Greenland Dog

The Greenland Dog (Greenlandic: Kalaallit Qimmiat, Danish: Grønlandshund) is a large breed of husky-type dog kept as a sled dog. They were brought from Siberia to North America by the Thule people 1,000 years ago, along with the Canadian Eskimo Dog. The Canadian Eskimo Dog is considered the same breed as the Greenland Dog since they have not yet diverged enough genetically to be considered separate breeds, despite their geographic isolation.

Today, the breed is considered nationally and culturally important to Greenland and efforts are made to safeguard its purity. In western Greenland north of the Arctic Circle and the entirety of eastern Greenland, it is illegal to import any dog from outside (except for police and assistance dogs with a special permit), and since 2017 all dogs have to be microchipped and registered in the Greenland dog database. In the southwest, such restrictions are not in place and the purity of dogs is not monitored. As the population has been falling (c. 15,000 in Greenland as of 2016), a number of projects have been initiated in an attempt of ensuring that Greenland's dog sledding culture, knowledge and use, along with the breed itself, are not lost.