Original subtitles

There are still parts of our planet...

..yet to be explored.

WATER DRIPPING

OXYGEN HISSING

Descending!

These are remote and unforgiving places.

I'm in.

And the journey to reach them...

We're in very real danger of getting trapped here.

..will push me and a team of explorers...

Ah, ah! Uh...

..to the limit.

STEVE: It's really tight.

HE GURGLES AND SCREAMS

The reward?

Aw, amazing!

Breathtaking new discoveries.

UNDER WATER: The thought that we're the first people

ever to see them is almost beyond belief.

This time...

OK, you might want to have to power through these

before they close.

..we're in the Arctic.

I don't think there's anywhere else on Earth

where you feel quite so vulnerable.

Navigating treacherous sea ice to kayak up the largest fjord

in the world.

You just got to keep paddling.

We see how the warmest winter on record

is affecting everything that lives here.

Look at that!

And come face-to-face...

It's smelt us. It's lifting its head up, sniffing the air.

..with the Arctic's top predator.

Hah! Hah!

Hah!

Ah, he looks like he's coming back.

HELICOPTER WHIRRING

STEVE OVER WHIRRING: Greenland is a place of superlatives.

It's the world's largest island.

The least populated country on Earth.

There is no icecap bigger than the Greenland one,

outside of Antarctica,

and way up inside the Arctic Circle.

This place is what adventures are made of.

Greenland is the northernmost country on the planet.

ICE CRACKLING

In winter, it's connected

to the North Pole by sea ice

and temperatures can drop as low as

60 degrees below zero.

I've come to the remote east coast,

and I'm starting my expedition here,

at the Inuit town of Ittoqqortoormiit.

DOG BARKS

Home to fewer than 400 people, this is officially

the most remote settlement in the western world.

And this is just the start of our journey.

Ittoqqortoormiit's nearest neighbours are 300km away.

And right now, at the start of the summer,

the sun doesn't set

for two months of the year.

Simply stunning.

Hello.

CHILDREN GIGGLE

People here rely on hunting and fishing to survive.

An important source of clothing and food

is the polar bear.

The people here have been living subsistence hunting lives

for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

And this is very much a part of their culture.

What they do is sustainable.

But, as a naturalist... yeah, it's hard.

I'm entering a harsh and unforgiving world.

Ittoqqortoormiit sits on the edge of a vast inlet.

Carved by glaciers,

it's known as a fjord.

Here, the freezing Arctic Ocean

reaches 300km inland.

Scoresbysund is the biggest

fjord system on the planet.

But it's also on the front line

of climate change.

The Arctic sea ice is shrinking,

and following one of the warmest winters on record,

the ice here has broken up earlier than ever before.

This gives us a unique opportunity

to kayak up the fjord

and see what impact rising temperatures are having

on this wilderness.

I've put together a world-class team

of Arctic explorers to help me.

Sarah McNair-Landry is a polar adventurer

who's been to both poles

and crossed the Greenland icecap six times.

I'm really excited about this area because I've spent a lot of time

in Greenland, but mostly on the icecap,

kite-skiing and skiing.

And a lot of time on the west coast

of Greenland, but I've never...

This is a totally new area for me.

Martin Rickard has kayaked over 11,000km in sea ice.

It's managing the risk of the ice and the weather,

and then the effect that the weather and the tide will have

on that ice, and how it can move very dramatically -

block us off, trap boats.

It could blow us all out to sea quite quickly

if we weren't on our game.

The final member of the team to arrive

is my good friend Aldo Kane.

Dude!

He's a former Royal Marine,

and will be our safety expert and medic.

I've never been to Greenland.

I've wanted to come here since I was, honestly, about that size.

This is wonderful.

WIND WHISTLES

ANIMALS SQUEAL AND BARK

Before we set off, Sarah and I

are meeting up with local hunter Aqqalu.

Hello.

Steve. Aqqalu.

Nice to meet you, Aqqalu.

Sarah.

He's taking us a short distance up the coast

to show us how the changing climate

is affecting his hunting grounds.

And the easiest way to get there

is dog sled.

Word used for left and right? To turn?

Lju? Yeah. Lju. Lju.

Yeah.

DOGS PANT

The Inuit have used dogs to pull sleds

for over 4,000 years.

These hardy animals made travel and hunting in the Arctic possible,

allowing humans to make a home here.

Aqqalu has brought us to a place overlooking the fjord,

where he'd usually hunt with his dogs.

Is this the earliest break-up you've seen?

Yeah.

And how does that affect hunting?

So maybe ten years ago,

our expedition would be impossible.

You would not be able to kayak down... No. ..into the fjord.

And now?

SARAH LAUGHS

No-one has ever kayaked up the fjord

at this time of year.

Our goal is to reach the solid sea ice...

..which now lies far up the fjord,

to see how the animals that live here

are coping with their changing world.

HELICOPTER WHIRRING

It's a huge, dangerous undertaking.

And the most important bit of kit

is our kayaks.

Yeah, first glance, they all look pretty good.

Yeah.

VEHICLE BEEPING

They're streamlined and can squeeze through

narrow gaps in the broken ice.

Nice.

We're packing everything we need to survive.

Easier said than done.

You look at the volume of kit that's got to go in the boat,

and you look at the space you've got,

and they don't correlate at all.

Yeah, look at that.

What lies ahead is unknown and unpredictable,

but we're as ready as we'll ever be.

OK.

We got so much gear that we need

a front loader to haul it down.

After years of dreaming,

months of planning,

finally we have a chance to get on the water.

How far we'll get, we have absolutely no idea.

Right now, it's 6am

and we just have to pray that the wind

and the weather stays with us.

Aldo, is this your med kit?

We've tried to think through every eventuality.

It's always a bit of a concern what you do

when you're out on the water and you need to, er...

Well...you know.

So I've come up with a little system, which is this,

which I'm going to strap to my leg.

What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, no, it's got a massive hole in it!

All my grand plans.

And my pee-bag's got a massive hole.

Thank goodness I found it.

ALDO: I'm kind of a little bit gutted that you did find it.

We have three larger boats

which will carry the film crew and their equipment.

They'll follow when possible. But if the ice blocks their way...

..we'll push on in the kayaks without them.

It's not a big day, in terms of distance.

If we head for, er...

..Kap Hope. Mm-hm.

Does it work out about 12, 14K? Yeah. I think so.

But it'll be much more than that because we'll be going all the way

around the outskirts of the bay,

and bumping our way off bits of ice

as we go, so it'll be slow.

So I suggest that we hug the coastline, and head around.

Today, we're aiming for the abandoned hunting settlement

of Kap Hope.

Our local boat captain, Johan, thinks we can spend

our first night there.

Happy? Letting go.

Yep, got it.

Oh, bring up the rear, yep.

Best practice is for us to be quite close together,

certainly within visual distance of each other

at all times.

And if I'm getting too far ahead,

then you guys need to shout me.

We need to watch each other's backs.

The air temperature is well below freezing

and the sea is turning to ice around us.

The narrow profile of the kayaks makes them unstable

and paddling in these conditions is dangerous.

LOUD CRACK

The second anyone capsizes,

goes over, comes out of their boat,

it's going to become a survival situation instantaneously.

A capsize can take about 15 minutes

to sort out and get someone back in the boat,

by which time, you WILL be hypothermic.

This ice may look harmless.

But, stealthily...

..and menacingly...

..it moves.

Some chunks are larger than football fields,

and weigh thousands of tonnes.

Pushed by the wind,

and pulled by the ebb and flow of the tides...

..they could easily crush a kayak.

I don't think there's anywhere else on Earth

where you feel quite so small,

quite so vulnerable,

and quite so much like the environment is...

..the master of you.

So, that's a classic example of what's closed up since

they've gone through. Yeah.

Sarah and I make it through.

But just behind us,

the ice has already closed in.

What's that? They're already stuck.

That's closed up already.

I don't know if you can push it out the way.

Trying.

It just completely, er, closed up again.

Yeah, I saw that.

Are you guys all right behind me?

SARAH: Yep...

That didn't sound very convinced.

These guys are just a little stuck over here.

Oh, OK. Shall I wait?

Maybe just hold up for a sec.

Yeah.

It's amazing how quickly it sets in round about you.

I know. And moves.

Aldo's through.

But Martin's not so lucky.

He needs to use his ice axe to drag himself

inch by inch.

That's why everyone needed an axe.

Yeah.

We've travelled just a few hundred metres from town.

And we're already getting a sense of how challenging

this trip will be.

After pushing through the ice for six hours,

we've finally broken out into open water.

Yeah!

That's more like it!

But the satisfaction of clocking up some kilometres

is tinged with a sense of unease.

This should be an unbroken, infinite stretch of white.

You should be able to drive a tank across it.

But there's open sea, enough for us to paddle.

Earlier this year, the Arctic ice was measured

and it was the second lowest that had ever been on record.

Last year was the lowest.

So, the speed that things are changing here,

the undeniable effect that it's having on the landscape

and the rhythms of the Arctic are tangible -

that's something that's absolutely real.

I'd expected to see certain animals

which should be plentiful at this time of year.

I just have a feeling that this just isn't right.

We haven't seen a single seal.

SARAH: I'm really surprised, actually, that

we haven't seen seals.

This is, like, the time of year

that they should all be up on the ice.

Seals need the solid ice to rest,

digest their food,

and give birth to their pups.

The sea ice is absolutely

vital to their life cycle.

Are your feet ice blocks?

Absolutely frozen solid.

We're cold and exhausted,

but we've made it to Kap Hope.

So eerie seeing a ghost town like that.

Kind of looming out through the mist, isn't it? Mm.

I think it was an old community and now it's just hunting cabins.

This is us.

The last residents of this hunting community left 18 years ago

when the demand for seal skins fell away.

That is proper spooky.

I'm not sleeping in there.

Looks like an old muskox...

..skull.

TAPPING FOOT ON FLOOR

DOOR CREAKING

Steve?

Check this out.

Oh, wow.

It looks like a....

..bit of a bothy, doesn't it?

I, kind of, expect to see

white tape in the shape of a person on the ground.

That's not the atmospheric hunting hut I was thinking of.

Wherever I lay my hat.

This one, so far, is better than the other ones

I poked my head in. Is it?

Well, it's not full of snow.

Ah, no - there are bullets everywhere.

That's a big old round.

It's got roofs, it's got walls.

So...yeah. It's home.

At this time of year, the sun never sets.

But it's been a full day of paddling

and by nine o'clock,

we're all in bed.

SNORING

Today's paddle has the potential to test all of us

to our limits.

It's six degrees below zero, plus wind-chill.

A wise person once said that there is no such thing

as bad weather, just bad clothing.

Er...

..that person was...

..full of it.

There is ABSOLUTELY weather that you can't

prepare for, and you can't have clothing for.

And, er, this is borderline, you know?

Even our thermals and drysuits

can't keep out the cold.

Hopefully they'll warm up once we get in the water.

There is a big, thick layer of ice ahead of us

which looks quite intimidating,

and might be impenetrable.

We just have to go and have a look.

That's all we can do.

Check it out up close, and see if we can push through it.

We have a huge inlet to cross.

10km wide,

and packed with slabs of broken ice.

We'll be paddling far from the safety of shore

and if the wind picks up,

we could easily get pushed out to sea.

This whole environment, even though it looks completely motionless,

it's always changing, always moving

and you just never know what's going to happen next.

Yesterday's paddle gave us a taste of how quickly the ice can move.

Today, venturing further from the coast,

the winds and tides will be stronger.

If this started to close in on you,

you'd be in so much trouble.

Yeah, that could be... That could be a bad situation.

But ice isn't the only danger out here.

Bear tracks.

Look at the size of them!

They're the same size as my paddle blade.

It's the first sign of life out here on the ice.

And it isn't entirely welcome.

Polar bears use sea ice to ambush their prey.

We need to be on our guard.

When you're picking your way through the pack ice like this,

it's really serene, it's really tranquil.

But...you could go around any corner and come face-to-face

with a polar bear

and that could be really bad.

Our worries about bears

are soon replaced by other concerns.

Uh...

This doesn't look good.

We can't go that way. We have to turn around.

We're in very real danger

of getting trapped here.

It's impossible to see past the ice.

We need to get out to scan for a way through.

It's risky.

The ice is unstable,

but we need to find the route ahead.

That does not look good.

It's a blank expanse...

..of ice.

Only thing I think of, really, is sending up the drone.

Just flying it good and high,

and using that as a way to try and spot the way.

With 100 metres of elevation,

we can see there are water channels in the broken ice.

But we need to move quickly before they close up.

Everything here looks the exact same.

Yeah. So easy to lose your bearings.

Which direction would you say we're heading right now?

I think we're, er...

..heading out west, and then...

But ideally we need to be cutting north-east, don't we?

To get back to land. Yeah, we do. Yeah.

The shifting ice has forced us to paddle way off course.

We're now 6km from land

and water channels are closing quicker

than we can paddle through them.

It's already started to close in behind us.

We need to get out of here as quick as we can.

I've pushed on ahead.

But the ice has closed in all around me.

Oh, I don't like the look of this at all.

Can you, er...

Can you see Steve there?

Can you see Steve?

I can see his paddle.

I'm separated from the rest of the team.

There's just no way on.

Every single time I paddle,

it turns into a blind alley and you're stuck.

And now, I also have no way...

How am I going to get back?

Steve is on the other side of this ice here

but the general flow, it's all going that way.

That's 180 degrees from where we want to go.

We're going a long way, the wrong way.

This isn't cool, is it?

As the hours have passed,

the tide and wind have started to move the ice.

Our worst fears are becoming a reality.

We're being taken away from shore and out to sea.

We need to get back together and find a way out of the ice fast.

Do you guys want to try pushing through on your boat?

The filming boats have managed to stay with us,

and Johan the driver tries to force a passage through the ice.

He manages to open a channel.

And we're reunited.

OK, you might want to have to power through these before they close.

Oh, I think I see open water.

Massive area of open water.

Yeah!

We can see open sea ahead, which is good,

but we're still a long ways off the coast.

We're about 5km from where we want to be.

But it's a nice sight to see the open ocean.

We're worn out after seven hours on the freezing water.

We need an easy landing spot so we can make camp for the night.

Oh, I think we're in luck, mate.

I think we are too.

Right, this lead is taking us all the way in.

All that's missing is a red carpet.

And the margarita! And the margarita.

Eventually.

This will be our first night under canvas,

and we won't have the safety of last night's hut.

We need to be vigilant.

Everyone keep their eyes open for bears. Yeah.

Flat.

Good view for any potential bears coming in.

Perfect.

Oh, it's cold now.

Fingertips are absolutely frozen.

Yeah, it'll nice to get camp set up, a hot chocolate.

As the sun skirts the horizon, we sleep in shifts...

..each of us taking turns to scan for the Arctic's top predator.

I'm on the midnight shift of polar bear watch.

I've been here about 25 minutes, half an hour.

What I can see up on the hill...

..are these last two white specks, going like,

running all the way, they're two hares.

Running down the hill and it's amazing to see.

They're totally unaware that we're down here

and just going about their own business.

It's pretty amazing.

It's 4:00 in the morning,

and I'm taking my shift on bear watch.

The whole midnight sun thing could really mess with your mind.

The fact that for three months of the year

the sun never rises here

and then, through the spring and the summer, it never sets.

It's bitterly cold.

Oh!

So we haven't seen a bear yet, but they're definitely out there.

And their sense of smell is extraordinary.

So our camp, with the food,

will attract bears from miles and miles away.

The fact of the matter is

this is an animal that will attack and kill human beings

and you don't want to find out that there's a bear nearby

for the first time when it comes nosing into your tent.

It's been a long night.

But bear watch wasn't the only thing disturbing our sleep.

Morning.

Thank you very much.

Was there a snorer in your tent last night?

Snorer in my tent?

Yes.

Someone got into your tent.

This is the one bonus that you have when you're on expedition

with me is that I don't snore.

Although you do.

I can categorically guarantee you were snoring last night.

Was I? Yeah.

It's quite funny, actually.

We have, between us all, the most unusual array of different snores.

Like one tent you'll hear what sounds like a wounded bison,

and then another one there's kind of like an old-fashioned steam train.

And then from your tent there's a kind of cute whistle

that kind of goes...

STEVE SNORTS AND WHINNIES

It's whistling through my beard, that's what it is.

SHOUTS AND CRIES IN DISTANCE

You can see already that it's smelt us because it's downwind of us,

lifting its head up, sniffing the air.

It's very, very aware that we're here.

We are just like a glowing beacon of smell to this animal.

Bears have been seen going in a dead straight line for 20 miles

towards food that they can only have smelt.

Polar bears are rarely scared of humans

and so can be extremely dangerous.

For our safety and for his,

we have to scare him off.

Aldo? Hmm? Make sure you've got the gun.

Yeah. Have it just out and ready.

Have you got bear flares and everything? Yeah.

I don't think it's a wise idea for me to have a weapon.

The gun and flares can be fired above his head

to try and frighten him away.

If we come over to this side of camp,

and if everyone comes in nice and close together.

That yawn there is directed at us.

That's a threat display.

OK, he's getting quite close now.

From there,

he could cover this distance in a matter of seconds.

FLARE GUN COCKS IN DISTANCE

You hear the guys cocking their weapons.

SHOUTS AND CRIES

Go on! Go on!

Ha! Ha!

Get out of here! Go on!

Go on!

Do you want to put the flare up?

Yeah.

Good job. Good job.

We hope the bright light from these marine flares

will drive him away.

Hey!

Hey!

Shall we get another flare off?

BANGING

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

REPEATED BANGING

BANGING STOPS

Yeah, I think, hopefully,

that will be enough to make him get on his way.

But you could see he just was not frightened at all.

He could smell food and he just kept on coming.

It looks like he's coming back.

So, so far...

..all the things that we've used, flares firing into the air...

..but it's not having any effect.

He still keeps coming back.

BANGING AND SHOUTING

As a last resort, we try a few well-placed stones.

They won't hurt him through his thick fur,

but may put him off.

I know it seems crazy to be throwing stones at a bear,

but it's for his safety as much as ours.

You can see he's just keeping on coming.

It's not putting him off.

Go!

There he goes. He's gone in the water.

He's in the water.

Great. Perfect. OK.

So that's exactly what we were hoping for.

He's gone into the water. He's swimming around us.

He finally decided that it wasn't worth the confrontation.

But it is just pure and simple

down to the fact that, right now, food is so, so scarce.

Because the ice has broken up so quickly, there are no seals around.

We haven't seen a single seal since we've been out here paddling,

and he just has no option but to come and try out everything

that could be food and it turned out that was us.

Thankfully, we and the bear are walking away

unharmed from this encounter.

With the sea ice shrinking,

polar bears are forced to look for food on land.

This brings more bears into contact with people and many encounters

don't end as well as this one.

Climate change up here is not something that you see on a graph,

or in stats, and facts and figures,

it's in changes to every single day.

Since the last Ice Age here, at this time of year,

this has just been a flat expanse of ice and now it's not.

Does it need to be any more definitive than that?

All right, then.

The goal of this kayaking trip was always to get

as far as we could up Scoresby Sound

to where the ice meets the ocean.

So, back in our kayaks, there's big headwinds.

It's going to be a tough day of paddling.

We're now 30km from where we started.

And there's still no sign of the solid ice that,

at this time of year,

should be covering the fjord.

We kayak further and further.

You've just got to keep paddling.

We paddle...

..camp...

..watch for bears...

..then sleep...

..eat...

..and paddle some more.

It's our fourth day on the water.

And as we get further up the fjord and closer to the solid ice,

we're finally starting to see more wildlife.

Oh, my goodness look at that!

Amazing.

Huge flock of eiders.

Look at that! Wow!

Enormous amounts.

Oh, king eider!

That's quite rare.

Beautiful.

You know, it's a reminder that though this place may seem

inhospitable to us,

there are plenty of animals that need this place

and need it just as it is.

They're living in a very narrow niche.

And when things change too quick,

populations crash and animals suffer.

And that's when extinction events happen.

What is that little black dot there?

A seal?

We're now 48km up the fjord

and we've spotted our first seal.

That's all right, little fella.

That's all right, stay there, stay there.

At this size, it's very difficult to tell what species it is.

But by far the most numerous up here is the ringed seal.

And they're also the favourite food of the polar bear.

Oh, that is beyond cute.

This one here could well - it's young enough - that it could well

still be being seen by its mother.

Mother seals normally give birth on solid ice.

The snow on top offers them sanctuary from the worst

of the elements and some protection against predators.

On the shore, like this, they're more vulnerable.

Everything is relying on the pack ice.

With the seals gone,

there'll be nothing else for the polar bears to hunt.

Knowing how reliant these seals are on solid ice,

their future here,

along with the polar bears that depend on them,

looks bleak.

60km from where we began our expedition,

we stop for the night.

On the hills behind camp,

I spot another welcome sign of life.

This ridge line is going to completely hide us.

There are eight musk oxen just on the hill ahead of us.

What's their eyesight like?

Eyesight's terrible.

Erm, hearing and sense of smell are both very good.

I think we can creep in closer.

There's a tiny calf walking along that ridge line. Can you see that?

Look at that, it's running.

That is special. That's really special.

Musk oxen have evolved to survive here,

making do with scarce resources.

It is such a hard life,

constantly grazing on these really low-lying shrubs.

There's not an enormous amount of nourishment here,

so they just have to keep on eating nonstop.

And when you're this size, you need a lot of energy.

These animals are really struggling under climate change.

Warm spells during winter are now more common.

When temperatures rise above freezing,

the winter snow melts, then freezes again,

creating a thick layer of ice over the musk oxen's food.

In the last decade,

musk oxen numbers have fallen dramatically,

making this sighting all the more special.

Sarah?

Yeah?

We've be going an hour.

Nice. What say we stop and have a drink?

Sounds good.

Each day, we need to take on 6,000 calories to fuel our muscles

and keep our bodies warm.

Are you checking how you look in the camera?

No. Mmm-hmm!

This is us on a stop on day five.

And the wind has turned against us.

Pretty much been paddling for one hour,

and probably done about a kilometre, if that.

Do you need your hand back so you can get into your cheese?

No, I'm good.

I can't believe you've stopped off with a whole block of cheese.

You want some? No!

This is how Canadians travel.

I forgot to press record.

Did you really? No.

It's in.

That orange cheese always kind of scares me a bit.

Red Leicester. That's the one.

So, you'll quite happily battle a polar bear

but you're scared by cheese.

THEY LAUGH

God!

This far up the fjord,

there's less broken ice blocking our way,

but the ice we do see is much, much bigger.

Towering icebergs,

many of them over 100 metres high.

They are absolutely monstrous.

Some of them the size of towns, it looks like.

These icebergs broke away from gigantic glaciers

at the end of the fjord

and have been trapped in solid ice over winter.

Now, they're freed as the ice thaws.

We can't resist a closer look.

Oh, my goodness, that is absolutely awe-inspiring.

Yeah, that's pretty.

So I think we'll paddle this way, Sarah? Yeah.

Whoa!

Oh, my goodness, that is absolutely incredible.

This part of it is pretty beautiful, too.

Wow, look at that!

That is immense.

This ice could have originally frozen 100,000 years ago,

when Neanderthals still walked the Earth.

Beautiful as it is,

it's a potentially lethal place.

We want to minimise our time here as much as we possibly can,

because any part of this could break, crack and fall off.

It could even roll and, well,

you would not want to be anywhere near it when that happened.

Don't get too close, Sarah.

The wind really pushes you in.

You see all these daggers aimed at your head?

SARAH LAUGHS

God, that would hurt.

As sea and air temperatures rise,

more icebergs are falling from glaciers

and they're melting faster too,

raising sea levels around the world.

As ice melts,

it creates something known as a feedback loop.

White snow or ice reflects sun back up into the atmosphere.

Dark sea soaks it up like a sink.

So here this should be right now,

one great big white mirror reflecting sun away.

Instead, it is a dark object soaking up and retaining all that heat.

The more it melts, the faster it melts.

Already the seas here in the summer are four degrees warmer

than they should be.

Four degrees.

You know, that might not sound like much,

but it's the difference between it being covered with ice

and being completely empty.

73km in, and we spot a white line

spanning from one side of the fjord to the other.

What do you think, guys?

I think this is our big white wall.

We've had seven days paddling down the fjord.

We've navigated shifting sea ice,

freezing conditions and a hungry polar bear to get here.

Go on, Sarah! You can do it!

Woo-hoo-hoo!

Are you standing on it, Sarah?

Just one foot.

STEVE LAUGHS

Oh, ho, ho! Look at that!

Solid!

I'm still a little bit nervous.

Great job. Well done.

Well done.

Awesome.

Well done, old bean.

Good job. Good job.

We've made it to the ice edge.

But what we've witnessed on our journey is shocking.

This is the biggest fjord on the planet.

To paddle up this is genuinely a privilege.

But it's also quite sad.

This time of year, this is the earliest

that the sea ice has broken up on record.

Bar none.

And that is very definitely a signal that the planet is changing.

Right now, there are over 200 square kilometres more open water

in this fjord than ever before.

Sea ice all across the Arctic is shrinking at an alarming rate.

On average there are 82,000 square kilometres less each year.

This is the place where climate change is a tangible reality.

There is no question that it's happening.

And here you can see it, and feel it, and touch it, and smell it.

For the wildlife, it's catastrophic.

It's a change in every single rhythm that this environment goes through.

Climate change is changing everything now,

not in 100 years' time.

And unless people switch onto that,

the impacts are going to be felt everywhere.

Next time, we'll be pushing further into unexplored Arctic wilderness.

From here on in, we're treading new ground.

We'll face sinking sand...

Argh! Oh!

..a mighty glacier.

Come on, let's crack this last bit.

..and attempt to climb a vast, frozen, unsummited mountain.

Everything is ready to go.

Rock!

Heads, heads, heads!