This is a world of incredible
natural beauty --- raw and hostile. One that knows no mercy. And where
mistakes can have fatal consequences. Life here has always been
a fight for survival. In a world where in summer, the
sun never sets and in winter, the nights are full of magic and color.
We are exploring the most remote locations in this inhospitable terr
ain — from Greenland through the Northwest Passage to Alaska. We meet people who sense that
their world is changing? and those who are changing it. This is a world in which the
future of humanity will be decided. the Arctic. While taking risky maneuvers at full
speed, Åge Barseleisen feverishly looks for a passage
through the ice. There’s ice coming. It’s a race against time. Sea ice. So we’re looking
for open water. A northeasterly wind that’s
unusually powerful for early July drives large amounts of drift ice
from the Arctic Ocean into the fjord The freezing headwind makes travel
difficult and pushes the ice sheets closer and closer together,
creating pack ice. After travelling almost 700 kilometers in the
Scoresby Sound, we find ourselves stranded in the Arctic. Together
with the Barselaisen family, in one of the most isolated and
inhospitable places on Earth. A week before we’d departed Iceland
on a two-hour flight over the Arctic Ocean. Our destination:
Ittoqqortoormiit — a village some 800 kilometers away from
its closest neighbors. The descent in itself is breathtaking.
On the shoreline of one of the fjord’s branches, we land
on a gravel runway. It was built by an American oil firm which withdrew
from the development in 1990, but the runway remains. We have to continue our journey by
boat, as there are no roads. The trip takes close to two hours.
On a peaceful and beautiful July afternoon like this, who’d imagine
that anything could go wrong? The colorful houses of
Ittoqqortoormiit stand out like beacons between the rocks and the ice.
We’re overwhelmed by the incredible beauty of the Arctic. And
its vastness confounds our senses. The icebergs often as
tall as skyscrapers! It’s more than 40 kilometers from
here to the shoreline on the other side of the fjord. 350 people live in Ittoqqortoormiit;
almost all are Inuit. Most of them work directly or indirectly
subsidized by the Danish government to keep the
settlement alive. There’s a church, hospital, sports
center and a primary school here — along with what might be the
world’s most spectacular soccer pitch. Its artificial turf is
carefully manicured between the rubble and snow. They’ve even just opened an outdoor
pool for the children. It’s only the second one in all of
Greenland. The kids splash around to the sound of techno music, even
though the water’s a little chilly. That still needs some improvement. How warm is the water? Around ten degrees. Ten degrees?
-Yeah, ten. Isn’t it too cold for the kids? That’s cold, but we’re
working on warmer. At the small weather station, they’re
releasing a weather balloon. Like they do every day at 11 each
morning and night — at the same time as hundreds of weather
stations around the world. Tore Andreasen runs the station. He’s lived
in Ittoqqortoormiit for 46 years, but says things have changed
dramatically here in recent years. The weather systems have changed.
The temperature, the humidity, the precipitation
has changed. Everything has changed. It’s been a lot warmer
and a lot more humid. A lot more rain in summertime. The climate
we have now is what they had a thousand kilometers south of us when
I came. It’s quite a big change. Above the village there’s a
cemetery — with a stunning view. Even if it’s getting warmer here, in the summer they still dig extra
graves -- to be able to bury those who die in winter, when the
ground is frozen solid. Suddenly there’s excitement in the
village. The men are loading their guns and everyone’s on their feet.
People drop everything to go and watch. The narwhals are here. Those who aren’t in the boats
watch from the shoreline and tell the hunters which way to go. Time and again, the whales
submerge — and the boats chase after them. The sound of large-caliber
weapons resonates throughout the bay. The hunters fear the smell of the
corpses could attract polar bears. To keep them away from the
shoreline and the settlement, the dead whales are hauled onto an
ice sheet and carved up there. Outside one of the cabins we meet
Mette Barselaisen, who’s following the action with binoculars. Her
husband Age and her brother Agalu are taking
part in the hunt. We ask her why people here
are so crazy about narwhals. So, what role does narwhal
hunting play for your community? It’s very important for our own
supply for the whole year. You eat the meat and you make oil
from the skin fat, and the skin, you eat it. And if you’re good
to do handicrafts, you can make jewelry from, you know, the tooth. Mette invites us to stay for lunch.
Goulash is on the menu; it’s the children’s favorite. Mette tells
us that much has changed here in recent years. And asks if we’d like
to join them on a boat trip up the fjord in the coming days. We travel almost 400 kilometers
with them up the Scoresby Sound, at 50 or 60 kilometers an hour,
navigating our way through the ice. After four hours of a very cold --
and for us, often nerve-wracking — journey, we take a break
in stunning surroundings. The silence is only broken by
the sound of melting glaciers. While her youngest son Brian keeps
an eye out for polar bears — which can appear out of nowhere at
any time -- we ask Mette about the biggest changes she’s observed
here in recent years. The glaciers, the last years, have
been melting roughly?.like ten years ago until now, it can
melt up to one kilometer. Then, suddenly, two polar bears
appear: a mother and her cub. A potentially extremely dangerous
encounter — for both parties. So it’s lucky for us we’re sitting safely in
our boat. And lucky for the polar bears this year’s bag quota
has already been reached. I don’t want to go nearby,
because they have very huge claws. But I like the meat. As
goulash, you know, you make small pieces of the meat and
make a goulash out of it, with rice. It’s very good! Polar bear goulash! Our journey up the fjord continues.
We’ve been travelling through this magical world of ice for two days. But this isn’t a family holiday — even
if it sometimes looks like it. Eight- year-old Brian drives us to our
camp for the night, at full speed. Isn’t Mette worried? I was afraid when he was five
and six, because he’s still too little. But his father wanted him to
learn to drive as early as possible. And did he already shoot? He knew how to shoot when
he was four or five. As often as they can, they bring their
children to the fjord. To teach them how to survive here in the
Arctic: how to feed themselves; how to hunt and fish, how to creep
up on polar bears, seals and muskox. And how to adapt to the
ever-changing world around them It have been a river here, but it’s
all dried now. Before, we can get the water here, next to the camp.
So now we don’t have more snow and glacier up here in the
mountains, and now it’s all dry. It’s because it’s warmer and we
have a longer summer period. And the winter season, it’s warmer
earlier, so the snow always melts. The next morning we need to move
fast?.a strong wind is coming up and that could prove dangerous. So
we need to leave. We still have a 350 kilometer return trip ahead
of us?.and then we find ourselves stranded in the Arctic. Mette’s
brother Agalu has gone on ahead, crossing the ice floes, looking
for a passage through the ice. How is it? Good? Not good. Our biggest worry now is that
something could happen to the boats. They risk being destroyed by
drift ice. And without the boats there’s no way to get back. We have to turn around. In an
ice-free bay we meet some hunters who are also stuck. We launch our drone to get a better
overview of the situation. Agalu and the other hunters examine our images.
It really doesn’t look good — there’s thick pack ice all the way
to horizon. We’re not going to get out of here so quickly. We set up
camp and post guards — to watch out for polar bears. The hunters
share their food with us. Mette cuts the narwhal skin and
blubber into small strips to make it easier to chew. It’s fresh, it’s caught yesterday?
the place we should’ve gone. It tastes a bit like chewing gum. Yeah, it’s very good. It’s good to keep us warm now,
because we are staying out we don’t know how long. After being stuck here for two days,
things suddenly move very quickly. The family has made a decision. Age tells us Agalu will bring
us back: The three of us, the children and one hunter in one boat. Mette and Age want the children to get
back to the village. It’s growing too cold out here and the polar
bears pose an ever-present danger. They plan to follow us as soon as
there’s a clear path through the ice. Their boat is too big
to haul over the ice. It’s a tiring and
perilous journey back. Anyone who falls into the water
here is unlikely to survive. It’s hard for us to judge exactly
how thick the ice really is. We drag our boat over the pack ice. All the time we’re
afraid that the ice could crack or that someone
could slip into the icy water. We make our way from ice floe to ice
floe, taking advantage of every little ice-free passage to use the
boat. We drag, push and pull — getting in and out of the
boat for hours on end. This isn’t normal for the middle of
July. The new weather patterns are making life difficult for the Inuit.
The knowledge they’ve acquired over many generations, which
helps them predict weather conditions, is becoming unreliable. Did it happen to you before? No, that’s the first time for me. Really? Yeah. Late that evening, after hours
crossing the ice, we’re in the clear! A helicopter arrives to pick us up.
Eric, the local policeman, has come say goodbye and make sure we’re OK.
The narwhals are back in the bay. And, after two nights on the
ice, Mette has also made it home. We leave Ittoqqortoormiit, deeply
moved by its people and its natural beauty. The path to the landing
strip is still blocked by ice. This is Yellowknife, Canada — at the
military section of its airport. We’re travelling with the 2nd battalion
of Quebec’s Royal 22nd Regiment — a unit which supports Canada’s
Joint Task Force North. It’s been a long trip from
Ittoqqortoormiit. Almost 8-thousand kilometers, with stops in Quebec
and Yellowknife, before we reach Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic. We’re taking part in operation
Nanook Nunakput. Its mission: to patrol the Northwest Passage.
Canadian territory that could hardly be more isolated. The two Griffon military helicopters
fly low -- taking advantage of the element of surprise. You can see the vast area we
have to cover up here in the North: there’s thousands of miles.
And slow-moving ships can’t cover it all, so patrols like
this are vital. We can keep track of what other vessels are
operating in Canadian waters. The helicopters head out over the
water. They have their sights set on a cargo ship and radio
the freighter to identify itself. The
captain is surprised. He asks why the helicopter is there.
He never dreamed two military helicopters would
suddenly appear in the middle of the night.
The pilots are amused. We ask the questions! The guy just wasn’t too clear on it. They may have been surprised by
the close fly-by that we gave them and the mild interrogation.
It’s not unheard of, for sure. The freighter was properly
registered, but the message is clear — anyone travelling
through the Northwest Passage should expect
to face questions. Back at command central,
debriefings are taking place. Reconnaissance patrols are to be
transferred to observation posts in the Northwest Passage
— to monitor an area approximately
the size of Germany. In order to maintain our
sovereignty, like, during this time of the year there’s no ice, so
there’s a lot more boat traffic. So we want to make sure we can
have people on the ground and in the air, with the air force
support, to monitor any type of maritime activity. It’s also for the
ships that didn't say they would come? Russian submarines? Yeah, there’s a difference
between seeing a submarine or a fishing boat, right? So one of the two require?they require
a different response. The base of their operations is
known as CAM-MAIN. Located at Cambridge Bay, it’s part of the joint
Canadian-American North Warning System. Roughly 2-thousand people
live in Cambridge Bay. It’s a kind of rough-and-tumble Arctic
frontier town in the middle of nowhere that’s kept alive with
generous support from the Canadian government. Most of the people here live
from hunting and fishing, and government subsidies. Fishing for
Arctic char is one of the few good- paying jobs here. People can earn
around 4-thousand euros for two weeks’ work. But the fishing
grounds are spread all over the Northwest Passage and are often
only reachable by float plane. At the dock in Cambridge Bay we
meet some fishermen unloading their catch. We ask if they’ve
encountered vessels in the Northwest Passage that have
no business being there. I heard stories of our elders,
out on boats. And they see something out in the distance,
thinking it’s an island — and, all of a sudden, it just submerges,
disappears. So, yes, out in the Coppermine area. We know, based on some sightings
by other people, that the Russians do come in the
Canadian Arctic, but that’s all we know. And it’s been in the news,
so basically, you know. I know the government of Canada,
they’re trying to keep it low somehow, not make a big deal out
of it, but I’m sure that they know a lot more than they say. At an observation post we meet the
Commander of Joint Task Force North, Brigadier General Patrick
Carpentier. He’s inspecting his troops, who are conducting
surveillance in this isolated region. He explains how hard it is to
maintain a presence throughout Canada’s North. If you take that area of land, it’s
about the size of the continental US. So, in that area, there’s only
115-thousand people, that are about 72 different communities.
So the challenges are communication, transportation,
infrastructure?Everything is a challenge in the North — and
that’s not counting climate! His troops are always accompanied
by a group of Arctic rangers, local Inuit who work with the military.
They play an important role. They’re critical, because, if you
think of the Arctic, it’s so big. The rangers are really the eyes
and ears and the voice of the North. They give us a lot of
situational awareness of what’s going on in the Arctic. The Canadian Armed Forces
only have around 400 soldiers permanently stationed here in the
North. So, they couldn’t do without the help of the Arctic rangers
and the local population. Along with two Arctic rangers and a
reconnaissance patrol, we’re being transferred to an outpost — on
a small, uninhabited island . The pilots ask us if we get airsick.
We’re told to be honest, because lots of people start to feel queasy
when the helicopter picks up speed. They fly low and fast. For more than hour, we travel over
rocky terrain, as well as countless lakes . Sometimes it feels like we
could reach out and touch the ground! We have to disembark quickly. The
pilots need to return to base. This is to be our camp for the next
few days: a couple of tents on a small island in the middle of the
Arctic. There are no trees or bushes for protection. We’re fully
exposed to the wind and weather, which often changes from
one minute to the next. Night has fallen. On slightly higher
ground, the first guards have taken up position. Using infrared devices
and powerful binoculars they search for hot spots on the icy
waters. These can be even be detected from great distances away. Would you see a submarine
coming if it’s up? If it’s up, we would see it.
If it’s down, no we don’t. But I know that we have some
specialists for submarines with us. Not here, but at the other place. But they don’t show us that: The next morning, this
reconnaissance patrol is searching the horizon. They’ve just
spotted a ‘foreign invader‘! It's right there. We saw it coming
this way so we turned around. It’s hard to see, but it’s right
there. I can show you the picture. Holy c**p! He’s watching you guys.
He says: Hi! Amy and Allen load their guns. The
Canadian Arctic is Inuit territory. The soldiers are guests here — and
unarmed. They don’t to be viewed as an occupying force. So, they leave
it up to the rangers to defend them. Ok. So what will you
do then, if he comes? If it’s getting too close,
maybe shoot it down. But, for now, the bear
is nowhere in sight. Suddenly a dense fog moves in from
the sea. Now it’s wet and cold — around 3 degrees Celsius. Allen
says it could take a week for the fog to lift. It looks like we’re, once
again, trapped in the Arctic. This time on a small island
with a grizzly bear! When it’s foggy, let’s say we’re
completely fogged, most of the time they cannot really take
off, because they can barely see themselves. So, if they cannot
take off, they cannot land, right? So, they won’t take that risk. A few days later the skies have
cleared and the helicopters can fly. The Brigadier General
comes for an inspection. He and his staff have
one burning question: Any more bear sightings? No, we haven’t seen
one since day 2. But of course it’s not bears that
pose the biggest challenge here. They’re merely a
tactical problem. The strategic challenge is that
the North is extremely rich in resources and the immensity
is incredible. So, to have a presence over such a large
territory is an extreme challenge. The Arctic boasts a wealth of
natural resources: diamonds, copper, iron, oil, gas — and fish!
And now the ice is melting faster and the ground is thawing, it’s
getting easier to extract these treasures. They’re in great demand
and only those who maintain a presence here can protect their
interests. It’s a huge undertaking in Canada, the second-largest country
on Earth. And a Herculean task up here in the Far North at
the end of the world.. We continue on our journey,
travelling almost 2-thousand kilometers westwards to Fairbanks,
Alaska. And, from there, another 800 kilometers to Deadhorse,
by the Beaufort Sea. It’s now early October and we’re on
the Dalton Highway. Much of it is just a mix of mud and gravel. It’s
been called one of the world’s most dangerous roads. Crossing the Yukon River, we head
northwards in the Arctic — following the route of the Trans-Alaska
Pipeline. And crossing the mighty Brooks Range, a thousand-kilometer
long mountain range that runs right across northern Alaska. Halfway along the route we hit
Coldfoot — little more than a gas station in the middle
of the wilderness. Until the mid-1990s, the Dalton
Highway was closed to normal traffic. Anyone wanting to use it
needed a special permit from the oil companies. Now truck drivers tell
us they’re encountering more and more tourists. Most come here in
winter to see the Northern Lights, but they often
underestimate the risks. As beautiful as it is, as nice as it
is, to me it’s not worth it, ’cause it is very dangerous, you know.
And especially coming unprepared. Just think about it,
you might have to walk ten miles in this weather. I felt people
come up here and they have nothing; they have light jackets,
they have tennis shoes and it’s just not very smart.
- It’s tourists. Yeah, pretty much. We drive further into the mountains.
There’s been a lot of snowfall in the last few days — unusual for early
October. We stop off in Wiseman, a village that boomed during the
gold rush. Everywhere you can see relics from the days when the
Dalton Highway and the Trans- Alaska Pipeline were being
built in the Arctic. Just 14 people still live in Wiseman,
where the freezers look like this — and it’s only October. Here
everything is pretty rustic? In his cabin, Jack Reakoff is telling
a group of Chinese tourists about life in the wilderness, and how he
shoots moose and bears to survive. It’s a heavy caliber 8.6 mm. This
is what the bullet looks like when it goes. The bullet hits the
animal and opens up; it shot right through here, right through
the lung. When the bullet goes through the lung, the heart
continues to pump blood to the lung and all the blood keeps
gushing out of the lung. Pretty soon you have no blood
left and it’s dead. But Jack tells us the hunting’s
not as good as it used to be. I had a 15 day, climbed a lot of
mountains. I looked at a lot of country with hardly anything in it.
It makes it harder, makes it harder. Jack came to Wiseman in 1971 with
his parents. His father helped to build the Dalton Highway. Jack
explains why there are practically no more moose up
here in the woods. We’ve now had three deep snow
years since 2004. One-point-four meters of snow annihilates the
moose — especially when it melted on top and then froze.
They’re breaking through the snow to their chest and cutting
themselves up on the edge of the snow. The snow had thick crust
like that: it was killing them. And it looks like this might be
another bad year; there’s already too much snow for early October.
The air is too warm and too humid The moose population doesn’t have
time enough to recover if deep snows occur every four or five years,
as they have in the last two decades. Jack shows the Chinese tourists
some mighty moose antlers -- a popular photo motif. We asked
these visitors what brought them here to the Far North. Chinese people become richer
and richer right now and they want to see the outside world.
But I’ve never seen so far. Hopefully I can see
the aurora tonight. As they try to drive away, we hope
they’ll get to see the Northern Lights tonight. The
conditions are favorable. The night sky is clear---and full of
stars. Suddenly the heavenly light show commences?gradually becoming
more and more spectacular. The next morning, we continue our
northward journey towards the Arctic Ocean -- following the Trans
Alaska Pipeline. The road is icy. For hours, we fight our way across
the Brooks Range, which separates central Alaska from the
North Slope region. At the northern foot of the Brooks
Range lies the Toolik Field Station. Scientists from around
the world come here to research the changes
in the Arctic. Jeb Timm manages the station. He
says they now have mosquitos and snakes that can survive the winter
here. That’s something new. There’s no denying
climate change is real. It’s hard to argue with and I’m
kind of in a weird spot. I’m surrounded by science; I grew up
around science. But I’m also a little bit of a redneck. You know,
I like to hunt; I like to play on snow machines. But it’s hard to
argue with the research that I see and the glaciers that I see
disappearing firsthand. And, you know, just how much warmer our
seasons are, it’s pretty obvious. Jeb says it’s one thing that it’s
getting warmer. But what will happen as a result of this will
be the really big problem. There’s enough permafrost up
here that if that thick surface layer -- that 20-, 30-meter layer
-- melts, the whole North Slope is gonna drop about 30
feet or 10 meters. He says it hasn’t got to that yet, but
things are getting critical. He stresses that he’s no expert.
He suggests we talk to Vladimir Romanovsky, one of the world‘s
foremost permafrost researchers. Romanovsky, who advises
governments and companies, says the situation’s quite clear. You already have 35 years of
measurements. And during this period of time, we started this
permafrost temperature of about minus 8; now it’s minus 4 on the
North Slope of Alaska. About from 2013 to 2014 we have a
new, really strong wave of warming, where whole sites
in interior Alaska show very substantial warming. Should this continue, it could
also have serious consequences for energy supplies around the globe —
as more and more of the world’s oil and gas supplies come
from the Arctic. In many permafrost areas,
distribution of ice is very uneven. There are some big chunks of
almost pure ice there and when these chunks are melting the
surface subsides, developing very, very uneven surfaces. And
there is many occasions already exist, where this subsidence
already is threatening the oil extraction infrastructure. Heading north, the Trans-Alaska
Pipeline leads us out of the mountains and across
the frozen Arctic tundra. A region of
stunning natural beauty. Then we pull into Deadhorse — and the
contrast couldn’t be greater. It’s one big muddy mess?.and much
warmer than further south. The Dalton Highway ends in Deadhorse,
at its only shop: the General Store. Terry Underhill is one of the few
women in Deadhorse. She runs the store and — like everyone here —
comes from the south. She flies in to work for two weeks,
then has two weeks off. That’s the rhythm of life here. She tells us she’s a big fan of Donald
Trump, like everyone here. We ask why. Obama made it so you can’t drill
offshore, which killed us. And he outlawed a lot of stuff. He put a
lot of regulations on everything, which made it to where they
couldn’t do anything. And then when Trump came along and lifted
all the regulations and let us drill offshore again,
everything started opening up again. So, it was almost dead.
It was like a ghost town. But now Deadhorse has been brought
back to life. And work has returned. The workers’ camps are fully booked.
The huge containers stand on stilts — like everything here
that’s built on or in the permafrost. Because the land here lies just
above sea level -- and in summer the upper layers of permafrost
keep melting more and more — gravel is spread to
stabilize the ground. The question is: How
long will all this hold? All this infrastructure was built to
extract more material, which will be eventually be burned and it
will accelerate warming. Which will increase the rate of thawing
of permafrost and will make more and more problems for the
infrastructure, which was designed and built to
extract these goods. So that’s the kind of irony here. We board a private plane for supplies,
to get a better overview of the situation. The oil companies
won’t let us film their operations, even though we’d approached them
weeks ago. Over hundreds of kilometers, huge plants come in to
view — built into the slowly warming permafrost. All connected
by the pipeline which runs through this swampy landscape? Even offshore, in the
middle of the Arctic Ocean, there are drilling platforms. Bob, our pilot, tells us normally
there’d be ice here. But he says this year things have changed: Is this normal or is this unusual? No, it’s very unusual. It’s
the first year that I have not seen the ice all summer. Bob says it keeps getting warmer here.
We wonder if the instability of the ground isn’t already
causing problems. Are there not already any
effects already on the infrastructure and the oil fields? Yes, but it’s not official
information, let’s say. And they ask us not to talk. But, yes, they
have problems. And that’s why maybe they’re selling. They’re selling
--- BP is gone from the North Slope. Oil giant BP is withdrawing from
Alaska entirely — even though more and more oil fields are being
discovered and opened up for drilling. Our journey around the Arctic Circle
ends here, in the Alaskan oil fields. For some, they’re the promise
of a brighter future; for others, they’re
part of the problem. We’ve travelled thousands of
kilometers through this immense, isolated region — a world that’s
warming more quickly than any other on Earth. A world that will determine the future
of humanity. The huge demand for raw materials and climate
change are making life more unpredictable by the day. Should the permafrost and ice crust
disappear, our world will be a different one. And the knowledge
acquired here over the generations is already losing its significance. Here, in the Arctic!
