I reported on climate change and mental health in the Arctic, from Canada to Scandinavia, on a fellowship with the GroundTruth Project.

Solving the Suicide Crisis in the Arctic Circle

Mike Papoosie, 14, often doesn’t know what to do once the library closes at night. He doesn’t want to go home just to stare at the wall in his tiny bedroom, he says, because it will make him crazy. Read more at Pacific Standard.

In a Land of Thundering Reindeer, Suicide Stalks the Indigenous Sami

Hundreds of reindeer gallop around the corral, their hooves and knees popping with the sound of a fire crackling. It’s late, but here in the land of the midnight sun, the sky is silvery and bright. A mist rolls over the Arctic tundra, framing the herders and their animals in ghostly silhouettes.

This is a community wrapped tight in tradition: The indigenous peoples of northern Scandinavia — the Sami — have herded reindeer for generations. But it is also a community in crisis. Climate change has put enormous strain on these powerful animals — and on the men and women who care for them.

With that strain has come a mental health crisis. A crisis of suicide. Read more on STAT News.

Anguish in the Scandinavian Arctic

Herding reindeer is part of a traditional way of life for an indigenous Arctic people known as the Sami. Their ancestral land – stretching across parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia – is where many still live by the rhythms of centuries-old traditions.

In Sweden in particular, a mental health crisis is taking root among the Sami. It’s a complicated equation, but climate change is playing a role. I traveled to Arctic Scandinavia on a fellowship with the GroundTruth Project to report on this changing environment and the mental health landscape. Listen at the GroundTruth Project.

Protecting Indigenous Tradition in the Arctic

“This is a spring and summer treat,” says Arvid Gaup, the father of a reindeer herder in this remote town in northern Norway. He sets a haunch of freeze-dried reindeer, known as goikebiergu, on the table and begins carving off slivers of jerky.

Read more at the GroundTruth Project.