
Sometimes in politics a small earthquake is enough to completely reshape the landscape. In this case, the “shock” to the system was the entry into the field of Qupanuk Olsen, a young mining engineer, but above all, the only real influencer on the island.
Olsen, with her project Q’s Greenland, in which she recounts life in Greenland and the traditions of the Inuit people, has reached over five hundred thousand followers on TikTok and YouTube in recent years, as well as three hundred thousand on Instagram. Although her social media channelshave always been as apolitical as possible, focusing on cultural dissemination, she has never concealed a certain closeness to the United States, in her opinion the only true partnerwith which to start a rapid process towards independence. This was the basis for Olsen’s announcement in January 2025 that she would be a candidate in the Greenlandic elections in the ranks of the center-right party Naleraq, aligned with populist and radical independence positions.
From Mining to Social Media
It must be said that Qupanuk Olsen, born in Qaqortoq, in the far south of the island, on May 6, 1985, did not enter the Greenlandic political scene as a simple social phenomenon, born on the wave of Internet popularity. In fact, Olsen is an appreciated professional in the field of mining engineering, with a long curriculumof work experience at home and abroad. She speaks three languages (Greenlandic, Danish and English), studied in Copenhagen, in the United States at the Colorado School of Mines, and graduated in civil engineering, with a specialty in mining studies, from the Western Australian School of Mines of Curtin University. She worked at the Nalunaq gold mine, as a teacher at the Arctic Technology Centre in Sisimiut, and is now director of Ironbark Zinc, an Australian mining company that operates in Greenland. Olsen currently lives in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, with her husband and four children.
She has often shared this long professional experience in her social media content since she started the Q’s Greenland page in 2020, which quickly grew to reach half a million subscribers in five years. A winning communication “recipe”, which combines an inside story of life among the Arctic ice with curiosities about Inuit culture, about which Olsen discusses traditions, cuisine, history and language. All of this, although often seasoned with phrases in Kalaallisut (the language of the native Greenlanders), strictly in English, in order to reach an international audience.
Greenlandic influencer Qupanuk Olsen in traditional Inuit clothing
It was precisely her background both in communication and in the mining sector, the true wealth of the country, that convinced her of the need to participate in Greenlandic political life. While the Eco-socialist government of the outgoing Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede had in fact placed at the center of its political agenda a rigid regulation regarding the exploitation of Greenland’s mineral resources, which seemed to prevent any possibility of economic freedom from Denmark, under whose crown the island remains, Olsen instead emphasized the need to use the wealth of Greenland’s subsoil to achieve its long-awaited independence. Why not, trading with the neighboring American giant as well, which has long coveted the island’s natural “treasures”?
Did Trump Buy Greenland?
On March 4, during his speech to the United States Congress, Donald Trump reiterated his expansionist aims regarding Greenland. While he stressed the need for the inhabitants to decide for themselves whether their future would be with Denmark, with the US or in total independence, at the same time he implied that such freedom of choice was not really on the table:
We need Greenland for national security and international security and we are working with everybody involved to try to get it: we really need it for international world security and I think we will get it. One way or another, we will get it… And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.
Shortly after, a harsh response arrived on social media from Greenlandic President Múte Bourup Egede, of the pro-independence and Eco-socialist party Inuit Ataqatigiit:
We don’t want to be Americans, nor Danes. We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken.
In January 2025, the Nelk Boys, a group of influencers close to Trump, who specialize in prank and trolling videos, organized a fake signature drive in Nuuk for the island’s annexation to the United States, handing out “Maga” hats and one hundred dollar bills to passers-by. This was not an isolated case. In recent months, there have been many “Trumpist incursions” in Greenland, from Donald Trump Jr.’s visit to the support of local politician Jørgen Boassen, considered the most fervent fanof the American president on the island. Boassen, often photographed wearing “MAGA” hats and t-shirts dedicated to the “American badass“, is Trump’s point of reference. A former bricklayer, now involved in politics, has managed to gain a decent following, and claims that the only path Greenland can take to achieve independence is alongside the United States. He has already been a guest at the White House, and he is the one who organized Trump Jr.’s visit to Nuuk.
It should be noted that, paradoxically, the focus of the electoral campaign was not so much the issue of independence, which is shared, albeit with different strategies, by at least four of the six competing parties, but rather the future relationship with the United States. America, the European Union or alone? This is the choice, put forward by Trump, that divided voters.
The pro-American group, represented by Naleraq, obtained a solid twenty-five percent of the vote, becoming the most likely ally for the future government of Demokraatit, the party that won the elections with over thirty percent of the votes. Although divided on the path to take towards independence, a more radical one preferred by Naleraq and a more gradual approach by Demokraatit, the two parties share center-right positions and the tendency to want to open up towards the United States and the Inuit communitiesof Canada and Alaska. It was a big defeat for the left of Ia and Siumut, which fell from seventy percent (overall) of the votes in 2021 to about thirty-five percent.
What did not seem to have convinced the voters was the lack of perspective on the part of the left. The desire to free themselves from the US and Denmark, at the same time not investing in the mining industry and not knowing concretely how to replace the potential void that the interruption of subsidies guaranteed by the Danish government would leave, seemed to signal the impossibility of proceeding towards the construction of an independent nation. The director of the Greenland Bank Martin Kviesgaard had announced this to the Danish media shortly before the elections:
We are not ready for independence at the moment. It will take many years to be fully ready, if we are talking about becoming financially self-sufficient… fishing is not enough.
And so, the Qupanuk Olsen mining project, which has seemed to give Greenlanders a new perspective on the country’s future, has achieved an extraordinary electoral result. However, doubts remain. Will Trump get his coveted treasure? What are the prospects for Greenland?
Olsen has repeatedly stated that she wants the United States as a trade and military partner, but that she is absolutely not thinking of direct annexation. As she stated in an interview with the CBC:
Donald Trump saying this, it’s not new, we heard it for the first time back in 2019 when he wanted to buy Greenland the first time. When he said it again, I was just like, ‘Of course you cannot buy us, we are not for sale and no, we are not interested in becoming a state under [the] United States’.
According to a survey commissioned by the Danish and Greenlandic press, about eighty-five percent of the island’s population does not want to become part of the United States. Even pro-Trump activist Jørgen Boassen has serious doubts about the possibility of direct annexation, and he also finds Republican Earl Carter’s proposal to rename Greenland Red, White, and Blueland particularly disrespectful.
The question now is whether Trump will be satisfied with a military and trade alliance or whether, faced with the hostility of the Greenlanders, he will really be willing to use “any means necessary” to take possession of the Green Island.
Cover image: from X (@KativikRegional) Qupanuk Olsen’s visit to the Inuit communityof Kuujjuaq, Canada in July 2024.
L’articolo The Influencer Mining Politics in Greenland proviene da ytali..