ON MARCH 11, Greenland went to the polls. Since 1979, Greenland has had its own prime minister who is able to govern at a local level. He or she has to come from the party with the most seats, which is currently the socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit party, with Mute Egede as prime minister. Pre-election polls indicated that the Ataqatigiit party would remain the strongest party.

The parliament — the Inatsisartut — has just 31 MPs who are chosen from six political parties, two of whom are in the governing coalition of the Inuit Ataqatigiit and the Simiut parties.

When it comes to bread-and-butter issues — cost of living, schools, healthcare — Tuesday’s election was “not that exceptional,” says Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz Larsen. It will, though, potentially be the most significant in the island’s history.

What makes this general election unlike any other is the global spotlight on it. Rasmus Leander Nielsen, head of Nasiffik, the University of Greenland’s centre for foreign and security policy, said it is an election of everyday politics colliding with geopolitical questions over Trump.

Trump recently told Congress that Greenland would become a US territory, and that his administration would “get it — one way or another.” The inhabitants of Greenland, it seems, will be given little say in this.

Greenland is the world’s largest island that is not a continent, and home to only 56,000 people. It is permanently covered with ice over 80 per cent of its surface and the small Inuit population live exclusively on the south-western coast around the capital, Nuuk, subsisting by fishing, hunting seals and reindeer.

Greenland won home rule from Denmark in 1979 and self-rule in 2009. This brought a new sense of national security as well as a commitment to preserve and develop all its life and culture after generations of Danish domination. It has faced an uphill battle, though, because its economy has been based mainly on fishing and large subsidies from the Danish government which account for a fifth of its income.

Because of its closeness to the arctic regions of Russia, it has always been of vital interest to the US and, while it was under Danish rule, the US was allowed to set up bases and listening stations, which are still there.

Greenland is of interest for the US not only because of its strategic importance militarily, but also because of its valuable mineral deposits. These deposits have been difficult to access beneath the icecap but with global warming that will change.

I made a documentary about the country in 1980 and although that is now decades ago, it is perhaps useful to look at how home rule changed the country and the lives of its people.

We flew into Nuuk, the capital, via the US air force base which doubled as a civilian airport.

Nuuk retained the atmosphere of the old Royal Greenland Trading Company settlement it once was, with tiny clapboard houses scattered loosely around the harbour. Big, ugly blocks of flats had come to dominate the skyline, built to house the people forced to leave their villages when the Royal Danish Trading Company ceased supplying essential items to them or buying their skins and fish.

Christian Egede and his family were among those forced to move from their village, and now living with his children on the sixth floor of one of those blocks. Photos of the village where he once lived, hung on his wall, witness to his nostalgia. Although living in this tiny flat, he still went out fishing with his sons, selling his catch in the makeshift open market. His neighbours repaired their nets on narrow balconies — quite an incongruous sight.

Egede’s earnings from fishing were not enough to support the whole family, so his wife supplemented their income by working in the hospital. Despite these contradictions, he and his family still lived a traditionally simple life: cooking and eating the fish they caught and the seal and reindeer meat they hunted; his wife continued to make the traditional beadwork mats and kept the old whale oil lamp that she had in her village as the only light source.

The results of forcing people like the Egedes into the town had been a high level of unemployment, social alienation, alcoholism and even suicide. Local fishermen faced impossible competition from the large, factory fishing vessels owned by foreign companies like Unilever or Norddeutsche Hochseefischerei, who make big profits but don’t invest any of it in the country.

Until it gained home rule, Danes occupied most of the skilled jobs and a comprehensive training of the Inuit people to fill them had still to be undertaken. Apart from small fish processing plants, building and service industries there were few employment prospects.

Since home rule, an active trade union movement has campaigned for equal pay and conditions with Danish workers. There has also been progress made on replacing Danes by Greenlanders in many jobs.

Joseph Motzfeldt was the new minister of education, and in the interview he gave us, he stressed the need for crash courses so that Greenlanders could become more self-sufficient. Motzfeldt was keen to establish a form of apprenticeship scheme for hunters so that the next generation would not only learn the traditional skills but supplement these with up-to-date environmental and ecological theory.

He was acutely aware of the dangers posed to Inuit society by the impact of more sophisticated, highly industrialised capitalist nations, and that is still true today. He was no romantic, wishing to cling to outmoded traditions but determined to preserve the small Inuit communities which are so rich in social terms.

He was also very concerned that Greenland makes proper and judicial use of its natural resources and didn’t squander them for quick, visible returns in the form of imported consumer goods. Despite the lack of experience in international politics I was surprised by his government’s clarity and determination to implement home rule.

In a small seal-hunting community we visited further north, that had no electricity until 1982, community life was pretty much what it always had been: a continuous battle to survive. Although there were 150 people there, they were outnumbered by the 500 dogs, because every adult has his or her own dog team which are essential in the long winter months as a means of transporting the fish and seals over the frozen sea. In summer most of the dogs were chained up.

Every house had its own wooden drying rack outside for curing the cod, halibut and strips of shark. There was an all-pervasive smell of semi-rancid cod. Every day the men went out and laid their fishing lines and nets and brought in the catch so that they and their dogs had food. Climate change and melting ice is impacting significantly on this way of life.

We visited one of the first big mines to open in the country: the Black Angel Mine in Marmorelik belonging to Canadian company Greenex. There lead and zinc were mined. The site suddenly appeared out of nowhere at the head of a narrow fjord like a secret submarine base in a James Bond film.

The few barracks where the workers lived were hung precariously on the sheer side of the mountain, alongside a few large petrol storage tanks. What at first looked like tiny, model cable cars swinging up over the water to disappear into small holes in the mountainside turned out to be huge containers, and the small apertures became cathedral-sized caverns blasted into the mountainside.

Here workers earned good money with free food and board, but life was stressful. It was totally cut off from civilisation, there was nowhere to go, nowhere even to walk, as you were confined on the sheer face of a mountain. It was like a prison, and workers did 10-hour shifts six days a week. It was just eat, work and sleep, but the men (it was only men) did it because they could save enough money in a few years to buy a house or a boat.

With the global shortage of rare minerals, there has been increased interest in Greenland’s natural resources, and these will probably become more accessible as global warming leads to a melting of the ice cap. It will take all of Greenland’s energy and international support to repel Trump’s predatory aims.