East Greenland Nailed

Half a dozen flat-faced Eskimos and a little group of sad-eyed arctic puffins sat on the bleak rocks of Myggbukta (Mosquito Bay), Greenland, recently while a party of five explorers, snug-buttoned in woolies, tacked the Norwegian flag to an improvised flagstaff. The event seemed of only passing interest to the Eskimos and the puffins, but when news of it broke last week all Scandinavia seethed.

"So Norway is trying to steal East Greenland!" stormed the Danes. Editorials in the Norwegian press pointed out that, although Denmark claims all Greenland, the region of East Greenland has never been thoroughly explored (much less settled) by white men and has long been claimed by Norway (TIME, June 8 et ante). In Copenhagen last week, Norway and all her works were excitedly denounced in both houses of the Danish parliament, the Landsting and the Folketing.

Fifty times as big as Denmark is Denmark's only colony, Greenland. (Iceland is an independent kingdom that merely happens to have the same King as Den-mark.) In recent warm summers parties of Norwegian hunters have made frequent trips to East Greenland, built little shack settlements there. The Danish-Norwegian problem first boiled over more than a month ago when a semi-official Norwegian body known as the Arctic Council suddenly announced that Denmark was about to send an expedition to explore East Greenland, sounded an alarm that the time had come for Norway to stake and beflag her claim to E. G.

To this alarm the Norwegian Government remained deaf, ostensibly at least, thus conciliating the Danish Government. Not so certain patriotic Norwegian hunters! Vowing that they would get to East Greenland before the official Danish expeditions led by Dr. Lauge Koch, they improvised their own expedition, rushed off to puffin-land, took the puffin by the bill and nailed Norway's colors to Mygg-bukta.

Wars have been started for less, but Norway and Denmark are among the world's least warlike nations. Their statesmen talked last week not of war but of civilized appeals to the World Court. Premier Stauning of Denmark, running his fingers through his patriarchal whiskers, announced that he had asked the Danish Minister at Oslo to ask the Norwegian Government "for a more definite elucidation of their position."

Answered an Oslo official:

"Norway will not officially back the action of the hunters, but it has not expressed regret over the incident."

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