BALANCING TOURISM

GREENLAND SAYS VISIT, BUT STEP LIGHTLY AND SPEAK SOFTLY

- STORY: LISA ABEND / NYT

climate change has made the harbours more accessible, cruise lines have added Greenland to their itineraries; this year, 77 ships will call in Nuuk, many with capacity for more than 2,000 passengers.

Standing at sunset on the boardwalk that rims the jagged western edge of Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, I felt simultaneously dwarfed and expanded.

The glassy water of the fjord, the veins of granite that made the snow-capped mountains look like crinkle cookies, the clarity of the northern light: All these combined in their immensity to make me feel paltry, while their beauty sent my spirits soaring. But what struck me most was the profound silence that hung, weighty and dense, as if the universe had slipped a pair of noise-cancelling headphones over my ears.

That silence was even more striking because I had arrived in Nuuk at what is most likely the noisiest period in Greenland's history. For years now, the city has been undergoing a very loud building boom, cranking out housing and more recently, a new airport.

Yet the noise is as much metaphorical as it is literal. Ever since US President Donald Trump revived his intentions to claim Greenland for the United States, the country has been at the uncomfortable center of the world's geopolitical conversations, with a steady stream of parachuting journalists and politicians to prove it. And it's sure to get noisier in June, when United Airlines becomes the first US airline to offer direct flights from the United States — one reason Greenland is among the Travel section's 52 Places to Go this year.

The trip I took in April wasn't my first to Greenland. But this time, I was aware of how much hung in the balance.

REFLECTIONS OF A COLONIAL PAST