Before the war, Greenland was a tightly controlled colony of Denmark, otherwise closed off to the world. After the Invasion of Denmark on 9 April 1940, Greenland was left on her own, because the Royal Navy seized any ships arriving from Axis-controlled Europe. Britain and Canada initially laid plans to occupy points of interest on the island, but the United States, still neutral, firmly rejected "third party" intervention there. The sheriffs ("landsfogeder") of South and North Greenland, Eske Brun and Aksel Svane, invoking the emergency clause of the 1925 law specifying how Greenland was ruled, declared Greenland a self-ruling territory, believing this to be in the best interests of the colony as Denmark was occupied by Germany. This step was taken in coordination with the Danish envoy to