Greenland has the makings of a mining boom. So where is everyone?

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A small group of directors from an Australian company traveled to the southern tip of Greenland recently, where they have been planning to extract rare-earth minerals from one of the world’s richest deposits for more than two decades. They didn’t get as far as they had planned.

The delegation traveled to the town of Narsaq, home to 1,300 people, by helicopter, the only feasible means of transportation in February. In subzero temperatures, a thick blanket of snow covered the mountain pass, rendering the road inaccessible and preventing the company representatives from visiting the site of the mine. Teeming with underground riches, Greenland might set the scene for a modern gold rush.

President Trump, for one, covets Greenland’s deposits of critical minerals, some of the largest in the Western Hemisphere. But as the visiting Australian company, Energy Transition Minerals, has discovered, securing them is a daunting task. Kvanefjeld, the site of the billion-year-old solidified magma in the mountains above the town of Narsaq, contains an estimated 1 billion tons of minerals, enough to potentially transform the global market for rare-earth elements, used in such things as electric vehicles, jet fighters, wind turbines and headphones.

To see Kvanefjeld up close, a Wall Street Journal reporter and photographer rode snowmobiles through a pathless gorge below the frozen plateau as the wind blew gusts of snow powder over the ridge. Forty-five minutes into the valley, local guides pointed out the mine entrance about 50 yards up the mountainside, hidden behind several feet of snow. During winter, the only feasible way for visitors to travel to Narsaq is by helicopter.