A Greenland sled dog champion fears for his culture as climate change melts the ice

By Emma Burrows, Evgeniy Maloletka And Kwiyeon Ha ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) — Growing up in a village in northern Greenland, Jørgen Kristensen’s closest friends were his stepfather’s sled dogs. Most of his classmates were dark-haired Inuit; he was different. When he was bullied at school for his fair hair — an inheritance from the mainland Danish father he never knew — the dogs came to him. He first went out to fish on the ice with them alone when he was 9 years old. They nurtured the beginning of a life-long love affair and Kristensen’s career as a five-time Greenlandic dog sled champion. “I was just a small child. But many years later, I started thinking about why I love dogs so much,” Kristensen, 62, told The Associated Press. “The…

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