NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Lisa Sólrun Christiansen gets up at 4 a.m. most days and gets to work knitting thick wool sweaters coveted by buyers around the world for their warmth and colorful patterns celebrating Greenland’s traditional Inuit culture.
Her morning routine includes a quick check of the news, but these days the ritual shatters her peace because of all the stories about U.S. President Donald Trump’s designs on her homeland.
“I get overwhelmed,’’ Christiansen said earlier this month as she looked out to sea, where impossibly blue icebergs floated just offshore.
Lisa Solron Christiansen, 57, knits a sweater holding her grand daughter Siilia, 2, at her home in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, March 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Lisa Solron Christiansen, 57, knits a sweater holding her grand daughter Siilia, 2, at her home in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, March 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
The daughter of Inuit and Danish parents, Christiansen, 57, cherishes Greenland. It is a source of immense family pride that her father, an artist and teacher, designed the red-and-white Greenlandic flag.
“On his deathbed he talked a lot about the flag, and he said that the flag is not his, it’s the people’s,” she said. “And there’s one sentence I keep thinking about. He said, ‘I hope the flag will unite the Greenlandic people.’’’
national flags at a party after parliamentary elections in Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)” width=”599″ height=”399″ src=”https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/f2bf9eb/2147483647/strip/true/crop/8640×5760+0+0/resize/599×399!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2Fa6%2F53%2F566b7c9aefe0793c9ffe06e67214%2Fee8ad86066a644409666a419f9487f64″ loading=”lazy”/>
Members of Inuit Ataqatigiit political party dance with national flags at a party after parliamentary elections in Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Members of Inuit Ataqatigiit political party dance with national flags at a party after parliamentary elections in Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A boat rides though a frozen sea inlet outside of Nuuk, Greenland, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A boat rides though a frozen sea inlet outside of Nuuk, Greenland, March 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Pieces of ice float on the sea in Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Pieces of ice float on the sea in Nuuk, Greenland, Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Military vessel HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Military vessel HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Island of anxiety
Greenlanders are increasingly worried that their homeland, a self-governing region of Denmark, has become a pawn in the competition between the U.S., Russia and China as global warming opens up access to the Arctic. They fear Trump’s aim to take control of Greenland, which holds rich mineral deposits and straddles strategic air and sea routes, may block their path toward independence.
Those fears were heightened Sunday when second lady Usha Vance announced she would visit Greenland later this week to attend the national dogsled race.