers were there, as were Germans, Swedes, and Finns. Together, they formed a tripwire force hastily deployed as an armed symbol of the Western alliance’s resolve to preserve the rule-bound order—even if it meant going to war with itself.

Those deterrents were still being arranged when, on January 20, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney described “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality where the large main powers of geopolitics have no constraints.” He spoke of Canada shifting its strategic posture to something more principled and pragmatic. He talked about Trump, Greenland, and Manifest Destiny, even if he didn’t name them.

Greenlanders watched closely. Then, a few days later, winter winds snapped the power lines linking the capital to a hydroelectric plant fifty-six kilometres away, plunging the city into darkness for six hours. Homes cooled. Electronics died. People were on edge. Even after power was restored, the unease remained.

It lingered into early February, when I arrived to find that, amid the angst and geopolitical brinkmanship, another story was emerging—one largely written over by the more dominant narrative. A story of resilience, resistance, and reconciliation that echoed across both sides of Baffin Bay and the Davis and Nares Straits. It was a story that needed to reveal itself before I could understand it. One that would ultimately resolve into the most intimate tension of all: loyalty and betrayal.

Despite its inflated presence on our maps, Kalaallit Nunaat—to most who live there—possesses a vastness that must be seen to be understood. Viewed on approach from the sky, endless moraines and mountain peaks rise through the ice crust, cutting a jagged silhouette. Unlike most ranges on Earth, many of Greenland’s summits remain unnamed, unclimbed, and unseen from the ground. Few land masses have been less traversed.

I had been on the ground only a few hours when I met Køhler. He told me many locals were exhausted from speaking with foreign journalists. He wasn’t sure how many interviews he’d given, but he wanted to make sure I understood something. That, to him and to others like him, Greenland was worth dying for.

Then he told me about the day Trump’s son—Don Jr.—came to Nuuk. It was a year earlier, and Køhler had watched from his window as a jet flew low over the city and landed at the airport, which is carved into a mountainside and is visible from much of the town. He could read the word “TRUMP” on the side of the fuselage. Curious, he went to the airport along with his twelve-year-old son. Soon, he learned that men in “MAGA” hats were handing out $100 bills in Nuuk’s main square, coaxing people into the city’s largest hotel for a free meal. That was when he realized how dangerous the moment was.

For many Greenlanders, their relationship with America and with the world beyond their borders shifted that day. It wasn’t simply the insult of being manipulated for a propaganda stunt. It was the loss of trust and the rejection of truth. “It........

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