By coincidence, Veteran Project Greenland discovered that a stint in unspoiled nature can help alleviate PTSD symptoms and even prevent suicide. Greenland is one of the only places where such nature is available, the man behind the project tells Polar Journal AG.
In the fall of 2018, Gerth Sloth Berthelsen and a group of veterans of the Danish army went on a fishing trip in the Nuuk Fjord of West Greenland.
The trip was meant to be a one time thing. It was meant to help the participants get a break in their lives and hopefully get a meaningful experience out of it. The participants were residents of the Høvelte Veterans’ Home, and were suffering so badly from the psychological scars of war that they were unable to live regular lives on their own.
For many, a break was needed, but the destination was random. All they had heard was that Greenland was great for fishing.
But during their trip Gerth Sloth Berthelsen and the veterans discovered that Greenland was good for much more than just catching codfish.
“Many of the veterans with PTSD became free of symptoms while we were in the fjord. I didn’t know anything about PTSD at that point, but we could just see that some guys who were usually very isolated, suddenly opened up,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen, who is behind the initiative, told Polar Journal AG.
“When we got back home we noticed that something had happened. Many of them had regained a will to live. When we saw this we couldn’t just leave the idea like that,” he said.
So, Gerth Sloth Berthelsen and his collaborators founded an association of volunteers which they named Veteran Project Greenland and decided to come back the next year.
Since then, they have returned to Greenland each year with a new group of veterans. Their sixth and latest trip was completed in September of this year.
“The keyword is self-forgetfulness. Out there in the Nuuk Fjord there are no unnatural disturbances, only natural ones. This allows the veterans to turn their alarm bells off and just enjoy being in the moment. For some, that hasn’t happened in many years,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen said.
Shared experience of war
Gerth Sloth Berthelsen is a veteran himself. He participated in the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and was stationed in Croatia as part of Denmark’s UN mandated peacekeeping mission. Thankfully, he did not suffer any permanent damage himself, neither physical nor psychological.
But he can easily imagine the suffering that some of his fellow veterans go through.
“For six months after getting home, I had a very hard time walking on lawns. In Croatia, the landmines were always hidden in grass so I had been conditioned not to step in it. That constant state of alert had to be deprogrammed,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen said.
“Unfortunately, for some, that deprogramming takes many years or never really happens,” he said.
The veterans who take part in the project are all Danish but fought in different wars: some in Afghanistan, some in Iraq, some in Sudan, and others in Yugoslavia like Gerth himself. What ties them all together is their shared experience of having been to war.
Those who struggle most with resettling into civilian life after traumatic experiences in war are diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But PTSD is not only about never leaving a high state of alertness. Others struggle with bad memories, Gerth Sloth Berthelsen explained.
“One year, we went out to a dinner in Nuuk. The restaurant had an open kitchen so one of the participants had to leave. He couldn’t stand the smell of burnt meat. It triggered some memories for him,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen said.
“These are the kinds of things the participants are dealing with,” he said.
Meditation, not survival
To avoid the triggering their bad memories, the veterans are pampered as they travel to Greenland. They are picked up together at their veteran’s home and a special arrangement is made with airport security so they can enter the plane without unnecessary stress.
Once they reach Nuuk, they travel together to the settlement of Qooqqut in the Nuuk Fjord where cabins have been reserved and a four-day program has been planned. And even though the participants are former soldiers, the activities are not physically demanding.
“The participants are under enough pressure already so it’s not a survival trip. Instead, the goal is to get away from all the world’s distractions and do some activities that everyone can participate in together,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen said.
Participants hike in the scenic environment around Qooqqut and a few take a dip in the freezing water. A main activity, naturally, is fishing which was the original goal of the first trip to Greenland.
But other activities that have proved particularly useful for the veterans have been added through the years. One exercise, for instance, is inspired by meditation and asks the participants to sit quietly in nature and simply listen.
“We call them listening exercises to make them more digestible. We are dealing with veterans, and some of them might find meditation too ‘holistic’. But the exercises really help them calm down fully and it also enhances the impression the trip leaves on them; the impression of nothing man-made being around,” he said.
Nothing artificial
This lack of anything man-made is a main reason why the expensive trip to Greenland is worthwhile, according to Gerth Sloth Berthelsen. He grew up in Nuuk so he knew from his childhood that there is something special about Greenland’s unspoiled nature.
“The character of the mountains change with the sunlight. There is fascinating wildlife like reindeer and whales if you’re lucky.”
“But the main thing is the scale of everything. The size of the Nuuk Fjord, which is just a small part of Greenland, is immense. The distances are so great that you cannot grasp it. Because of the clean air, you will sometimes see mountains that are 20 kilometers away but feel like they’re so close that you can reach out and grasp them,” he said.
Outside the Polar regions, there are few places in the world where you can observe such vast expanses without seeing anything man-made at all. It is this isolation that has been key to the success of the initiative.
“It is one of the few places in the world where you can avoid anything artificial,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen said.
“According to surveys there are two things which have been shown to help veterans: networking and nature. Those are the two things we do in Greenland,” he said.
Prevented a suicide
It has not always been easy to secure funding for the Greenland trip. But so far, Veterans Project Greenland has succeeded each year, not least because it has proven unexpectedly successful.
One of Gerth Sloth Berthelsen’s stories is enough to leave no doubt about the success of the initiative. It concerns a veteran who participated in one of the first trips and has since returned on a self-financed second trip.
“There was a participant who had already decided that suicide would be the solution to his suffering. We didn’t know this when he was selected to join. But when he received the offer, he suddenly had something to look forward to, which helped keep him alive.”
“And once he was with us on the trip, he reacted very positively. He was able to quench his constant alertness and he proved to himself that he could be happy and that he was able to laugh.”
“When we got home, he used the trip as a ‘happy place’ that he could travel back to mentally when life got rough. I know that he still keeps a USB pin on him with photos from the trip in case of emergencies,” Gerth Sloth Berthelsen said.
Ole Ellekrog, Polar Journal AG
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