00:00:04.772 --> 00:00:06.640
[steps]

00:00:09.677 --> 00:00:10.945
[wind noise]

00:00:19.153 --> 00:00:20.421
[steps]

00:00:33.701 --> 00:00:35.669
[muffled steps]

00:00:49.016 --> 00:00:51.018
[Diana] I don't know

00:01:00.861 --> 00:01:02.363
I can't get there.

00:01:08.469 --> 00:01:10.905
[waves crashing]

00:01:15.876 --> 00:01:18.379
[melancholy music]

00:01:19.413 --> 00:01:21.682
[small plane engine]

00:01:43.871 --> 00:01:46.607
[Steve] I'm heading back
to one of the most remote places

00:01:46.707 --> 00:01:47.708
in the world.

00:01:55.049 --> 00:01:58.919
The polar Inuit left these lands
nearly a thousand years ago,

00:01:59.420 --> 00:02:03.257
and these shores have been wild
and uninhabited ever since.

00:02:13.267 --> 00:02:16.403
Today, scientists are trying
to make sense of this region

00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:20.608
mainly by using data
they've collected from satellites.

00:02:23.110 --> 00:02:27.281
But how do you comprehend
a frozen ocean from the sky?

00:02:31.952 --> 00:02:35.589
We'll be landing 500 nautical miles
from the North Pole,

00:02:35.623 --> 00:02:38.292
right on the doorstep
of the “Last Ice Area.”

00:02:39.126 --> 00:02:41.996
A unique place
where oceanographers predict

00:02:42.129 --> 00:02:45.833
the oldest and thickest sea ice
can be found.

00:02:47.501 --> 00:02:50.337
Our plan is to survey the sea ice,

00:02:50.471 --> 00:02:54.975
to see for ourselves
how accurate their predictions are.

00:02:57.645 --> 00:02:58.912
[small plane engine]

00:03:02.149 --> 00:03:03.584
[PILOT] So, we're making a pass

00:03:03.584 --> 00:03:06.420
and we'll look at those big cracks
going across the strip.

00:03:06.820 --> 00:03:09.490
And then, uh, we'll come in to land.

00:03:10.691 --> 00:03:13.661
So, uh, just brace yourself.

00:03:16.530 --> 00:03:18.365
[loud beep]

00:03:20.634 --> 00:03:22.202
[TEAM] Wahoo!

00:03:23.337 --> 00:03:25.506
[team clapping]

00:03:38.318 --> 00:03:40.454
[indistinct chatter]

00:03:43.991 --> 00:03:48.195
[STEVE] Okay, Diana, I'm just going
to hand it down to you.

00:03:50.531 --> 00:03:51.665
[STEVE] A decade ago,

00:03:52.199 --> 00:03:54.201
I worked with friends in Greenland

00:03:54.234 --> 00:03:56.370
to make a documentary film.

00:03:58.038 --> 00:04:00.174
What people there wanted the world to know

00:04:00.374 --> 00:04:03.310
is how their culture was losing sea ice.

00:04:08.082 --> 00:04:10.084
[plane engine]

00:04:17.391 --> 00:04:20.394
Since then, I've been trying to reconcile

00:04:20.394 --> 00:04:25.032
how changes happening in the Arctic
are impacting my life down South.

00:04:36.376 --> 00:04:37.611
[steps]

00:04:42.249 --> 00:04:44.918
The ancestors of today's Inuit

00:04:45.419 --> 00:04:48.689
invented kayaks
to navigate the polar seas.

00:04:50.457 --> 00:04:53.560
Kayaking is still a really good
way to get around up here.

00:04:54.395 --> 00:04:55.629
[soft music]

00:04:56.463 --> 00:04:58.065
With these boats,

00:04:58.098 --> 00:05:00.734
we'll have unequaled access to the sea ice

00:05:00.801 --> 00:05:02.436
in the Last Ice Area.

00:05:03.604 --> 00:05:07.441
Access that scientists haven't had before.

00:05:09.977 --> 00:05:10.978
Alright!

00:05:11.078 --> 00:05:12.780
There are five of us.

00:05:13.413 --> 00:05:15.082
I'm Steve.

00:05:15.916 --> 00:05:18.619
I've been coming
to the far North for 40 years.

00:05:21.422 --> 00:05:23.624
My wife Diana runs an organic farm.

00:05:24.792 --> 00:05:28.462
Ten years ago she backpacked
across the mountain range behind us.

00:05:30.431 --> 00:05:32.966
Chris is a polar oceanographer.

00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:35.836
He just got his PhD from Harvard.

00:05:36.603 --> 00:05:38.972
This will be his first
Arctic field expedition

00:05:39.273 --> 00:05:41.975
and his first time
setting foot on Arctic sea ice.

00:05:42.976 --> 00:05:46.079
[MIKE] We're going to put this
inside the tent bag...

00:05:46.146 --> 00:05:48.148
[STEVE] When it comes
to sharing adventures,

00:05:48.816 --> 00:05:51.418
Mike and his son Bryce
have done a lot together.

00:05:52.786 --> 00:05:55.789
Mike has joined me
on two other High Arctic projects.

00:05:55.856 --> 00:05:59.660
...but It'd be a nice,
reasonable thing for us to do...

00:05:59.693 --> 00:06:01.829
And either in here somewhere

00:06:01.862 --> 00:06:03.430
or around the corner into here somewhere.

00:06:03.530 --> 00:06:05.299
And that'll set us up.

00:06:05.299 --> 00:06:07.668
We'll be really, really close
to that open water,

00:06:07.768 --> 00:06:09.703
which runs by through here.

00:06:11.038 --> 00:06:12.306
[soft music]

00:06:12.506 --> 00:06:16.343
There are only a few passages
where sea ice can escape the Arctic Ocean.

00:06:17.044 --> 00:06:18.812
Nares Strait is one of them.

00:06:19.713 --> 00:06:21.348
Here we can observe the floes

00:06:21.381 --> 00:06:23.450
without having to go far from shore.

00:06:24.685 --> 00:06:27.855
For the next five weeks
we'll be surveying the ice,

00:06:27.955 --> 00:06:30.123
making our way down Nares Strait

00:06:30.190 --> 00:06:32.326
until we reach a small research station

00:06:32.359 --> 00:06:34.161
where a plane will pick us up.

00:06:35.362 --> 00:06:36.997
Once we enter the current,

00:06:37.030 --> 00:06:38.699
there'll be no going back.

00:06:40.534 --> 00:06:42.536
If an accident happens,

00:06:42.636 --> 00:06:44.371
if someone gets injured,

00:06:44.404 --> 00:06:47.808
worst case scenario,
rescue could take weeks.

00:06:48.842 --> 00:06:51.011
We'll be totally on our own.

00:06:54.381 --> 00:06:56.483
[CHRIS] My goal in coming here
is scientific.

00:06:57.584 --> 00:06:59.720
I think part of me wants to understand

00:06:59.820 --> 00:07:01.755
how the sea ice
has changed so dramatically,

00:07:01.855 --> 00:07:02.756
and in Nares Strait

00:07:03.190 --> 00:07:04.925
there's been a very precipitous drop

00:07:05.392 --> 00:07:07.861
in the amount of sea ice
that gets stuck here.

00:07:15.102 --> 00:07:17.905
[STEVE] If there is one place
where we might encounter a bear,

00:07:18.005 --> 00:07:22.242
it's going to be right down
where the sea meets the land,

00:07:22.376 --> 00:07:25.245
because that's where the bears
end up being in the summertime.

00:07:25.746 --> 00:07:28.181
There are little nooks
and crannies here and there

00:07:28.215 --> 00:07:30.550
that you might not be able
to see a bear in.

00:07:31.051 --> 00:07:34.554
If you've just come up
a little rise and you see a bear,

00:07:34.788 --> 00:07:36.456
chances are that bear hasn't seen you.

00:07:36.556 --> 00:07:40.460
So the thing to do would be
slowly back down, away from that

00:07:40.561 --> 00:07:42.896
and then turn and get back to camp.

00:07:43.397 --> 00:07:45.098
But if you chance upon a bear,

00:07:45.198 --> 00:07:48.101
and you're in that kind
of a stand-off situation,

00:07:48.201 --> 00:07:49.903
absolutely 9 times out of 10,

00:07:49.970 --> 00:07:52.105
that bear is going to turn around and run,

00:07:52.205 --> 00:07:53.373
because that's what they do.

00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:55.909
[DIANA] What about the 10th time?
[laughs]

00:07:55.976 --> 00:07:58.712
[STEVE] Yeah, that's right,
the tenth time...

00:07:58.812 --> 00:08:00.080
[howling like a wild bear]

00:08:00.547 --> 00:08:03.216
[DIANA] What are you going to do,
Steve, I've just eaten you?

00:08:03.650 --> 00:08:05.118
No, seriously

00:08:05.786 --> 00:08:07.788
Tell me what I... you know.

00:08:07.955 --> 00:08:10.090
[STEVE] In that case, yes,
you're going to shout,

00:08:10.123 --> 00:08:11.792
“Hey! Go away!”

00:08:11.925 --> 00:08:14.227
You're going to start bellowing
and make yourself look big.

00:08:14.294 --> 00:08:15.596
Put your arms in the air.

00:08:15.629 --> 00:08:17.297
If anything, take a step forward.

00:08:17.831 --> 00:08:20.133
- [DIANA] So, I have a final question.
- [STEVE] Yeah.

00:08:20.233 --> 00:08:24.938
[DIANA] Steve, how would you feel
if one of us was eaten by a bear?

00:08:25.005 --> 00:08:27.007
[STEVE] Oh, geez. Diana!

00:08:27.107 --> 00:08:28.775
[laughs]

00:08:28.842 --> 00:08:29.776
What!?

00:08:29.843 --> 00:08:34.081
[DIANA] You brought us up here,
I'm just wondering, you know.

00:08:34.147 --> 00:08:37.351
[STEVE] Yeah, I would not feel
very good about that, Diana.

00:08:37.451 --> 00:08:39.252
[laughs]

00:08:40.620 --> 00:08:42.089
- [TEAM] Not good at all.
- [STEVE] No.

00:08:42.155 --> 00:08:43.857
I would not feel good about that.

00:09:02.109 --> 00:09:05.445
[indistinct chatter]
[soft music]

00:09:08.548 --> 00:09:12.853
[DIANA] After a year of planning,
the journey has begun.

00:09:20.027 --> 00:09:21.695
[CHRIS] I'm about to get squished.

00:09:25.699 --> 00:09:27.067
[BRYCE] Think skinny.

00:09:30.003 --> 00:09:31.338
[CHRIS] Now pull.

00:09:33.373 --> 00:09:34.841
[splashing of paddles sounds]

00:09:35.208 --> 00:09:36.643
[MIKE] It's jammed. Huh?

00:09:42.916 --> 00:09:45.886
[DIANA] We've decided to call it a day.

00:09:46.019 --> 00:09:48.855
So we've set up camp on the sea ice.

00:09:49.556 --> 00:09:52.726
There's only a few feet of ice
between our tent floor

00:09:53.026 --> 00:09:54.194
and the ocean below.

00:09:55.729 --> 00:09:59.066
There could be whales
swimming beneath us.

00:09:59.433 --> 00:10:01.835
[CHRIS] So I think this should be
a good place

00:10:01.902 --> 00:10:03.170
to put these buoys out.

00:10:03.236 --> 00:10:06.573
Like many polar oceanographers,
I do my research remotely.

00:10:06.706 --> 00:10:09.042
I work with equations,
I run computer models,

00:10:09.376 --> 00:10:11.578
and I interpret satellite imagery.

00:10:11.611 --> 00:10:13.880
Most of the time I sit at a desk.

00:10:14.915 --> 00:10:17.384
I've been in the Arctic just once before.

00:10:17.417 --> 00:10:20.253
It was on an icebreaker,
confined to the ship.

00:10:20.787 --> 00:10:23.223
Uh... First application of using these...

00:10:23.256 --> 00:10:24.458
It's a different experience,

00:10:24.558 --> 00:10:27.060
having my feet on the ice,
seeing everything up close.

00:10:29.463 --> 00:10:32.566
I'm pretty excited
to see if they actually work.

00:10:32.599 --> 00:10:35.602
Today Diana and I
are testing these prototype wave buoys.

00:10:36.436 --> 00:10:38.472
I want to find out how sea ice breaks up

00:10:38.605 --> 00:10:40.907
and use that information
to improve climate models.

00:10:40.941 --> 00:10:42.476
It looks pretty good over there.

00:10:42.609 --> 00:10:44.244
As we make our way down Nares Strait,

00:10:44.277 --> 00:10:46.746
we'll be placing them
on a bunch of different floes.

00:10:48.648 --> 00:10:52.452
The color of sea ice is
what is perhaps most important about it.

00:10:52.919 --> 00:10:54.988
Sea ice is brilliantly white sometimes,

00:10:54.988 --> 00:10:56.823
particularly snow-covered sea ice,

00:10:57.124 --> 00:11:00.293
and that means
it's very reflective to sunlight.

00:11:01.294 --> 00:11:04.331
That sunlight is what heats
the oceans and the atmosphere.

00:11:06.099 --> 00:11:08.435
We're going to put them out
on opposite sides of a place

00:11:08.468 --> 00:11:10.804
we think that's going
to fail and break up.

00:11:12.172 --> 00:11:15.342
So, we'll put this one buoy
over here, and the other one

00:11:16.343 --> 00:11:19.479
is going to go
on the opposite side of this ridge.

00:11:20.480 --> 00:11:21.748
[soft music]

00:11:22.449 --> 00:11:23.984
[DIANA] Alright, mission accomplished!

00:11:26.853 --> 00:11:30.657
[CHRIS] The Arctic Ocean
is warming incredibly rapidly.

00:11:31.158 --> 00:11:34.761
And as the Arctic warms up,
this warms the rest of the world.

00:11:37.097 --> 00:11:38.765
[DIANA] The more the ice melts

00:11:38.832 --> 00:11:40.867
there's less white ice,
there's more dark ocean.

00:11:40.967 --> 00:11:41.868
So, it gets warmer

00:11:41.935 --> 00:11:44.204
so there is less white ice
and more dark ocean,

00:11:44.304 --> 00:11:46.506
until it's just so much dark ocean

00:11:46.540 --> 00:11:48.608
that the white ice is melting super fast.

00:11:48.675 --> 00:11:51.044
[CHRIS] Exactly. So, that's the sea ice
albedo feedback,

00:11:51.044 --> 00:11:52.612
and that's all it is.

00:11:53.013 --> 00:11:54.281
[soft music]

00:11:54.514 --> 00:11:56.883
In the Arctic,
the surface is either white,

00:11:56.983 --> 00:11:59.719
reflecting the sun's energy
back out to space,

00:12:00.020 --> 00:12:03.657
or it is dark, absorbing the sun's energy.

00:12:04.825 --> 00:12:06.793
Earth's albedo is a big part

00:12:06.793 --> 00:12:08.995
of what keeps us from cooking
under the sun.

00:12:10.697 --> 00:12:13.166
It keeps the earth cool.

00:12:18.371 --> 00:12:20.340
[water splashes softly]

00:12:22.676 --> 00:12:24.878
[STEVE] We're camped
right where the historic

00:12:24.978 --> 00:12:28.048
Lady Franklin Bay Expedition began.

00:12:29.849 --> 00:12:34.754
In August, 1881,
25 men were dropped off here.

00:12:36.423 --> 00:12:38.758
They were under US Army orders

00:12:38.892 --> 00:12:42.229
to conduct research
and fill-in blank spots on the map.

00:12:45.398 --> 00:12:47.367
They built a station.

00:12:48.735 --> 00:12:50.704
Fort Conger.

00:12:53.073 --> 00:12:54.774
Their work went well,

00:12:55.442 --> 00:12:57.911
but resupply ships never showed up.

00:13:01.748 --> 00:13:02.849
And in those days

00:13:02.916 --> 00:13:05.619
there wasn't any way
to contact the outside world.

00:13:11.458 --> 00:13:13.727
[melancholy music]

00:13:15.295 --> 00:13:16.963
By the end of a third summer,

00:13:17.297 --> 00:13:19.232
they loaded up their wooden rowboats

00:13:19.232 --> 00:13:20.901
and headed down Nares Strait.

00:13:24.804 --> 00:13:27.107
They made it, 300 nautical miles

00:13:27.774 --> 00:13:30.710
to a place where they expected
to find a food cache.

00:13:31.411 --> 00:13:33.613
But nothing had been left for them.

00:13:36.983 --> 00:13:40.253
When rescue finally arrived,

00:13:40.920 --> 00:13:42.422
out of 25 men,

00:13:43.323 --> 00:13:45.725
only seven were still alive.

00:13:52.966 --> 00:13:54.668
As we survey the sea ice,

00:13:55.135 --> 00:13:58.438
we'll be retracing their escape
from Fort Conger.

00:14:05.312 --> 00:14:06.579
[bird singing]

00:14:12.185 --> 00:14:13.586
[bird singing]

00:14:17.190 --> 00:14:18.458
[melancholy music]

00:14:22.495 --> 00:14:26.166
In 2004,
I led the first small boat journey

00:14:26.199 --> 00:14:30.203
to retrace the escape
of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition.

00:14:30.637 --> 00:14:31.871
[bird singing]

00:14:32.205 --> 00:14:33.973
We went from this site

00:14:34.040 --> 00:14:36.843
to the place
where they spent their last winter.

00:14:39.713 --> 00:14:42.615
And the conditions we encountered
matched their records.

00:14:45.051 --> 00:14:46.986
According to their accounts,

00:14:47.020 --> 00:14:51.057
Nares Strait was often blocked
with enormous ice floes.

00:14:52.225 --> 00:14:56.496
Single slabs of sea ice
stretching clear across to Greenland,

00:14:58.498 --> 00:15:02.902
wide patches
of completely open water in between.

00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:08.141
This is not what I expected.

00:15:08.708 --> 00:15:10.744
I've never seen it so rumbled up.

00:15:16.082 --> 00:15:17.350
[bird singing]

00:15:19.052 --> 00:15:20.553
[MIKE] What's brash ice?

00:15:21.054 --> 00:15:23.089
[CHRIS] Ah, so this stuff
that's all broken up,

00:15:23.156 --> 00:15:24.891
it doesn't look much like floes.

00:15:24.924 --> 00:15:27.994
Kind of peaks out and stuff,
things that we can't really haul over.

00:15:28.194 --> 00:15:29.095
That's brash ice.

00:15:29.562 --> 00:15:32.365
The stuff on the west is land-fast ice.

00:15:33.233 --> 00:15:34.501
[melancholy music]

00:15:35.568 --> 00:15:37.570
Before I became a polar oceanographer,

00:15:37.604 --> 00:15:40.340
whenever I thought about the Arctic,
I imagined icebergs,

00:15:40.407 --> 00:15:43.543
these big chunks of glacial ice.

00:15:43.710 --> 00:15:46.413
But really, it's sea ice
that dominates the Arctic landscape.

00:15:48.782 --> 00:15:50.583
This ice freezes out of the ocean.

00:15:50.717 --> 00:15:54.053
It's made up of many individual pieces,
which are called ice floes.

00:15:56.423 --> 00:15:59.225
Sea ice in the Arctic
is constantly drifting,

00:15:59.259 --> 00:16:03.930
and over time, winds and currents
drive much of it into the Last Ice Area.

00:16:08.935 --> 00:16:10.603
Floes that enter Nares Strait,

00:16:10.737 --> 00:16:13.072
end up being carried south
with the prevailing current.

00:16:14.274 --> 00:16:16.409
This ice is on a journey of no return.

00:16:20.747 --> 00:16:25.051
[DIANA] We came from Fort Conger,
and that took us all day,

00:16:25.118 --> 00:16:28.555
and now we have to go
all the way across there.

00:16:29.656 --> 00:16:34.394
It's interesting to have a journey
up here in this really remote place,

00:16:34.461 --> 00:16:38.131
where you think
of these hardened explorers coming,

00:16:38.264 --> 00:16:41.835
and just have kind of regular people,
like except for Steve,

00:16:42.135 --> 00:16:45.238
you know, the rest of us
are pretty much ordinary people

00:16:45.305 --> 00:16:46.673
just plucked out of life.

00:16:46.773 --> 00:16:48.775
Like Mike's plucked out of Silicon Valley,

00:16:48.808 --> 00:16:50.810
and Bryce is plucked out of college.

00:16:50.944 --> 00:16:53.780
and you know,
Chris is plucked out of academia,

00:16:53.847 --> 00:16:56.082
and I'm just lifted up from my farm.

00:16:59.285 --> 00:17:00.420
[water splashes softly]

00:17:00.653 --> 00:17:01.921
[dramatic beat]

00:17:02.655 --> 00:17:04.357
It's 13 nautical miles

00:17:04.457 --> 00:17:06.326
to the other side of Lady Franklin Bay.

00:17:07.760 --> 00:17:10.096
With the ice
about to break up at any time,

00:17:11.164 --> 00:17:13.099
I don't feel safe.

00:17:13.833 --> 00:17:15.101
[soft music]

00:17:18.204 --> 00:17:21.374
Those men
of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition

00:17:21.508 --> 00:17:25.345
might've been the last people
to walk across this bay.

00:17:27.313 --> 00:17:29.148
[soft music]

00:17:30.517 --> 00:17:33.386
I'm imagining sodden wool jackets...

00:17:34.320 --> 00:17:36.489
and leather army boots.

00:17:37.223 --> 00:17:38.658
[boots splashing sounds]

00:17:39.025 --> 00:17:40.226
[MIKE] Aaaargh!

00:17:40.493 --> 00:17:41.394
Whoah!

00:17:42.362 --> 00:17:43.363
Come on!

00:17:43.830 --> 00:17:45.064
[boots splashing sounds]

00:17:45.665 --> 00:17:47.534
[BRYCE] Look what happened!

00:17:48.568 --> 00:17:51.204
I wanna take a picture of this!

00:17:58.745 --> 00:18:01.080
[CHRIS] I work on these floes,
and try to understand

00:18:01.147 --> 00:18:03.016
how the sea ice itself evolves,

00:18:03.416 --> 00:18:06.252
and then therefore
how the climate system evolves.

00:18:09.055 --> 00:18:10.823
When the sea ice goes away,

00:18:10.857 --> 00:18:13.059
it's replaced by the ocean, which is dark.

00:18:13.192 --> 00:18:16.763
And this dark surface
absorbs a lot of that sunlight.

00:18:16.863 --> 00:18:19.766
So in areas like this
where there's tons and tons of sunlight,

00:18:19.866 --> 00:18:21.100
24 hours a day,

00:18:21.568 --> 00:18:25.405
a transition between an ice-covered region
and an open water covered region

00:18:25.905 --> 00:18:29.576
represents a big shift
in how much heat is entering the ocean.

00:18:31.945 --> 00:18:33.746
[soft music]

00:18:49.062 --> 00:18:51.631
[soft string music]

00:18:58.304 --> 00:19:00.940
[drone engine]

00:19:08.781 --> 00:19:10.950
We're trying to see if we can figure out

00:19:10.984 --> 00:19:13.653
what percentage of the ice
is made of floes of what size,

00:19:13.753 --> 00:19:14.988
just in Nares Strait.

00:19:15.622 --> 00:19:17.457
And so we're sending up this drone,

00:19:17.590 --> 00:19:19.792
and it's going about a kilometer out

00:19:19.792 --> 00:19:22.095
and taking images
all the way and coming back,

00:19:22.161 --> 00:19:23.630
and we're going to stitch them together.

00:19:23.763 --> 00:19:25.999
And we're going to get a picture
of what the ice looks like.

00:19:28.968 --> 00:19:31.304
I've never seen imagery this good.

00:19:32.805 --> 00:19:34.273
It's incredible.

00:19:37.677 --> 00:19:41.314
Like, careers have been built
on less than this.

00:19:41.814 --> 00:19:42.982
Honestly.

00:19:45.852 --> 00:19:48.488
We get this unbelievable,

00:19:49.289 --> 00:19:51.658
I don't know, resolution of everything
that's going on.

00:19:51.758 --> 00:19:53.026
You can see this huge floe,

00:19:53.092 --> 00:19:55.261
and it's probably not even that big.
We're not that high up.

00:19:56.663 --> 00:19:58.965
It's covered in these chunks of ice

00:19:59.032 --> 00:20:01.601
that have been thrown up on top
and you can see all of them.

00:20:01.668 --> 00:20:03.936
I mean,
the resolution on this is incredible.

00:20:08.508 --> 00:20:12.979
So, we expect that these floes
are changed in time by melting,

00:20:13.012 --> 00:20:15.181
by interactions between themselves,

00:20:15.982 --> 00:20:18.151
by waves that break them.

00:20:18.184 --> 00:20:22.155
And the truth is we have no clue
how strong any of those are.

00:20:22.989 --> 00:20:24.691
And the only way you can really tell

00:20:24.791 --> 00:20:27.393
is to know
what the environment's doing and...

00:20:28.328 --> 00:20:29.896
to watch the floes themselves.

00:20:30.363 --> 00:20:31.998
We've never been able to do this.

00:20:33.900 --> 00:20:35.568
So, it's astounding. I mean,

00:20:35.668 --> 00:20:38.971
It really is something amazing
that I didn't think I'd get to ever do.

00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:43.343
It's going to tell us something
about why the floes are changing here.

00:20:47.347 --> 00:20:48.481
[scratching pan]

00:20:53.219 --> 00:20:56.155
[STEVE] After sleeping
another night under the Arctic sun,

00:20:56.556 --> 00:20:58.057
we woke to a surprise.

00:20:58.891 --> 00:21:01.227
Our first patch of open water.

00:21:02.929 --> 00:21:07.867
And a call
I've never heard this far North.

00:21:08.735 --> 00:21:10.903
[soft music]

00:21:30.289 --> 00:21:32.592
The last people to see narwhal up here

00:21:32.725 --> 00:21:35.862
might have been
the Polar Inuit 1000 years ago.

00:21:37.063 --> 00:21:38.965
[splashing sounds]

00:21:39.432 --> 00:21:41.134
[CHRIS] I don't get narwhal.

00:21:41.267 --> 00:21:42.969
Like, they're not seals,

00:21:43.636 --> 00:21:46.239
but they're not really whales either.

00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:48.441
[STEVE] They're little toothed whales.

00:21:48.741 --> 00:21:50.243
[MIKE] They're a dolphin.

00:21:50.276 --> 00:21:51.978
Yeah, they're like a dolphin.

00:21:52.078 --> 00:21:54.714
- [BRYCE] A manatee with a horn.
- [CHRIS] It's not a horn though.

00:21:55.081 --> 00:21:56.983
[STEVE] It's got a tooth.

00:21:57.083 --> 00:21:57.984
[CHRIS] Oh, come on.

00:21:58.084 --> 00:22:00.486
[DIANA] Ah, Steve.
It's like a unicorn.

00:22:00.486 --> 00:22:02.755
[STEVE] Yeah. It's so like a unicorn,
but it's a tooth.

00:22:02.755 --> 00:22:05.324
[BRYCE] The unicorns of the North.
...a unicorn floating around, you'd say,

00:22:05.424 --> 00:22:07.994
“Look at its tooth.
Look at that big tooth.”

00:22:10.263 --> 00:22:12.598
[STEVE] These days,
with changing ice conditions,

00:22:12.965 --> 00:22:18.137
wildlife species are being found
in unexpected places.

00:22:20.473 --> 00:22:21.841
[splashing sounds]

00:22:32.018 --> 00:22:34.487
[upbeat music]

00:22:35.822 --> 00:22:37.356
[DIANA] By the time we broke camp,

00:22:37.356 --> 00:22:39.826
the ice had drifted in
and chased the narwhal away.

00:22:43.696 --> 00:22:45.998
We're caught in a paradox.

00:22:46.465 --> 00:22:50.169
We want to study
the breakdown of the big ice floes,

00:22:50.336 --> 00:22:53.840
yet all of this broken up ice
is getting in our way.

00:22:56.175 --> 00:22:58.110
[upbeat music]

00:23:02.014 --> 00:23:05.284
What I'm learning is
Chris needs certain conditions

00:23:05.284 --> 00:23:07.353
in order to conduct his research.

00:23:08.187 --> 00:23:09.889
[upbeat music]

00:23:15.862 --> 00:23:18.731
There have to be
big drifting floes nearby,

00:23:18.865 --> 00:23:22.702
and there has to be enough open water
for us to get out to them.

00:23:29.208 --> 00:23:31.310
[upbeat music]
[indistinct chatter]

00:23:32.478 --> 00:23:34.213
[STEVE] The last time
I went down through the Strait

00:23:34.247 --> 00:23:37.250
because it was frozen from shore to shore,

00:23:38.551 --> 00:23:41.721
you didn't have any of this kind of ice.

00:23:43.256 --> 00:23:45.057
[upbeat music]
[indistinct chatter]

00:23:47.260 --> 00:23:50.196
It's precarious, like all of these...

00:23:50.229 --> 00:23:53.366
boulders of ice that are just
kind of piled on top of each other.

00:23:54.200 --> 00:23:55.902
Quite precarious.

00:24:08.214 --> 00:24:10.716
[CHRIS] All of this ice is really thin,

00:24:10.750 --> 00:24:13.252
it's a meter thick,
two meters thick at most.

00:24:13.786 --> 00:24:15.855
[soft cracking noise]

00:24:17.890 --> 00:24:20.359
And because it's so thin,
it's really easy to break.

00:24:20.426 --> 00:24:23.095
So, when the floes come into contact
with each other they fracture,

00:24:23.195 --> 00:24:24.897
they rubble up against each other.

00:24:24.964 --> 00:24:27.433
When they encounter wind
and waves, they break apart

00:24:30.102 --> 00:24:33.773
Here all this ocean that's exposed
is above the freezing temperature.

00:24:34.273 --> 00:24:37.443
Every time these small pieces of ice
are in contact with the ocean

00:24:37.543 --> 00:24:38.978
it's working to melt them.

00:24:39.745 --> 00:24:41.948
[indistinct chatter]

00:24:52.658 --> 00:24:53.960
[DIANA] Alright guys, what time is it?

00:24:54.593 --> 00:24:56.395
It's one, two, three, four?

00:24:56.495 --> 00:24:58.731
- [STEVE] Two something.
- [CHRIS] I think it's 3.

00:24:58.798 --> 00:25:03.636
[DIANA] You think so? So, that means
that it's potentially night.

00:25:05.071 --> 00:25:06.472
[CHRIS] The sun's going to come around...

00:25:06.572 --> 00:25:08.140
Well, it's already out, right? But...

00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:12.244
[DIANA] Well, the sun's behind
a cloud somewhere.

00:25:13.346 --> 00:25:14.413
[CHRIS] Is it behind a...

00:25:14.447 --> 00:25:16.816
[DIANA] The sun is always out somewhere.

00:25:22.755 --> 00:25:24.490
- [CHRIS] So just wait up.
- [DIANA] Yeah.

00:25:25.958 --> 00:25:28.427
[soft steps]
[shout]

00:25:28.694 --> 00:25:29.862
[DIANA] There you go.

00:25:35.201 --> 00:25:37.503
This is a typical day in the Arctic.

00:25:38.604 --> 00:25:41.007
It's like we get in our boats,

00:25:41.040 --> 00:25:43.709
and we try to go somewhere,
and we make it about

00:25:44.210 --> 00:25:46.979
a 100 feet in 20 minutes.

00:25:48.180 --> 00:25:51.450
Here we are on this tide flat,

00:25:51.517 --> 00:25:55.187
and the tide's going down,
and we have to get out of here

00:25:55.554 --> 00:25:57.890
before we get stuck in this ice

00:25:58.024 --> 00:26:02.161
with nothing but mud
and nowhere to take our boats.

00:26:03.195 --> 00:26:05.831
So, we have to go back
the way we just came, hey...

00:26:06.732 --> 00:26:10.136
Yeah. Not, not all the way,
just in this last little section.

00:26:10.536 --> 00:26:11.837
And we have to do it soon.

00:26:12.471 --> 00:26:14.006
[splashing of paddles sounds]

00:26:16.475 --> 00:26:18.577
[CHRIS] There's a hierarchy
of experiences.

00:26:19.912 --> 00:26:22.915
There's the experience
of thinking about something abstractly.

00:26:23.749 --> 00:26:26.585
There's the experience
of looking at it from space.

00:26:26.986 --> 00:26:30.222
The experience of watching it
pass by you on an icebreaker

00:26:31.057 --> 00:26:34.326
And there's the experience
of pulling a half-ton kayak

00:26:34.326 --> 00:26:37.029
across the surface of sea ice.

00:26:45.538 --> 00:26:47.039
[laughs]

00:26:52.445 --> 00:26:54.113
[soft music]

00:26:57.850 --> 00:26:59.185
[STEVE] Alright...

00:26:59.251 --> 00:27:01.087
Team, down, set, up!

00:27:01.854 --> 00:27:04.123
Alright, I'm going to walk forward
a little bit,

00:27:04.256 --> 00:27:06.959
and now you guys
can just crabwalk sideways...

00:27:07.727 --> 00:27:10.129
[drone engine]

00:27:12.031 --> 00:27:13.966
[CHRIS] Can't say I'm having fun.

00:27:14.066 --> 00:27:16.769
Yeah this thing
is going to be a challenge.

00:27:17.570 --> 00:27:18.604
Where's it going?

00:27:18.704 --> 00:27:20.139
Where're you going, buddy?

00:27:20.639 --> 00:27:22.041
That's wrong...

00:27:23.075 --> 00:27:24.610
[drone engine fades]

00:27:25.478 --> 00:27:29.115
So we're close to the North Pole,
at least the magnetic North Pole

00:27:29.715 --> 00:27:33.219
which makes flying this drone
pretty troublesome.

00:27:38.457 --> 00:27:42.394
This little guy
has a pretty cheap compass,

00:27:42.561 --> 00:27:46.398
which means it has a hard time
figuring out where it is.

00:27:49.568 --> 00:27:53.439
So that means it can't stabilize itself
and gotta fly this thing against the wind.

00:27:55.808 --> 00:27:58.577
I really didn't think I'd have to contend
with this much difficulty

00:27:58.644 --> 00:28:01.013
in actually just taking pictures
of the ice.

00:28:05.818 --> 00:28:06.852
[DIANA] Let's see.

00:28:08.154 --> 00:28:12.358
We've each been allocated
three rolls of toilet paper.

00:28:12.858 --> 00:28:16.028
Except for Chris, he's got five.

00:28:16.128 --> 00:28:17.296
But he's going to share with us.

00:28:17.363 --> 00:28:19.465
So, we've been really good.

00:28:19.532 --> 00:28:21.667
It's past 11 days now,

00:28:21.767 --> 00:28:24.937
so we can get new rolls of toilet paper.

00:28:24.970 --> 00:28:26.539
This is really exciting.

00:28:27.506 --> 00:28:29.508
Everything on this journey...

00:28:30.709 --> 00:28:32.178
is kinda limited.

00:28:32.711 --> 00:28:34.180
So, there we go.

00:28:34.346 --> 00:28:37.449
Eleven more days in the wilderness.

00:28:41.520 --> 00:28:42.855
[STEVE] On this journey,

00:28:42.955 --> 00:28:46.859
the very way on which I thought
we would travel has changed.

00:28:47.026 --> 00:28:49.161
I thought that we would be able
to come here

00:28:49.795 --> 00:28:53.332
and take advantage
of the same kinds of ice conditions

00:28:53.365 --> 00:28:56.669
that I'd had
in the High Arctic previously,

00:28:57.870 --> 00:29:03.542
be able to work our way
from ice floe to ice floe for example.

00:29:03.876 --> 00:29:07.012
You could paddle
a few kilometers offshore,

00:29:07.146 --> 00:29:10.716
and then you could hug along the coast
of one of those floes

00:29:10.816 --> 00:29:13.219
and work your way along the coast
of one of those floes

00:29:13.586 --> 00:29:16.989
just like you would work
your way along the coast of the land.

00:29:17.556 --> 00:29:19.525
And if a big wind were to come up,

00:29:19.592 --> 00:29:23.729
you could easily
pull out onto that ice floe and dig in.

00:29:23.829 --> 00:29:25.831
Set up your camp, and wait.

00:29:28.334 --> 00:29:29.568
In the early 2000s,

00:29:29.668 --> 00:29:31.570
you would see floes that were

00:29:32.104 --> 00:29:35.341
20, 30, 40, 50 square kilometer floes.

00:29:36.508 --> 00:29:40.112
There are no large floes
in this strait anymore.

00:29:46.518 --> 00:29:48.020
[CHRIS] Even though
there is a lot of ice here,

00:29:48.087 --> 00:29:51.023
this is ice that's being emptied
from the Arctic Ocean,

00:29:51.090 --> 00:29:52.791
and this tells us the Arctic Ocean

00:29:52.892 --> 00:29:56.528
is no longer an area
of very thick, large pieces of ice.

00:29:57.263 --> 00:29:58.897
Steve has seen the transition

00:29:58.964 --> 00:30:01.934
from lots of multi-year,
large pieces of ice

00:30:02.034 --> 00:30:03.569
to what we see now.

00:30:03.636 --> 00:30:05.871
And that's been
incredibly invaluable for me

00:30:05.938 --> 00:30:08.440
because I don't know
what it used to look like.

00:30:12.544 --> 00:30:13.779
[BRYCE] Let him get down there
and he'll...

00:30:13.879 --> 00:30:15.814
[DIANA] Wait! I'm getting it! Argh...

00:30:16.482 --> 00:30:17.950
Wahoo!

00:30:19.785 --> 00:30:21.387
That was so easy.

00:30:21.453 --> 00:30:24.590
[CHRIS] When Steve was last here,
a typical sea ice floe

00:30:24.657 --> 00:30:27.293
might have drifted
around the Arctic Ocean for years.

00:30:28.994 --> 00:30:31.730
Back then, floes grew to be so large

00:30:35.401 --> 00:30:36.769
or even years at a time.

00:30:38.671 --> 00:30:42.808
These floes are too thin
to withstand collisions with other floes.

00:30:45.311 --> 00:30:48.914
There's isn't anything big enough here
to plug Nares Strait.

00:30:54.753 --> 00:30:56.989
To me, it's alarming.

00:30:57.589 --> 00:31:00.259
In this area
there's nothing that stops sea ice

00:31:00.326 --> 00:31:02.261
from escaping the Arctic Ocean.

00:31:10.369 --> 00:31:13.372
[laughs]

00:31:20.946 --> 00:31:23.549
[BRYCE] Yeah, you see this big
mumbo-jumbo of ice, you think,

00:31:23.649 --> 00:31:26.185
“Hmm, might be sledging today?”

00:31:26.986 --> 00:31:29.455
[MIKE] Not just sledging,
but lifting kayaks,

00:31:29.488 --> 00:31:31.690
fully loaded kayaks, that's the part.

00:31:32.691 --> 00:31:34.026
You see how we're going
to go across there,

00:31:34.026 --> 00:31:35.828
that's going to just... Aghhh...

00:31:42.534 --> 00:31:45.471
[STEVE] Alright, so the one thing
we want to be careful of here

00:31:45.504 --> 00:31:48.073
is actually that we don't damage
the boats, right?

00:31:49.375 --> 00:31:51.543
[BRYCE] Steve's got a ton of experience
with this place

00:31:51.543 --> 00:31:53.579
and I think even he
is just baffled right now.

00:31:55.180 --> 00:31:56.415
[STEVE] And as it's going down,

00:31:56.515 --> 00:31:57.983
you're just going to ease it down

00:31:58.017 --> 00:31:59.718
as much as you can.
Watch yourself...

00:31:59.818 --> 00:32:02.388
[BRYCE] We thought
this was going to be kayaking every day,

00:32:02.421 --> 00:32:07.059
but it's turned into pretty much sledging,
pulling the kayaks every day.

00:32:08.560 --> 00:32:09.661
[STEVE] Wait, Mike.

00:32:12.164 --> 00:32:14.900
[soft music]

00:32:33.619 --> 00:32:34.853
Wait, wait.

00:32:36.622 --> 00:32:39.024
Don't pull, don't pull,

00:32:39.024 --> 00:32:40.959
I'm getting pulled underneath it.

00:32:41.193 --> 00:32:42.261
Give me a second.

00:32:59.078 --> 00:33:00.112
[BRYCE] Looking out there,

00:33:00.279 --> 00:33:02.648
I'm not too optimistic
about having open water

00:33:02.781 --> 00:33:05.384
or actually really sea kayaking.

00:33:05.818 --> 00:33:08.120
There just doesn't seem to be any...

00:33:08.554 --> 00:33:09.621
let up.

00:33:11.790 --> 00:33:14.460
[CHRIS] Personally, it's a bit of misery.

00:33:15.661 --> 00:33:20.098
We've made it about 35 miles

00:33:20.165 --> 00:33:22.634
as the crow flies in 14 days.

00:33:23.669 --> 00:33:25.304
And the ice

00:33:25.437 --> 00:33:28.073
is rubbled up and compacted and...

00:33:29.141 --> 00:33:31.176
So here we are

00:33:31.677 --> 00:33:33.812
stuck behind a huge wall of ice and...

00:33:35.981 --> 00:33:39.184
not very clear on where we're going,

00:33:39.852 --> 00:33:41.153
or how to get there.

00:33:41.653 --> 00:33:42.621
[STEVE] Yeah...

00:33:43.155 --> 00:33:45.791
[DIANA] Do you imagine like that

00:33:45.924 --> 00:33:48.494
this is going to clear out
like when we get a blow

00:33:48.627 --> 00:33:52.698
or could there be a break
or ice jam up higher, like...

00:33:52.831 --> 00:33:55.667
or is it just going to be more of this,
what we have?

00:33:56.301 --> 00:33:58.370
Like, what do you think
is going to happen?

00:33:58.504 --> 00:34:01.673
[STEVE] Well, the only thing
I can see us doing

00:34:02.040 --> 00:34:03.542
because of all of this pack ice,

00:34:03.642 --> 00:34:07.012
because there is absolutely no way
of stepping off the ice-foot.

00:34:07.346 --> 00:34:09.348
Like we cannot leave the ice-foot.

00:34:10.349 --> 00:34:12.017
We have to stick with the ice-foot.

00:34:12.151 --> 00:34:15.988
And the only time we can
travel is when the tide is high.

00:34:16.555 --> 00:34:20.559
The power of each chunk of ice

00:34:20.659 --> 00:34:24.363
the power of that chunk of ice,
you know, is just...

00:34:24.496 --> 00:34:25.531
We can't deal with it.

00:34:31.069 --> 00:34:34.973
We're 260 nautical miles
from our final destination.

00:34:37.042 --> 00:34:40.078
We may need to come
up with an alternative plan.

00:34:44.049 --> 00:34:48.020
Our closest option
for evacuation is Carl Ritter Bay.

00:34:49.087 --> 00:34:53.091
There's no actual runway,
but planes have landed there before.

00:35:01.200 --> 00:35:03.201
[soft music]

00:35:07.205 --> 00:35:08.907
It's heartbreaking.

00:35:10.242 --> 00:35:13.579
Watching the Arctic Ocean losing its ice.

00:35:15.747 --> 00:35:17.249
[DIANA] Let's go up here...

00:35:21.253 --> 00:35:24.189
[CHRIS] Climate models
might say there's still a lot of old,

00:35:24.256 --> 00:35:26.191
large and thick sea ice here...

00:35:27.059 --> 00:35:28.860
but that's not what I'm seeing.

00:35:32.764 --> 00:35:34.633
[kayak scraping along ground]

00:35:37.436 --> 00:35:40.806
That we're not seeing any large floes here

00:35:40.939 --> 00:35:44.443
means there's no large floes
in the Arctic Ocean either.

00:35:54.086 --> 00:35:55.387
The sea ice that's left

00:35:55.454 --> 00:35:59.491
it's young, ephemeral,
and it's easily broken into small pieces.

00:36:01.393 --> 00:36:02.961
[STEVE] I'll get on the ice.

00:36:05.998 --> 00:36:08.567
[CHRIS] This transition
from old ice to young ice

00:36:08.634 --> 00:36:11.503
has occurred
decades before we expected.

00:36:14.339 --> 00:36:15.273
It's telling us

00:36:15.340 --> 00:36:18.910
it won't take much for summer sea ice
to disappear altogether.

00:36:24.082 --> 00:36:25.150
[STEVE] Oh, all right.

00:36:25.250 --> 00:36:26.618
[indistinct chatter]

00:36:27.352 --> 00:36:28.286
All right.

00:36:31.023 --> 00:36:32.624
[melancholy music]

00:36:41.800 --> 00:36:44.002
[DIANA] To me, it's fascinating.

00:36:45.003 --> 00:36:46.672
The way I think about it is,

00:36:47.272 --> 00:36:51.009
the Arctic Ocean is white. It's white ice.

00:36:51.843 --> 00:36:53.979
If the ice wasn't there, if it all melted,

00:36:54.012 --> 00:36:56.181
the ocean would be dark, like super dark.

00:36:57.349 --> 00:37:00.185
An analogy
I think about is, it's a hot day,

00:37:00.218 --> 00:37:02.321
and you're going to send
your kid out to play.

00:37:02.354 --> 00:37:04.523
What t-shirt do you want your kid to wear?

00:37:04.656 --> 00:37:06.625
Do you want your kid
to wear a white t-shirt,

00:37:06.625 --> 00:37:08.026
or a black t-shirt?

00:37:08.860 --> 00:37:11.029
And we all know, wear a white t-shirt.

00:37:11.029 --> 00:37:14.299
And so what I've learned,
is that the Arctic Ocean

00:37:14.299 --> 00:37:16.568
is kind of like the white t-shirt
for the planet.

00:37:18.837 --> 00:37:20.072
[melancholy music]

00:37:23.075 --> 00:37:24.376
[STEVE] There we go.

00:37:29.648 --> 00:37:30.549
[DIANA] Hey.

00:37:30.649 --> 00:37:31.583
[STEVE] Hi.

00:37:31.683 --> 00:37:33.552
[DIANA] How's it going, Steve?

00:37:33.752 --> 00:37:36.054
[STEVE] The kayak just slid backwards
against that chunk of ice.

00:37:36.088 --> 00:37:38.690
[DIANA] Yeah, you know why it slid back
is because you told us to go harder.

00:37:38.757 --> 00:37:40.659
In fact, you pulled it
and then I was in the back,

00:37:40.726 --> 00:37:43.428
and I couldn't hold it
and it slung in and hit the rock.

00:37:43.528 --> 00:37:45.764
And I was tired,
and if you hadn't pushed it

00:37:45.864 --> 00:37:48.734
and made us go faster,
that would not have happened.

00:37:49.668 --> 00:37:52.003
[STEVE] Well, we have to get to a place
where we can get a plane in.

00:37:52.070 --> 00:37:53.371
[STEVE] That's all there is to it.

00:37:53.438 --> 00:37:55.741
[DIANA] It's like we never get a break.

00:37:56.074 --> 00:37:58.844
[STEVE] Well, we're gonna take a break,
and your point is well made,

00:37:58.910 --> 00:38:00.612
and then
we're gonna have to go back at it,

00:38:00.679 --> 00:38:02.414
and we're going to have to be
more careful.

00:38:04.716 --> 00:38:06.585
Are we feeling

00:38:06.718 --> 00:38:09.254
collectively good enough

00:38:09.388 --> 00:38:11.389
to go back at the ice-foot?

00:38:11.590 --> 00:38:14.459
[CHRIS] Well, this brings up a question

00:38:14.926 --> 00:38:16.027
in terms of end goals.

00:38:16.094 --> 00:38:17.562
Mike and I were talking
about this yesterday,

00:38:17.562 --> 00:38:18.864
I don't know if you guys have chatted...

00:38:18.930 --> 00:38:21.600
[STEVE] End goals? Like, right now
the end goal might be Carl Ritter.

00:38:21.600 --> 00:38:23.635
[CHRIS] Yeah...
So, do you think maybe right now

00:38:23.735 --> 00:38:26.037
our primary objective
is get to Carl Ritter?

00:38:26.104 --> 00:38:29.074
And then assess as soon as we get there
what we'll do next?

00:38:31.643 --> 00:38:32.577
[STEVE] Yup.

00:38:45.090 --> 00:38:48.727
[STEVE] Carl Ritter Bay
is 33 nautical miles away.

00:38:53.632 --> 00:38:57.502
I'm actually questioning
whether we'll be able to make it there.

00:38:58.737 --> 00:39:00.939
[water flowing]

00:39:04.142 --> 00:39:06.478
We need to put the science on hold.

00:39:07.612 --> 00:39:09.080
With these ice conditions,

00:39:09.147 --> 00:39:12.651
we have to focus
on getting safely out of here.

00:39:13.318 --> 00:39:15.287
[upbeat music]

00:39:23.962 --> 00:39:27.632
[DIANA] Our way forward
is completely blocked.

00:39:29.034 --> 00:39:32.137
We have no choice
but to go out into the fray,

00:39:32.838 --> 00:39:36.842
and to join the parade
of ice floes headed south.

00:39:42.147 --> 00:39:43.048
[STEVE] Okay, stop.

00:39:45.851 --> 00:39:50.789
Yup. Okay, beautiful,
keep it going, keep it going.

00:39:53.124 --> 00:39:54.159
Keep it going, keep it going.

00:39:54.359 --> 00:39:56.695
Nice and steady. Fast.

00:39:57.195 --> 00:40:00.031
Okay. Drop the line, let go, let go.

00:40:00.031 --> 00:40:02.167
Let go. Okay. Alright!

00:40:04.402 --> 00:40:07.005
[DIANA] We are witnessing
the breakdown of this ice.

00:40:07.339 --> 00:40:11.042
We've seen the wind
and the waves bashing it to bits.

00:40:12.477 --> 00:40:14.045
This ice is so thin

00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:17.349
that sometimes
just jumping from floe to floe

00:40:17.382 --> 00:40:19.184
is enough to break it apart.

00:40:22.721 --> 00:40:24.222
Before I came on this journey,

00:40:24.256 --> 00:40:28.093
I had no idea
how the Arctic Ocean ice melted.

00:40:28.193 --> 00:40:29.194
What happens?

00:40:29.261 --> 00:40:31.863
You know, does it stay
up in the Arctic and melt?

00:40:36.034 --> 00:40:39.704
And what I'm learning
on this journey is that,

00:40:39.771 --> 00:40:41.039
at least some of that ice

00:40:41.907 --> 00:40:43.708
is going south in currents.

00:40:43.742 --> 00:40:47.412
So that's the ice that we see
going by us every day,

00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:49.748
just flowing down Nares Strait,

00:40:49.748 --> 00:40:52.250
just like it's flowing out of a bathtub,

00:40:52.584 --> 00:40:55.720
down the drain, down South
where it's going to melt.

00:41:02.961 --> 00:41:05.730
So many hours of intense slogging,

00:41:06.298 --> 00:41:10.435
and we've barely covered 2 nautical miles.

00:41:17.943 --> 00:41:19.911
[water flowing]

00:41:25.116 --> 00:41:26.785
[STEVE] It's ironic.

00:41:26.985 --> 00:41:29.988
There's less sea ice than ever
in the Arctic Ocean,

00:41:30.121 --> 00:41:34.159
and yet here we are,
forced ashore by the ice, hauling.

00:41:38.997 --> 00:41:40.799
[kayak scraping along ground]

00:41:50.342 --> 00:41:52.410
[soft music]

00:42:08.326 --> 00:42:10.996
That's it for today, guys.

00:42:11.129 --> 00:42:13.965
We can pull,
we should pull them up into here

00:42:14.499 --> 00:42:17.002
and walk up and find
a place to camp up there.

00:42:17.769 --> 00:42:20.338
We have to go on to the rubble,

00:42:20.972 --> 00:42:24.042
and this is not the time
to go onto the rubble.

00:42:26.645 --> 00:42:29.147
[DIANA] I wonder how
we are going to get out of here?

00:42:30.682 --> 00:42:31.816
[CHRIS] It's unclear.

00:42:33.184 --> 00:42:37.055
We've got behind us no ice-foot,

00:42:37.188 --> 00:42:39.391
or in front of us no ice-foot.

00:42:39.858 --> 00:42:42.027
And immobile,

00:42:42.193 --> 00:42:45.030
messed-up, ridged and screwed-up ice.

00:42:50.735 --> 00:42:53.004
[soft music]

00:43:08.653 --> 00:43:11.690
[wind noise]

00:43:12.390 --> 00:43:14.092
[DIANA] Are you stressed out at all?

00:43:16.828 --> 00:43:18.029
[STEVE] Well...

00:43:18.096 --> 00:43:22.767
They're only hurricane force winds,
nothing serious.

00:43:27.272 --> 00:43:30.408
It doesn't matter, you can get
all the technology in the world,

00:43:30.442 --> 00:43:32.077
the satellite phones,

00:43:32.110 --> 00:43:35.246
the SOS buttons, whatever you need,

00:43:36.414 --> 00:43:39.584
but when the weather is doing
what it's doing, that's it.

00:43:40.919 --> 00:43:42.921
We're at the whim of the weather.

00:43:43.421 --> 00:43:45.023
So, if something really goes wrong,

00:43:45.023 --> 00:43:47.092
we have to
be able to deal with it out here.

00:43:47.092 --> 00:43:48.359
That's all there is to it,

00:43:48.393 --> 00:43:50.261
we can't depend on the outside world

00:43:50.261 --> 00:43:52.464
if something goes wrong
and the weather is bad.

00:43:57.235 --> 00:43:59.938
I didn't go camping
until I was in grad school.

00:44:00.138 --> 00:44:02.640
I have never really been outdoors.

00:44:03.975 --> 00:44:05.910
[CHRIS] I'm not a wilderness person.

00:44:07.112 --> 00:44:10.415
There is very little wilderness exposure
for scientists.

00:44:10.448 --> 00:44:11.316
A lot of...

00:44:12.117 --> 00:44:14.652
the work that's being done
in science is computer driven,

00:44:14.786 --> 00:44:16.588
it's desk driven, it's mathematics.

00:44:17.288 --> 00:44:19.958
I don't know any climate scientist
that's done this.

00:44:31.503 --> 00:44:35.140
“So Chris, come to the Arctic.
It'll be great.”

00:44:35.473 --> 00:44:37.175
I don't know for what.

00:44:37.308 --> 00:44:39.944
[STEVE] I thought you called yourself
a polar oceanographer.

00:44:39.978 --> 00:44:43.314
[CHRIS] I am. I could do that
at a desk, my friend.

00:44:44.315 --> 00:44:45.416
[laughs]

00:44:45.483 --> 00:44:47.085
[CHRIS] This isn't oceanography.

00:44:47.152 --> 00:44:49.354
I'm sitting on the land in the wind.

00:44:49.487 --> 00:44:50.822
This is atmospheric science.

00:44:50.855 --> 00:44:54.292
[STEVE] But if you're
a true polar oceanographer,

00:44:54.826 --> 00:44:59.097
then you need to be able
to savour the delights of...

00:44:59.164 --> 00:45:01.599
[CHRIS] If I was a true polar
oceanographer, I should have flippers,

00:45:01.599 --> 00:45:03.301
off swimming in that ocean.

00:45:04.335 --> 00:45:05.270
This is a sham.

00:45:15.113 --> 00:45:18.316
[kayak scraping along ground]

00:45:21.452 --> 00:45:24.055
[banging noises]

00:45:25.523 --> 00:45:27.358
[STEVE] The wind has dropped.

00:45:28.359 --> 00:45:30.061
We're up against a low tide,

00:45:30.361 --> 00:45:32.230
otherwise, conditions are good to go.

00:45:32.363 --> 00:45:33.531
Hang on, hang on!

00:45:34.699 --> 00:45:36.534
Alright, moment of truth.

00:45:36.568 --> 00:45:40.071
So what you're going to do is get it down
so its tail-end is in the water.

00:45:40.171 --> 00:45:43.641
You guys are going to walk it towards me,
you're going to hand me the line

00:45:43.708 --> 00:45:45.310
and I'm going to walk it down.

00:45:48.246 --> 00:45:50.014
Beautiful, keep ‘er going...

00:45:50.715 --> 00:45:52.050
Keep her going.

00:45:52.350 --> 00:45:53.852
Yup... Okay.

00:45:53.918 --> 00:45:55.753
Beautiful. Keep it going.

00:45:56.421 --> 00:45:57.655
Keep it going.

00:45:57.722 --> 00:45:59.757
-[DIANA] It's going right into the water.
-[STEVE] Exactly.

00:45:59.857 --> 00:46:02.527
[STEVE] Keep it going, keep it going.
Nice and steady. Fast!

00:46:03.695 --> 00:46:07.432
Okay, I got the line,
let go, let go, let go. OK.

00:46:08.032 --> 00:46:11.035
Alright, who's in this boat?

00:46:14.739 --> 00:46:16.608
You can even stand up
and pull those paddles out.

00:46:16.608 --> 00:46:18.276
Whatever you need to do, Mike.

00:46:18.743 --> 00:46:19.711
First person is in.

00:46:19.744 --> 00:46:21.713
[DIANA] Okay. I'm gonna pass.

00:46:21.779 --> 00:46:23.248
[STEVE] Yeah, not yet,
but you're almost there,

00:46:23.248 --> 00:46:25.917
but you can't sit down
on your paddles. I know, I know.

00:46:26.551 --> 00:46:29.888
[splashing of paddles sounds]
[upbeat music]

00:46:40.965 --> 00:46:44.636
We have to make progress
before the ice drifts back in on us again.

00:46:47.739 --> 00:46:49.874
[upbeat music]

00:47:20.938 --> 00:47:22.440
[gravel crunching]

00:47:22.974 --> 00:47:24.776
What is it?

00:47:25.476 --> 00:47:28.313
[DIANA] Could this be
from the Greely thing, Steve?

00:47:28.780 --> 00:47:30.982
[STEVE] Well yeah, it's old.

00:47:32.116 --> 00:47:34.419
These square nails,
these are very similar

00:47:34.452 --> 00:47:36.788
to the nails
that we find up at Fort Conger,

00:47:36.821 --> 00:47:38.156
that Greely left up there.

00:47:38.289 --> 00:47:41.025
Same kind of nails, you know,
so probably same era.

00:47:42.527 --> 00:47:44.495
You know, there were quite a few ships

00:47:44.829 --> 00:47:46.364
that went down around here.

00:47:46.497 --> 00:47:48.299
They got crushed in the ice.

00:47:48.366 --> 00:47:49.834
[DIANA] Yeah look at this, it goes down...

00:47:49.867 --> 00:47:52.337
[STEVE] The men
of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition

00:47:52.337 --> 00:47:55.006
wouldn't recognize this place today.

00:47:55.506 --> 00:47:58.543
All of these battered-up bits of sea ice.

00:48:00.345 --> 00:48:04.182
They'd be astonished to see
how this ocean has changed.

00:48:18.029 --> 00:48:21.032
To me, it's really disturbing.

00:48:21.899 --> 00:48:24.035
Polar oceanographers like Chris

00:48:24.068 --> 00:48:27.071
are reporting that the Arctic
has lost three quarters

00:48:27.171 --> 00:48:28.573
of its sea ice volume

00:48:28.673 --> 00:48:30.875
in the past 40 years.

00:48:32.410 --> 00:48:36.047
And we're barely acknowledging
the impact of these losses

00:48:36.147 --> 00:48:39.884
on the cooling system of our planet.

00:48:46.758 --> 00:48:50.528
[splashing of paddles sounds]

00:49:10.014 --> 00:49:12.283
In all my previous expeditions,

00:49:12.350 --> 00:49:15.787
I'd be surrounded
by seabirds almost every day.

00:49:20.558 --> 00:49:23.561
These are the first guillemots
we've seen on this journey.

00:49:27.899 --> 00:49:30.234
[splashing of paddles sounds]

00:49:34.439 --> 00:49:37.208
[CHRIS] It's required being here
for this five weeks

00:49:37.208 --> 00:49:40.278
to show me what the outflow
of the Arctic Ocean where...

00:49:40.445 --> 00:49:42.814
the sea ice is supposed
to endure the longest...

00:49:42.914 --> 00:49:43.781
is really like.

00:49:45.283 --> 00:49:47.752
Coming here really shows me that

00:49:47.785 --> 00:49:50.254
this is a dramatically
changing environment

00:49:50.288 --> 00:49:54.092
over periods of time
that are smaller than my life.

00:50:01.766 --> 00:50:03.634
We've lost an area of sea ice

00:50:03.734 --> 00:50:06.270
larger than the United States
in the last 40 years.

00:50:06.771 --> 00:50:08.339
Could be even bigger.

00:50:08.439 --> 00:50:11.642
That's incredible. I mean,
that's just such a big chunk of...

00:50:13.244 --> 00:50:14.345
the globe.

00:50:16.681 --> 00:50:19.484
[BRYCE] Like imagine if we lost
that much landmass all of a sudden

00:50:19.584 --> 00:50:20.751
[CHRIS] Like imagine if...

00:50:21.252 --> 00:50:25.356
if every single area
that was populated by rainforest

00:50:25.823 --> 00:50:28.860
turned to desert over a 30 year period.

00:50:28.960 --> 00:50:29.994
That's what it's like.

00:50:29.994 --> 00:50:32.129
It's changing the surface of the Earth

00:50:32.163 --> 00:50:34.832
over the period of a human life.

00:50:47.778 --> 00:50:51.516
[upbeat music]

00:50:54.719 --> 00:50:56.521
[upbeat music]

00:50:57.955 --> 00:50:59.190
[happy shout]

00:51:07.698 --> 00:51:10.368
[MIKE] Ahhhh, Carl Ritter!

00:51:10.401 --> 00:51:12.403
I love you!

00:51:15.072 --> 00:51:16.507
[DIANA] Carl Ritter Bay

00:51:16.574 --> 00:51:19.744
is sheltered from the winds of the Strait.

00:51:21.245 --> 00:51:22.914
And with protection from the wind,

00:51:23.047 --> 00:51:24.415
there's life.

00:51:26.684 --> 00:51:28.819
There's even a lone muskox.

00:51:38.396 --> 00:51:40.031
A few miles away,

00:51:40.064 --> 00:51:42.667
the ice streams past
on its inevitable journey

00:51:42.733 --> 00:51:44.402
to warmer waters.

00:51:47.939 --> 00:51:51.542
And knowing that is bittersweet.

00:52:00.551 --> 00:52:03.221
The plane will be arriving in three days,

00:52:03.421 --> 00:52:06.390
which is good,
because we don't have much food left.

00:52:29.447 --> 00:52:33.250
[STEVE] We've got
around 1,000 feet now of ceiling,

00:52:33.317 --> 00:52:37.288
and it breaks up in places like...

00:52:37.555 --> 00:52:39.390
For instance, we've got mountaintops

00:52:39.390 --> 00:52:42.093
sticking out in a few places
to the south of us.

00:52:43.327 --> 00:52:45.096
Looking out towards Greenland,

00:52:45.162 --> 00:52:49.500
we've got more
than five kilometers visibility.

00:52:50.134 --> 00:52:51.969
That's the status.

00:52:52.937 --> 00:52:56.007
It's a challenging situation,
but they've got their challenges,

00:52:56.107 --> 00:52:57.141
we've got our challenges.

00:52:57.141 --> 00:52:59.443
[DIANA] Yeah, but it's like
you can go out,

00:52:59.477 --> 00:53:01.312
we have one day,
and if we don't get you that one day,

00:53:01.412 --> 00:53:03.848
we'll get you in another month?
Like, excuse me?

00:53:03.948 --> 00:53:06.951
[STEVE] Well if they get going now,
there's a hope of them

00:53:06.984 --> 00:53:09.487
getting in here
before things really change again.

00:53:10.421 --> 00:53:13.457
But as the evening cools off,
as we know, things change.

00:53:13.491 --> 00:53:16.794
So that's the other factor
in all this, it's like...

00:53:17.762 --> 00:53:20.531
there's definitely
a now-or-never element to this.

00:53:50.127 --> 00:53:51.962
[plane engine revs]

00:54:04.141 --> 00:54:05.976
[CHRIS] I can't believe
the plane got here.

00:54:07.044 --> 00:54:07.978
[STEVE] Okay.

00:54:13.317 --> 00:54:15.186
[DIANA] It's like going over an ice-foot.

00:54:23.494 --> 00:54:25.429
[propeller turning]

00:54:29.867 --> 00:54:31.769
[STEVE] If we hadn't come up here,

00:54:31.869 --> 00:54:35.940
I think it'd be hard for any of us
to grasp the extent of the shifts

00:54:36.073 --> 00:54:38.242
that are going on in this region.

00:54:44.415 --> 00:54:48.719
And how those shifts affect us all.

00:54:56.761 --> 00:54:58.729
[plane engine revs]

00:55:07.471 --> 00:55:09.373
[plane engine fades]