Camp Century

A secret military camp with its own nuclear power plant, deep under the ice of Greenland. It sounds like the setting of a science fiction or horror movie, but Camp Century, a U.S. underground military base, really did exist. The camp was operational from 1959 to 1967 and consisted of 21 tunnels, in total three kilometers long. As the polar ice melts due to climate change, this legacy of the Cold War is literally coming to the surface, as is the nuclear waste left behind in the camp.

In this VR game-cum-podcast, made for the social platform Sansar, you explore the camp’s passages, living areas, and research facilities. You meet veterans who lived under the ice for months, scientists who did climate research in the ancient ice layers, and the local population who were forced to relocate due to the American program that created Camp Century. What was it like to live in the camp and how does it still affect their lives today?