Greenland’s natural ‘medicine for the soul’

Nothing puts you more in awe of nature than sleeping on a 3km-thick slab of ice underpinned by snow that fell more than a million years ago. Camp Ice Cap near the town of Kangerlussuaq offers an extraordinary opportunity to camp for a night on the Greenland Ice Sheet that covers around 80% of the country, an experience usually only possible for research or expedition purposes.

But this is not the only extraordinary camping experience in Greenland. The world’s largest island, complete with its largely inhospitable ice sheet, often-stormy seas and the world’s largest land predator, the polar bear, has recently gotten into the glamping game.

At Kiattua Camp, two hours by boat from Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, you could be settling into a hot tub with a steamy view of the second-longest fjord system in the world, before enjoying a meal prepared in an outdoor kitchen and retiring to your comfortable luxury teepee. In South Greenland, meanwhile, you could be fishing, foraging, kayaking or hiking beside a dramatic fjord overlooked by towering mountains at Tasermiut Camp, where the focus is squarely on using Greenlandic nature as medicine for the soul by exposing you to its awe-inspiring sights.

Far from being a tourist fad, these experiences are part of a wider realisation taking place in Greenland about the value of its unique nature ­– a combination of dramatic mountain scenery, deep ice-filled fjords, untouched wildernesses and sprawling glaciers – for health, and particularly mental health. And while plenty of research shows that nature is good for your wellbeing and boosts mental health, there’s something at play in Greenland that adds a different perspective.

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