![\"Kristensen](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/03\/02\/3793679.jpg\")
Kristensen and his family riding with the sled dogs across earth and stones.<\/p>\nGrowing up in a village in northern Greenland, Jorgen Kristensen\u2019s closest friends were his stepfather\u2019s sled dogs.<\/p>\n
Most of his classmates were dark-haired Inuit; he was different. When he was bullied at school for his fair hair \u2013 an inheritance from the mainland Danish father he never knew \u2013 the dogs came to him. He first went out to fish on the ice with them alone when he was nine years old. They nurtured the beginning of a life-long love affair and Kristensen\u2019s career as a five-time Greenlandic dog sled champion.<\/p>\n
“I was just a small child. But many years later, I started thinking about why I love dogs so much,\u201d said Kristensen, 62.<\/p>\n
“The dogs were a great support,\u201d he said. “They lifted me up when I was sad.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more than 1,000 years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen. But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, around 300km north of the Arctic Circle, that\u2019s not possible.<\/p>\n
Instead of gliding over snow and ice, Kristensen\u2019s sled bounces over earth and rock. Gesturing to the hills, he said it\u2019s the first time he can remember when there has been no snow \u2013 or ice in the bay \u2013 in January.<\/p>\n
The rising temperatures in Ilulissat are causing the permafrost to melt, buildings to sink and pipes to crack but they also have consequences that ripple across the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
The nearby Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is one of the fastest-moving and most active on the planet, sending more icebergs into the sea than any other glacier outside Antarctica, according to the United Nations cultural organisation Unesco.<\/p>\n
As the climate has warmed, the glacier has retreated and carved off chunks of ice faster than ever before \u2013 significantly contributing to sea levels that are rising from Europe to the Pacific Islands, according to Nasa.<\/p>\n
The melting ice could reveal untapped deposits of critical minerals. Many Greenlanders believe that\u2019s why United States President Donald Trump turned their island into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and previous suggestions that the US could take it by force.<\/p>\n
Kristensen and his family riding with the sled dogs across earth and stones.<\/p>\n
Warmer days<\/p>\n
In the 1980s, winter temperatures in Ilulissat regularly hovered around -25\u00b0C in winter, Kristensen said.<\/p>\n
But nowadays, he said, there are many days when the temperature is above freezing \u2013 sometimes it can be as warm as 10\u00b0C.<\/p>\n
Kristensen said he now has to collect snow for the dogs to drink during a journey because there isn\u2019t any along the route.<\/p>\n
Although Greenlanders have always adapted \u2013 and could make dog sleds with wheels in future \u2013 the loss of the ice is affecting them deeply, said Kristensen, who now runs his own company showing tourists his Arctic homeland.<\/p>\n
“If we lose the dog sledding, we have large parts of our culture that we\u2019re losing. That scares me,\u201d he said, pressing his lips together and becoming tearful.<\/p>\n
In winter, hunters should be able to take their dogs far out on the sea ice, Kristensen said. The ice sheets act like “big bridges\u201d, connecting Greenlanders to hunting grounds but also to other Inuit communities across the Arctic in Canada, the US and Russia.<\/p>\n
“When the sea ice used to come, we felt completely open along the entire coast and we could decide where to go,\u201d Kristensen said.<\/p>\n
In January, there was no ice at all.<\/p>\n
![\"Kristensen](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/03\/02\/3793680.jpg\")
Kristensen feeding his sled dogs after a ride.<\/p>\n
Driving a dog sled on ice is like being “… completely without boundaries \u2013 like on the world\u2019s longest and widest highway,\u201d he said. Not having that is “a very great loss\u201d.<\/p>\n
Several years ago, Greenland\u2019s government had to provide financial support to many families in the far north of the island after the sea ice did not freeze hard enough for hunting, said Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents Inuit people from across Arctic nations.<\/p>\n
The warming weather also makes life more dangerous for fishermen who have swapped their dog sleds for boats, because there is more rain instead of snow, said Morgan Angaju Josefsen Rojkjaer, Kristensen\u2019s business partner.<\/p>\n
When snow falls and is compressed, air is trapped between the flakes, giving the ice its brilliant white colour. But when rain freezes, the ice that forms contains little air and looks more like glass.<\/p>\n
A fisherman can see the white ice and try to avoid it, but the ice formed from rain takes on the colour of the sea \u2013 and that\u2019s dangerous because “it can sink you or throw you off your boat\u201d, said Rojkjaer.<\/p>\n
Climate change, Olsvig said, “is affecting us deeply\u201d and is amplified in the Arctic, which is “warming three to four times faster than the global average\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/03\/02\/3793678.jpg\")
A sled dog enjoying the northern lights in Illulissat.<\/p>\n
Trump and melting ice<\/p>\n
Over the course of his lifetime, the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier has retreated by about 40km said Karl Sandgreen, 46, the head of Ilulissat\u2019s Icefjord Centre which is dedicated to documenting the glacier and its icebergs.<\/p>\n
Looking out of the window at hills which would normally be covered with snow, Sandgreen described mountain rock revealed by melting ice and a previously ice-covered valley inside the fjord where “there\u2019s nothing now\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pollution is also speeding up the ice melt, Sandgreen said, describing how Sermeq Kujalleq is melting from the top down, unlike glaciers in Antarctica which largely melt from the bottom up as sea temperatures rise.<\/p>\n
This is exacerbated by two things: black carbon, or soot spewed from ship engines, and debris from volcanic eruptions. They blanket the snow and ice with dark material and reduce reflection of sunlight, instead absorbing more heat and speeding up melting. Black carbon has increased in recent decades with more ship traffic in the Arctic, and nearby Iceland has periodic volcanic eruptions.<\/p>\n
Many Greenlanders said they believe the melting ice is the reason Trump \u2013 a leader who has called climate change “the greatest con job ever\u201d \u2013 wants to own the island.<\/p>\n
“His agenda is to get the minerals, \u201d Sandgreen said.<\/p>\n
Since Trump returned to office, fewer climate scientists from the US have visited Ilulissat, Sandgreen said. The US president needs to “listen to the scientists\u201d, who are documenting the impact of global warming, he said.<\/p>\n
Kristensen said he tries to explain the consequences of global warming to the tourists who he takes out on dog sled rides or on visits to the icebergs. He said he tells them how Greenland\u2019s glaciers are as important as the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.<\/p>\n
International summits, such as the UN climate talks in November in the Amazon gateway city of Belem, play a role, but it\u2019s just as important to “teach children all over the world\u201d about the importance of ice and oceans, alongside subjects like mathematics, Kristensen said.<\/p>\n
“If we don\u2019t start with the children, we can\u2019t really do anything to help nature. We can only destroy it,\u201d Kristensen said. \u2013 AP<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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