The Marriage of Palo (aka Palo's Wedding). This classic 1933 silent film was shot in black and white and later edited with foley sound and voiceovers. Sadly the director, Knud Rasmussen, Greenland's famous explorer and ethnographer, died of food poisoning while shooting the production in Ammassalik, Greenland. This is a classic Greenlandic love story, involving Palo, a woman, and two hunters/suitors. Better than any other document on film, Palo shows all aspects of the lives of the Inuit Greenlanders prior to the arrival of Christianity in Greenland. The kayak-chase, drumming-duel, and polar-bear-hunt scenes will leave you breathless! This one is hard to find, anywhere.

Smilla's Sense of Snow. This 1996 film – starring Julia Ormond (as the half-Inuit Smilla?!), Gabriel Byrne, and Richard Harris – fails to tell a good mystery yarn, unlike the best-selling Danish novel on which it's based. Smilla reveals little, if nothing, about modern-day Greenland. Passable entertainment on video.

The World's Greatest Places. This 1998 release is an IMAX-format documentary film dealing with seven of the world's most beautiful places, including Greenland. You won't get much information, but shots of icebergs floating in Greenland's waters will blow you away when shown on an apartment-sized IMAX screen.

Zero Kelvin. This 1996 Norwegian film stars Sweden’s brilliantly creepy character actor, Stellan Skarsgard. It presents a frightening look at three Norwegian men living at a remote east Greenland fur station who go – predictably – mad (Skarsgard’s character started and ended the film in that state, unsurprisingly). Set at the start of the 20^th century, Kelvin also presents a brief look into modern Norway's forays into Greenland. In the 1920s and '30s, expansionist Norway once claimed all of east Greenland, relinquishing the claim in 1933 after an international court in The Hague ruled in Denmark's favor.

*Freilberg, Jon. Grønland Natur Guide. (It's a shame this book is not in English. However, species names are given in Latin, as well as Danish.)

Lonely Planet's Greenland, Iceland, & the Faroe Islands. (You won't need it once you get there, but it's good for pre-trip planning.)

*Ydegaard, Torbjørn. Trekking in Greenland (Last published in 1990, but still the best source for walks/treks/hikes on the island.).

Travel/Nonfiction: (Ranked in order of those I recommend reading first)

*Rasmussen, Knud. Across Arctic America; The People of the Polar North; Greenland by the Polar Sea. (Read these three books or anything by this man. "Little Knud," as he was affectionately known in Greenland, was a master of the pen, as well as the sledge. Anything he wrote is worth your time and sure to inspire a visit to his Greenland homeland.)

*Ingstad, Helge. Land Under the Pole Star (This book concerns the Norse colonies in Greenland, written by the Norwegian archaeologist who found the World Heritage Site/Viking ruins in Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows. A great guidebook also for finding Viking ruins in contemporary Greenland. I used it for my explorations, and it was accurate to the letter!)

*Victor, Paul-Emile. My Eskimo Life. (This 1939 ethnography/biography highlights French anthropologist Paul-Emile Victor's year spent with Greenland's Ammassalik-area residents in 1936-37, giving readers a glimpse into Inuit life, customs, and beliefs. Outstanding with its warm descriptions of daily life in east Greenland!)

Freuchen, Peter. Arctic Adventure. (Classic travel writing.)

Stefansson, Vilhjalmar. The Friendly Arctic. (Classic travel writing.)

*Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams. (A classic book on the natural history and exploration of the arctic, including Greenland; Lopez can be a bit too pompous, and constipated, at times, but others find no fault with his poetic prose.)

*Malaurie, Jean. The Last Kings of Thule. (Concerns the two years a professor lived with Greenlanders in the Thule area, documenting the lives and culture of the Inuit just before they entered the modern era in the 1950s.)

Millman, Lawrence. Last Places–A Journey in the North (Concerns travels in modern Greenland.)

*Hoeg, Peter. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (Published in the U.S. as Smilla's Sense of Snow. This is a murder mystery involving an Inuit Greenlander living in Denmark, and has been made into a film, mentioned already.)

Smiley, Jane. The Greenlanders (A fictional account of the Greenlandic Vikings' demise. It's as long as an Icelandic saga, and purposefully reads like one; you've been warned.)

Suggest Greenland sites on the World Wide Web: (Check for "Greenland" on Yahoo.com.)

-Rudy Brueggemann's web page containing original stories and photography of Greenland; first published on the web in September 1998: http://www.rudyfoto.com/grl/greenlandpage.html

-Official home page of the Home Rule government of Greenland: http://www.gh.gl/

Encyclopedia Brittanica's article on Greenland

-A story on Greenland's status as a Danish colony: http://borealis.lib.uconn.edu/ArcticCircle/HistoryCulture/petersen.html

-A site on Knud Rasmussen Folk High School in Sisimiut (my favorite institution in Greenland – part living museum, part school, a must for all visitors!): http://www.nordicbook.com/gr/knudrasm.html

-Greenland map on the Web (Courtesy of the University of Texas Library system): http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/islands_oceans_poles/Greenland.jpg

-Maps of the west coast of Greenland, courtesy of "Greenland Guide": http://www.greenland-guide.gl/gt/maps/region-central.htm

-Official tourist guide, called "Greenland Guide": http://www.greenland-guide.gl/gt/default.htm

-Official tourist guide, called "Greenland Guide": http://www.greenland-guide.dk/

-Online guide about booking flights to Greenland: http://www.greenland-guide.dk/gt/visit/getto.htm

-Official site of the Danish Tourist Board, with background and links on Greenland: http://www.interknowledge.com/denmark/greenland.html

-The "Statistical Yearbook," the most comprehensive source of information on Greenland at the moment: http://www.statgreen.gl/English/IndexUK.htm

 -A site explaining the history and meaning of the Greenland flag: http://fotw.digibel.be/flags/gl.html#adopt

-Arctic Circle section of a site dedicated to native rights issues: http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/

-A link to arctic-related sites: http://ayamdigut.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/urllist.htm

-Project Leif 2000, a tourism project that is planning transnational celebrations celebrating Leif Erikson's landing in North America, with festivities in southwest Greenland in July 2000.

-"The Vikings: They Got Here First, But Why Didn't They Stay?" An article in Canadian Geographic. Volume 108, Number 4, August/September 1988.

http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/north/nor-i/thule/thu-020e.htm

-The Viking 1,000 Expedition web page for details on the successful 1998 expedition that sailed a replica Viking ship from Greenland to Newfoundland, tracing the route of the Norse explorers and colonists:

http://beyond.landsend.com/index.html (and: http://www.rudyfoto.com/grl/greenlandicvikings.html)

A guide of photography of the Arctic region, by the Mining Co. web site.

http://arcticculture.miningco.com/msub32.htm

 http://www.greenland-guide.gl/kni-ship

 http://www.greenland-guide.gl/gla

 http://www.greenland-guide.gl/maniitsoq-tourist

 http://www.greenland-guide.gl/narsaq-tourist

 http://www.greenland-guide.gl/south-tourism