I will point out that the question "Was uninhabited before the Vikings showed up" is debatable. The Sagas tell of celtic monks, called Papars, which set up colonies in Iceland prior to norse arrival on the island, though if they actually existed is a matter of debate as there is not much evidence for Papar settlement of Iceland, basically nothing outside of mentions in the Sagas. Further, I might be mistaken on this, but I believe that the Vikings settled in a part of Greenland that was completely uninhabited, as the Dorset Culture did not make it into southern Greenland, and the modern Inuit had not yet migrated on to the island.
I was not talking about Greenland as a whole, but rather just stating that the specific region of Greenland that the Vikings encountered and then settled in was completely uninhabited at the time. The native Dorset Culture was present in northern Greenland, but they did not inhabit the south of the island where the Vikings settled down. It is only once the Dorset were replaced by the Thule/Inuit culture that natives started pushing southwards into areas where the Norse lived in Greenland.
For what it is worth, I was mostly originally commenting on the Papar thing, as there actually is some debate on if the norse were in fact the first to settle in Iceland, as their own accounts claim that there were other people there first even if there is little physical evidence for that being the case. I was not disagreeing that Greenland was inhabited, I was mostly just pointing out that the history of inhabitance was complicated on that island as well, I would say more complicated than just saying that the island was inhabited. The Vikings settled in a region of Greenland hundreds of miles from the areas settled by the Dorset Culture, and as far as I know, they were completely unaware that the Dorset lived in Greenland (Though they did seem to have traded with Dorset peoples living in Baffin Island with some regularity), compared to Iceland, where their legends talk about a monastic culture that already lived there and then moved away after disputes with the pagan norse.
I think you misread his comment. Kearsarge did not say Greenland was completely uninhabited but that he thought the area the Vikings settled was uninhabited. Greenland was clearly inhabited, as was Iceland, though only in small numbers. Kirkjubaerklauster is a beautiful settlement on the south side of Iceland that is named for the monks that were found there when the Vikings arrived in 874. It is a compound word that means Church Town Cloister.
"Neither" is not an answer. Greenland was definitely inhabited before the Vikings showed up. Therefore the only answer that makes any sense is Iceland.
You kind of just dodged the fact that Iceland probably had inhabitants before the Scandinavians. Just because the other 2 answers don't make sense doesn't mean Iceland does.
Process of elimination isn't a valid line of reasoning if all answers are incorrect.
I think this quiz needs an edit to make it more consistent and/or remove the ambiguity in some of the questions.
I am fully aware that Greenland is not a country in its own right and is a territory of Denmark as per #4 - however in #8 it is referred to as a country.
And regarding #8, "igloo" comes from the Inuit language which is not specific to Greenland, and is not Danish, which would be the language of the country (that country being Denmark).
Although Greenland is not a separate member of the UN, it is a member of the UN by virtue of being a territory of Denmark.
The "problem" is that any of these could be argued either way, and that is precisely what makes them ambiguous. It makes it more about guessing the intent of the quiz creator than knowing the answer.
The 8th question can't be argued either way. While saying that "igloo" comes from Greenland is definitely wrong, it's even more wrong to say that it comes from Iceland. Anyway, I agree that this should be changed. Igloo comes from a Canadian island. The etymology clearly has nothing to do with Greenland. Why not ask which of the two has an official Inuit language?
I didn't fact check that one. It appears that "igloo" may not originally come from Greenlandic. Changed the question to "kayak", which is of Greenlandic origin.
The question was whether it's a *member* of the UN. Puerto Rico is a territory of a UN member state. California is a constituent part of a UN member state. But in both cases the only entity that can claim to be the actual UN member is the USA. In the same way, Greenland is not a member of the UN - Denmark is.
Also, Iceland does have polar bears, when they make it over on ice. They're not native to Iceland, but the question only asks if the place HAS them, which Iceland does.
Apparently they get over to Iceland somewhat often.
There have been ca. 600 official sightings overall and 5 in the time 2000-2016 (According an Article in the Iceland Monitor from 2016 and Wikipedia (based on that Article)).
Imo that should be enough to rephrase the question to something like e.g. Has a native population of Polar Bears.
The plane crash one was tricky. There's a famous US military plane crash in Sólheimasandur (Iceland) too, and I got the 2 confused. Turns out the Iceland one was 5 years later though.
Yeah but that was a small plane, and definitely was not carrying nuclear weapons. On an anecdotal note I visited that plane and really underestimated how long the walk from the parking lot to the beach was! It was like I was on a treadmill
There are a few famous plane crashes in Iceland. The Solheimsandur wreck is a DC-117 (some sources say it's a DC-3 and I'm never looked at it that closely).. There were also two P-38 Lightning's that crashed near Thorsmork during World War 2. My aunt was telling us the story about it when we were hiking on a finger of the glacier and my oldest daughter found a piece of twisted, riveted metal. When I showed it to my boss, he said it came from a P-38. The second P-38 crashed searching for survivors from the first crash. As I recall, survivors from the first crash made it to a farm by fording some glacial streams.
Its a good quiz, but I would suggest either changing the wording of the polar bear question to say "has native polar bears", or changing the answer to both. Because while polar bears are not native to Iceland, some arrive at Iceland from the sea ice semi regularly.
I would question the answer that both Greenland and Iceland are islands.
Iceland is clearly AN island. i suspect - with no evidence to back my assertion up - that when the Greenland Icecap melts we will find that it is underneath, at least three land masses - ie. three islands.
I convinced myself that Iceland's biggest export sector would be either tourism or finance/tech services.
Doing a bit of research, I found that tourism was by far and away the biggest export sector pre-COVID, and is possibly again now since the end of COVID restrictions.
According to trade.gov (US Dept. of Commerce) tourism fell behind #1 manufacturing goods (mostly aluminium) and #2 marine products during the pandemic, but has rebounded.
Yeah, it's not as obvious as other stuff like exporting oil, but it brings in foreign money through the sale of stuff to foreign people.
Tourism is universally considered an export by economists, unless goods and services are explicitly separated. Anyway, aluminium seems to be Iceland's biggest goods export, not fish.
I very much enjoyed reading them.
Process of elimination isn't a valid line of reasoning if all answers are incorrect.
I am fully aware that Greenland is not a country in its own right and is a territory of Denmark as per #4 - however in #8 it is referred to as a country.
And regarding #8, "igloo" comes from the Inuit language which is not specific to Greenland, and is not Danish, which would be the language of the country (that country being Denmark).
Although Greenland is not a separate member of the UN, it is a member of the UN by virtue of being a territory of Denmark.
The "problem" is that any of these could be argued either way, and that is precisely what makes them ambiguous. It makes it more about guessing the intent of the quiz creator than knowing the answer.
There have been ca. 600 official sightings overall and 5 in the time 2000-2016 (According an Article in the Iceland Monitor from 2016 and Wikipedia (based on that Article)).
Imo that should be enough to rephrase the question to something like e.g. Has a native population of Polar Bears.
Iceland is clearly AN island. i suspect - with no evidence to back my assertion up - that when the Greenland Icecap melts we will find that it is underneath, at least three land masses - ie. three islands.
Am I right? Not sure.
Doing a bit of research, I found that tourism was by far and away the biggest export sector pre-COVID, and is possibly again now since the end of COVID restrictions.
According to trade.gov (US Dept. of Commerce) tourism fell behind #1 manufacturing goods (mostly aluminium) and #2 marine products during the pandemic, but has rebounded.
https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/iceland-market-overview
"Trading Economics" website has graphs showing tourist numbers in 2023 at pre-pandemic levels:
https://tradingeconomics.com/iceland/tourist-arrivals
If the question specified exported "goods" then check the sources, aluminium may well be the #1 in Iceland based on a quick check, e.g. here again:
https://tradingeconomics.com/iceland/exports-by-category
Tourism is universally considered an export by economists, unless goods and services are explicitly separated. Anyway, aluminium seems to be Iceland's biggest goods export, not fish.