26 MARCH 2024 Camp Century - A City Under Ice Adapted from Information by the Atomic Heritage Foundation In May 1959, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) searched a remote location in Greenland for a place to build Camp Century, so named because it was originally intended to be built 100 miles from the edge of the Greenland ice cap. The USACE selected a site 150 miles from the Thule Air Base in some of the harshest conditions imaginable - temperatures as low as -70°F (-56ºC), winds as high as 125 miles per hour, and annual snowfall of more than four feet. Despite these challenges, the Army was able to construct a sprawling complex beneath the arctic ice in under two years. Earlier, in 1951, the United States and Denmark - both founding members of NATO (North American Treaty Organization) - signed the Defense of Greenland Agreement to allow the United States to build military bases in Greenland. Over the next decade, the American military built three: Narssarsuaq, Sondestrom, and Thule. Thule Air Base, the only base still operational today, was renamed Pituffik Space Base last year. The base is less than 1000 miles from the North Pole and is the U.S. Air Force’s northernmost base. Construction on Camp Century began in June 1959 and it was completed by October 1960. Army engineers first had to build a three-mile road to bring the 6000 tons of supplies it would require to build the $8 million facility. Army engineers used Swiss-made Peter Plows to dig deep trenches in the snow and ice. The trenches were then covered with a roof of steel arches and topped with more snow. Inside the trenches, engineers set up prefabricated wooden buildings, leaving air space on every side to minimize melting. The largest trench, known as “Main Street,” was more than 1000 feet long. Engineers drilled a hole deep into the ice, constructing a well which provided 10,000 gallons of fresh water per day. Insulated, heated piping was installed for water and electricity while a series of escape hatches were also built in case of emergency. In the end, Camp Century consisted of 26 tunnels, almost two miles in total. It included dormitories, kitchen, cafeteria, hospital, laundry, communications center, recreation hall, chapel, and even a barbershop. The last piece of Camp Century was the installment of the PM-2, a portable, medium power nuclear reactor, the first of its kind. This shipment alone consisted of 400 tons of equipment. Everything had to be handled with extreme care; in the subfreezing conditions of Greenland, metal became very brittle and could crack easily. The reactor was successfully installed in 1960, and it operated for 33 months before being deactivated and removed. The camp itself was not a secret. Officially, it was built for scientific purposes for the Army Polar Research and Development Center. The Army even produced a short film promoting Camp Century as a “remote research community.” Although the facility did see some significant scientific discoveries, including some the first studies of ice cores, science was not the primary purpose of Camp Century - the facility was built primarily as a test for a military operation involving nuclear missiles. The scientific developments were actually a cover for the U.S. Army’s true operation, codenamed Iceworm, which sought to deploy ballistic missiles under the Greenland ice. The project was eventually canceled and no missiles were ever deployed to Greenland; it would have been an extraordinary engineering and construction achievement had Iceworm come to fruition. At the time, it was increasingly clear the Greenland ice sheet was too unstable to support the project. The Army simply could not risk deploying hundreds of missiles in tunnels which could collapse at any moment. As a result, Project Iceworm was officially canceled in 1963. The U.S. Army continued to operate Camp Century in a limited capacity until 1966. Its tunnels quickly collapsed, and today the facility is unreachable, buried under a thick layer of ice. Project Iceworm remained a closely guarded secret until 1997, when the Danish Institute of International Affairs reported Camp Century’s military ambitions. In recent years, scientists have warned of severe consequences should the Greenland ice sheet melt enough to reveal Camp Century. Some scientists have predicted the Camp Century site could start losing ice by 2090. Editor’s Note: In between our print issues, the WWDR Team prepares an electronic newsletter called E-News Flash by WorldWide by WorldWide Drilling Resource®. This newsletter is filled with articles not included in our print issue. Based on readership, this was the most popular article of the month. Get in on the action and subscribe today at: worldwidedrillingresource.com ENV Thermal drill at Camp Century, near Thule, Greenland, used to drill through the Greenland ice cap.
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