In Greenland, warming fuels hopes of wealth

With nimble handwork, his wife Bartholine cuts them up on the porch of their wood-frame home, saving the best meat for dinner. Ignatiussen throws leftover chunks of flesh and intestines to the yelping sled dogs fettered on a dusty slope below the house.

The blood-drenched scene offers a glimpse into Greenland's past -- a time not long ago when seal hunting meant survival to nomadic Inuit tribes in one of the most hostile climates on Earth.

Inside, Ingatiussen, 54, shows what he believes is Greenland's future: A collection of mineral-rich rocks that he has stashed away in a drawer if he ever needs money.

Global warming is melting the fringes of the frozen world where Greenland's Inuits have hunted seal, whale and polar bear for generations. It's thawing the permafrost on which their homes are built. It's disrupting Arctic wildlife and fish stocks, and making hunting trips more dangerous by thinning the ice that supports their dog sleds.

But all is not doom and gloom. The retreating ice could uncover potential oil and mineral resources which, if successfully tapped, could dramatically change the fortunes of this semiautonomous Danish territory of 57,000 people.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are more than 18 billion barrels of oil and gas beneath the Arctic waters between Greenland and Canada, and 31 billion barrels off Greenland's east coast.

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