All language subtitles for Lift.the.Ice.S01E05.The.Ice.is.History.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

Oh my goodness.

If a piece of this caved,

it might be...

[Ben] Oh yeah.

Best not to hang

around here for too long.

[water flowing]

[Ben] We're here at
the edge of the ice.

So Will, what are you gonna

look for in the sand?

We're gonna look for
microscopic evidence

of large meteorite
impact craters

that may exist
under the ice sheet.

[Ben] Cool.

[Will] We'll also have a look

at the big boulders
lying around here

and see if anything
looks like it might

be related to an impact crater

right beneath the ice.

Murder, mayhem, and
in this case, meteors.

All through our icy realms,

hidden treasures are
now being revealed

from beneath our ice.

Treasures that tell
us civilizations will

always rise and fall

just as ice ages come and go.

As an archaeologist
and former soldier,

I've spent my career
hunting hostile lands

for lost societies
to understand why.

Now I'm on a mission

to lift the ice

on the trail of
cosmic catastrophes.

Potentially the
Hiawatha crater has

been used to explain

why the Clovis
people disappeared.

[Ben] Historic true crime.

We treated it
like a murder scene

and it was a murder scene.

[Ben] In the search for

the Arctic's collapsed civilizations.

It feels like nature's
slowly reclaiming it.

It feels like
carelessness almost.

[Ben] Why does
one society survive

and another self-destruct?

Will our skyscrapers be next

to fall into ruin?

Answers lie frozen in our ice

but as it melts,

the race to rescue
our history is on

in the hope that it
can save our future.

[Darcy] What is it?

[Rick] That's a dart shaft.

[dramatic music plays]

Calm Copenhagen might feel

like a million miles

from the chaos of
collapsing civilizations

but the trail of destruction
actually starts here.

Catastrophic asteroid
impacts have played

a huge role in our
planet's history

and in fact in the
history of our species.

Had it not been for
the Chicxulub impact

66 million years ago

that hit the Yucatan

and wiped out the dinosaurs,

I could be standing

in front of a dinosaur skeleton

rather than a mammoth skeleton.

That's why I'm here.

A team of detectives
is searching

for clues of a lost civilization

in a hole that's been

discovered under
Greenland's ice.

So I'm starting with one

of the men who found
the first clue.

We were looking up
in northwest Greenland

and then I saw this
hole in the ground.

this circular feature
you can see right here.

[Ben] That looks like

a bullet wound, doesn't it?

[Nicolaj] It
doesn't look anything

like you would expect

below an ice sheet.

If you have glacial erosion,

you would not see

circular features like that.

We went up there

with this ice penetrating radar,

together with the Alfred
Wegener Institute and NASA.

[Pilot] Okay, let's go
through the experiments here.

[Nicolaj] We can
look through the ice

and into what is
below the ice sheet.

[Ben] When it comes
to lifting the ice,

these guys don't mess around.

NASA's IceBridge spent 11 years

and over 1,000 missions

scanning the
planet's icy places.

They're like Superman's
x-ray vision.

The plane based radar is just

about the only thing capable

of piercing Greenland's
two mile thick ice cap,

giving us an unparalleled view

of what lies beneath.

If all of this ice melted

and the sea levels rose,

would Greenland be
a single land mass

or would it actually

be a series of islands?

That's a good question.

If you look at the
white line here,

that's below sea level.

[Ben] Wow.

But the thing is that

if you melt three
kilometers of ice,

the land would actually rise

because it has been pushed down

Of course, of course.

Lifting all the
ice from Greenland

would involve moving more

than 2 trillion tons of water.

But doing so reveals
a land of giants,

fast record-breaking
features we're only

just beginning to comprehend.

Circling the island
is a mountain range

under the ice to
rival the Rockies.

They surround a vast basin

that could contain an inland sea

more than 3.5 times

the size of Lake Superior.

And feeding that giant sea is

the longest canyon in the world

reaching more than
2,500 feet deep

stretching nearly twice as long

as the Grand Canyon.

But Nicolaj found
evidence of something

much more alien under the ice.

What we could see

on this data set was

that we found a crater,

the first crater under

the Greenland ice
sheet ever discovered.

And you can see here,

it's very clearly defined.

It's semicircular and that's 1/2

of the crater rim.

[Ben] Underneath
Greenland's Hiawatha glacier,

radar measurements
have discovered

an almost perfectly circular
hole in the landscape.

It's nearly 20 miles wide,

1,000 feet deep,
and large enough

to fit the city of
Paris inside it.

It turns out that

this buried crater is one

of the biggest impact
sites on Earth,

perfectly preserved
by the ice above it.

The object that made
this hole would've

been more than a mile across.

So when you have a a meteorite

hammering into the earth,

it makes a very big
hole in the ground

and then it punches back up

and you get a mountain chain

which is equally high
as Mount Everest.

And then it collapses

and then it spreads out.

Is all the rock and
the earth's crust,

is that liquified
at that moment?

It's crushed.

It's liquified and vaporized.

[Ben] This is just the first

few mayhem filled milliseconds.

So what were the
widest shock waves

felt around the world
after the impact?

We suggested that
it was geologically

a very young crater
to begin with.

From the ice radar measurements,

we could see that the lower part

of the ice in the crater

was very much disturbed.

And what we could see was

that this disturbed ice was

at the end of the last ice age.

[Ben] So we're looking
at around 13,000 BP?

There is a hypothesis

that North America was hit

by a major impact
13,000 years ago

and it has been used

to explain why the Clovis people

disappeared at that time.

Okay as an archaeologist,

this is now starting

to get really interesting.

Experts still clash about

what happened to
the Clovis people.

Many consider them to
be the first Americans

but they simply ceased to exist.

It's believed that some rock art

and these stone arrowheads

may be all that is left of them.

Around 13,000 years ago,

it seems something completely

wiped them out from the
archaeological record

along with other large
animals at that time.

It's one of the great mysteries

of early American pre-history.

What could cause such a huge

kind of extinction
level event locally?

And a lot of people
think it's a meteorite.

And potentially the
Hiawatha crater could

be the origin of that.

[Ben] The prize on
offer is nothing less

than finally uncovering the fate

of America's early inhabitants.

And as I chase down
leads in Denmark,

someone else is on the trail

of other early
Americans wiped out

by something more sinister.

In Alaska you don't
need penetrating radar

to access the ice's secrets

because thawing permafrost is

spitting out artifacts faster

than archaeologists
can rescue them.

And what they're
finding is evidence

of a brutal massacre.

[people chatting]

[Darcy] Okay.

Well, right now we're
in Bethel, Alaska,

which is about an hour
flight from Anchorage

and we are on our way

to Quinhagak, Alaska
along the coast.

[Ben] Darcy Peter
is an Alaskan native

with a unique
connection to signs

of an indigenous culture.

As a local, she knows this land

and its stories
better than most.

Darcy, what are you
guys doing at Quinhagak?

We are gonna go

to the archaeological
site actually

with a thawing permafrost

that's actually exposing a
bunch of ancient artifacts.

And as the permafrost thaws,

a lot more and a lot quicker,

it's kind of like
a race against time

to collect as many
artifacts as they can.

[Ben] Alaska is
bigger than Texas,

California, and
Montana combined.

And 85% of it is
covered in permafrost.

Right on the west coast,

battered by the Bering Sea,

the town of Quinhagak
like many others,

is built on permafrost.

Thanks to warmer temperatures,

three feet of its coast is

lost each year to erosion.

Alaska is literally
getting washed away.

As it erodes, it's
also unearthing

this mysteriously abandoned
400 year old village.

[Darcy] Alaska's
my home but it's also

at the front lines
of climate change.

So as an environmental scientist,

I'm drawn to what's happening
with the permafrost.

But as an Alaskan native,

I'm fascinated to find out

what happened to this community.

Welcome to Nunalleq.

Back in 2007 people
in Quinhagak started

finding objects on a beach.

When we first got here,

there wasn't anything.

So we walked past

and there was this dark layer

of organic material
with spear shafts

sticking out and wooden bowls.

It was amazing.

And as we followed it,

it just got deeper and deeper.

Every year we found more stuff.

As far as we know,

this is the largest excavation

ever installed in
Alaska and probably one

of the largest in the Arctic.

[Ben] Permafrost is
basically nature's freezer.

It preserves anything
trapped in it.

The team is finding grass,

wood, even human remains

that should have
decomposed centuries ago.

We know almost nothing

about the Yupik past.

This is the first
archaeological dig

installed in this
Yupik culture area

that's the size of Oregon

or the size of Britain say.

[Ben] The Yupik people are

still around today
living in Quinhagak

and other nearby towns.

Their culture is still thriving.

Elders pass down knowledge

through story and song,

but directly reconnecting
with a past like this

breathes new life
into the mystery

of their ancestors'
disappearance.

And there are rumblings

of something dark happening

at the dig site

so Darcy's joining
the excavation.

Rick has them digging
several new pits

near the edge of the site.

Back in 2009 when we
first started digging here,

we found permafrost
right about there.

[Darcy] Oh wow.

It just stopped
like a brick wall.

Now we have to dig
probably another meter

before we really hit
serious permafrost

if ever it's melted that fast.

What we don't rescue
from erosion is

literally rotting in the ground.

Our original excavation
block has washed away.

[Darcy] Oh, it's gone.

It's gone.

Yeah, we've lost about 45 feet

since we started working here.

We can lose as much

as three to six meters

in a single storm.

[Darcy] Pretty insane.

[Rick] Yeah and with it goes

that entire archaeological
and even fossil record.

So about how long do you think

until all of this is

eroded in the ocean?

We could lose it
in a single night

so we've gotta keep going.

So for the next five years,

we're gonna do what we can

to recover the remainder.

Regular archaeologists
would like

to spend, you know, years,

seasons, maybe
their entire careers

and lifetimes digging
one specific site.

Rescue archaeology is all about

saving history before
it's destroyed.

Usually it's conflict

or urban sprawl that's a threat.

But here in the ice,

it's the environment itself.

As it warms, the ice spits out

amazing little bits of history

but as soon as they emerge,

they begin to degrade.

And that's when
archaeology becomes a race.

Every item that's lost
is a potential clue

that might help us figure out

what destroyed this settlement.

[Darcy] I'm trying to go super

light across the top.

Okay, I've been digging
for like two minutes

and I feel like
we've found so much.

How many things have
you guys found total?

I used to say it was 100,000

and think I was
maybe exaggerating

but it's gonna
probably go twice that.

[Darcy] Oh my God.

A big collection is 10,000.

[Darcy] Jesus.

[Rick] The average
digger out here

finds 200 pieces a day.

And the average digger finds

one museum quality piece

per person per day.

Sites like this
are extremely rare.

[Digger] This is the
permafrost down here.

It's still super stuck.

If we really cannot take it out,

we have to leave it in

for the next field season.

So they lived here

for three or four generations

for about 150 maybe 200 years.

So far it looks like the
site does extend quite a lot.

It's a complex of sod houses.

So this is like

an old ancient
village basically?

[Ben] Today the shoreline sits

just a little more

than a dozen meters
from the excavations.

But 500 years ago
the land would've

extended much further
providing space

for the Yupik villages
to spread out.

They lived in
traditional sod houses

with frames made from
driftwood covered

by thick layers of soil.

It's a thriving village,

an important base for
hunting and fishing.

[Rick] One of the really
interesting mysteries

we're trying to
solve out here is

the abandonment of this village.

Obviously it was a
great place to live.

Why did they leave?

[Darcy] Here's a
smooth something.

- Okay, oops.
- Should I pull it out?

[Rick] Work around it first.

I think it'll come out.

There we go.

Nice.

[Darcy] What is it?

[Rick] That's a dart shaft.

It goes to about a
two meter long weapon,

really nicely made.

Right about then,
there's a shaft

for probably a pretty
good size arrow shaft.

[Ben] The layer
they're digging is

around the time of
the disappearance.

And these weapons of
war are everywhere

along with those at the
receiving end of them.

Well, we found
the human remains

not far from here,
about 10 feet really.

We treated it like
a murder scene

and documented it and
then turned the remains

over to the village
for reburial.

And it was a murder scene.

[Darcy] What happened?

All the human remains were

in fact outside of the house.

They were tied together
with grass rope

so it was pretty,
pretty gruesome.

So where we're
standing right now,

there used to be several
hundred people living here.

Then we've got weapons

and we've got human victims

of some terrible atrocity.

And after that, nothing.

Something really happened.

There was a huge battle here

and there was a lot of bloodshed

and it was really,
really devastating.

The thing that
perplexes me the most is

why did all of this happen?

[Ben] While Darcy
takes today's finds

back to the preservation lab

to look for any smoking guns,

I'm still on the hunt

for my own smoking gun.

If the Clovis people
were wiped out

by a meteor impact
13,000 years ago,

the first thing we need to do is

actually prove
there was a meteor.

[Nicolaj] In order to do that,

you need to look

at the the rocks underneath it.

And of course that's
very difficult

because you have
up to 1,000 meters

of ice above the crater.

So instead we looked at rocks

and sand grains coming out

from below the ice
sheet from the crater.

[Ben] So expedition
teams were dispatched

to Greenland's northern wilds

to see what they could find.

[Will] I'm gonna
see what I can see.

I see water pumping out
from under the ice sheet.

Water that's
transporting lots of sand

and stones from far inland.

Oh my goodness, wow.

If a piece of this caved,

it might be...

[Ben] Oh yeah.

Best not to hang

around here for too long.

You can see the fresh,

fresh ice falling there.

When we were having lunch

just around the corner,

we heard some crashes.

So there's just constantly
material falling down.

Pretty precarious
peaks up there.

So we're at the west coast

of the Greenland ice sheet.

[Will] You can see the
water is full of material.

It's pretty gray, brown,

full of what we call rock flour,

really fine material ground up

and transported
underneath the ice.

[Ben] Will is just
taking a sample of sand

from the glacier
river flowing out

from under the ice.

So Will, what are you gonna

look for in the sand

when you get back to Copenhagen?

We're gonna look for
microscopic evidence

of large meteorite
impact craters

that may exist
under the ice sheet

where we obviously can't see.

So hopefully in here we have

the small grains called
zircons or quartz

and they might show evidence

of the the impact if it exists.

[Ben] Back from Greenland,
the expedition team is

searching the sand for secrets.

This is the Hiawatha sand

where I found the shocked quartz

that we use as proof of impact.

When you have an
impact from space,

it has a very large velocity,

therefore an enormous
amount of kinetic energy

when it touches ground.

Quartz can develop some
very characteristic

fine lines under the microscope.

[Ben] The meteor
might have been massive

but the clues that
give it away are tiny.

So we're looking
for these grains

that have these
tightly spaced lines

within inside the grain itself.

And that's to do with
the crystal structure

of quartz and how it reacts

to the shockwave
after the impact.

[Ben] So you can
actually see the force

of this impact was
so strong that it

actually twists the
structure of the quartz?

Effectively, yes.

And here you can
see the grain is

illuminated in the center

and these finally spaced lines,

there's two sets of them,

one going here and
one going here.

And they're the smoking gun,

the evidence for an impact.

[Ben] They're
stunning, aren't they?

This is what happens

when a mile wide
meteorite hits the earth

at up to 43,000 miles per hour.

Rocks on the ground are
shattered into tiny fragments.

During the first
millisecond of the impact,

they experience pressures unlike

anything else found
on this planet.

Shock waves distort
the ordered pattern

inside the crystal
creating tiny fractures.

This alone is
diagnostic evidence

of an impact crater.

The forces involved
in that meteorite impact

just blew my mind.

In the nuclear test sites

out in the American West,

those nuclear
explosions in the desert

produced small amounts of

just slightly shocked quartz.

But here in Greenland,

it was in abundance.

And it might not
be the only one.

If you look at places
like Sweden and Finland,

they also have multiple
impact craters.

But currently in Greenland,

we only know of
one under the ice.

And as we can't
see under the ice,

logic says that there should be

many more under there.

It's a needle in a haystack

but there should be 10,

20, 30 impact craters.

20 or 30 impact
craters beneath the ice?

But there could
also be five or 50.

We don't know.

- Yeah. [laughs]
- Yeah.

[Ben] What other
things do you see

when you're peering
through a bag

of sand at this magnification?

When I look for
shocked quartz,

I didn't realize
in the beginning

that there might be
other interesting grains

from the actual impact process.

You can have a
look if you can see

very fine grained black grains.

I've never seen
sand this close up.

It's absolutely, it's stunning.

It's like looking
through a bag of jewels.

Some of them are
very, very beautiful.

The grain you have
in the middle there

if we go up in magnification,

you can probably
see it more clearly

and it's completely black.

[Ben] If shocked quartz
is our meteor's smoking gun,

this unsuspecting
black blob reveals

intriguing clues
about its victim.

[Adam] You are
actually looking

at melt grain there.

So this melt grain
is a bit of glass

that was created in
the heat of the impact?

Yes, we know it contains

a lot of organic carbon.

[Ben] That's incredible.

So you actually found
bits of vaporized char-

Charcoal, yes.

Burnt wood.

[Ben] Charcoal means trees.

13,000 years ago, Greenland was

still covered in ice,

hardly a tree in
sight to vaporize.

Heading right down into
the pit of the basement.

It's puzzling but it's a lead,

one that can only

be followed using
high powered lasers.

How hot is that
laser at that point?

It's probably close

to several thousand
degrees centigrade.

You'll get a nice hole

if you put your hand
in front of it, yeah.

That's a proper laser to me.

[Michael] It's a proper laser.

[Ben] Like a
team of detectives,

this is where Michael
takes up the mystery.

He analyzed those sand
grains from Hiawatha.

And the way the
method works is

that the grains
that a crystal or

a melt grain behaves like
a little time capsule.

We took individual grains,

put them in the laser disc,

melted them, and
then we were able

to determine the
age of the grain

by radiometric dating method.

[Ben] Michael
and his colleagues

use similar techniques to target

the age of the impact.

So what we found
when we did that was

that we were getting an age

that indicated it was no younger

than 58 million years.

[Ben] 58 million years?

[Michael] That's right.

[Ben] But that's way out from

what we heard upstairs.

And 58 million is

only what 8 million years or so

after the extinction
of the dinosaurs.

Michael's lasers
have blasted a hole

in my hopes for an answer

to the Clovis people's
disappearance.

58 million years ago is long

before any humans
walked the earth,

let alone the Clovis.

I like a story to be
wrapped up in a bow

with a nice ending

and I wanted that for them

but it just wasn't meant to be.

I still think it's
very possible that

these early Americans were

wiped out by a meteorite

but it wasn't Hiawatha.

But if that impact
site is anywhere,

it's likely under
Greenland's ice.

After all it seems to
be riddled with them.

This is Agpalilik.

And he's a 20 ton bit
of iron meteorite.

And this arrived on Earth

about 10,000 years ago.

It's an actual shooting star.

You know this thing
would've lit up

the night skies above Greenland.

The ancients also were slightly

obsessed by shooting stars.

They saw these things

as being gifts from the gods.

In fact many of the
earlier civilizations

actually fashioned tools from

the iron in meteorites.

It was the only source
of iron in many places.

That's what I love
about archaeology,

finding objects like
this which have the power

to either destroy
civilizations or fuel them.

It's incredibly important for us

to understand how
meteorites have

impacted our planet's story.

They are devastating events.

They change the course
of our planet's history.

They may have changed

the course of human history.

And they are gonna

change the course of our future.

With all of Greenland's ice,

we may have to wait centuries

to uncover the true
fate of the Clovis

if it's under there at all.

But over in Alaska,

Darcy's problem
isn't finding clues.

It's piecing them together

to find out what wiped
out this village.

[Darcy] Hey you guys.

[Ben] Rick is
sending artifacts

back from the dig site

to the lab team in Quinhagak

to get them cleaned
up and analyzed.

I just go?

Mm-hmm.

Every little
artifact that we have,

is like a piece in the
puzzle that tells us

about the life that people lived

in Nunalleq at the time.

So this is our collection,

thousands and
thousands of objects.

We have amazing preservation.

It's the largest
pre-contact Yupik

collection in the world.

We have a lot

of masks that blend human

and animal features
into one creature.

And most masks that we found

from the earlier
occupation phases,

they represent sea mammals,
seals in particular.

Seals were very important

not only to the subsistence

but also to the spiritual life

of people at Nunalleq.

The full size masks
like this were

used for ceremonial dances

to honor the spirits
of the animals killed

in the current
harvesting season.

Actually we have
like two houses,

one on top of each other,

the earlier one
and the later one.

Oh wow.

[Anna] So these came
from the earlier house.

Oh my God.

Holy moly.

[Anna] We see a change
if we compare masks

from the early and
the later house.

[Darcy] Look at these.

Those are intense.

[Anna] Yes.

This mask we believe

represents human-walrus
transformation.

The other one is
human-wolf transformation.

The tusks are made
of antler tips.

[Darcy] Ooh.

[Anna] And here
you can see also-

[Darcy] Yeah, the fur.

[Anna] Human hair
and walrus hair.

[Charlotta] These are
from the times of conflict.

[Darcy] Right.

And much more
aggressive animals

than what we have in
the earlier phases.

[Darcy] Right.

[Charlotta] Stronger animals.

Maybe animals for protection

like the wolf and the walrus.

And so the narratives changed.

So what evidence
have you found

that points to the fact
there was conflict?

[Anna] Right here.

Oh, okay.

- Holy moly.
- [Anna] Yes.

[Charlotta] There's definitely

a higher concentration of
these kind of arrowheads

at the latest
phase of the house.

We have hundreds
if not thousands

of them found in the house

and outside of the house.

We also find caches

with a lot of arrow points,

some of them have been placed

on top of the roof.

So we have someone sitting with

a bag of arrowheads
on top of the roof.

And we have arrow
points that we can see

that they have been
shot through the house.

Oh.

So we can say that
these have been part

of a kind of conflict.

[Ben] With so many artifacts

from around the time
of the abandonment,

you can start to piece
together their story.

Everything points to
a village under siege,

hundreds of arrows
found outside, inside,

and embedded in the
rooves of the sod houses

suggest a large scale attack.

An assault of this magnitude
doesn't just happen.

Something significant
must have triggered it.

We can see in the evidence

that we have from
animal remains,

animal bones, that
there's a change

in subsistence in
what people eat

during this time period.

One of the ways that
we can actually see

what people ate at the time is

from their actual human hair.

[Anna] So we have
like lots of haircuts

scattered all around
the house discarded.

I mean it's crazy

how well this is
preserved for 500 years.

We can do isotopic analysis

so basically tells
what people were eating

and about the nutrition
during the time period.

My colleague, Kate Britton,

in Aberdeen does this analysis.

[Ben] It's like
we're switching

from archaeology to full
crime scene investigation.

Hey, hey, Kate.

[Ben] How can a few
strands of hair reveal

why they went to war?

We do something
called isotope analysis.

So the things that
you eat during life,

their chemical signatures
get fixed in your tissues,

including things like
your hair and your bones.

We've got some great results

from the hair analysis.

We have a general
picture of diet

that probably
doesn't surprise you

that has a lot of salmon in it,

things like marine mammals,
and caribou as well.

So we know the diet
was pretty healthy.

The great thing
about the hair is

some of them are very long

so you can cut the
hair into little bits

and get a sort of

a year in the life
of an individual.

And then by comparing hairs

from different periods
within the site,

we can look at overall
trends through time.

We have had some data
that maybe suggests

that the diet
changed a little bit

towards the end of the period

that the site was occupied.

And what we're seeing here,

the amounts of fish
and especially salmon

that we have at the site do

seem to go down through time.

This hints that
maybe just a change

in what was available
in the ecosystem.

And that could be to do
with a decline in climate

and that may have made things

a little bit more stressful

for living in the area.

[Ben] Around the same
time as the disappearance,

everyone in this region
was likely stressed

by something called
the Little Ice Age,

a 500 year long cold snap

where the lowest
temperatures in Alaska were

thought to hit around
the 17th century.

[Darcy] It sounds
like the food was

getting more and more scarce.

Well yeah, there's
nothing to start

a sort of conflict between
different communities

than if you're
fighting for resources.

Permafrost is a time capsule

of human occupations in the past

and of climate
change in the past

but it's also this time capsule

that is essentially
in the middle

of being broken up by
modern climate change.

So now we're in
the weird place

where we're learning about a war

that was potentially
started by climate change.

You know, in my experience,

my professional
personal experience,

climate change is
a God awful thing.

This is a very, very,
very small niche

where it's actually
unveiling artifacts

that are really
old so we can learn

a lot from the history

in terms of the archaeological
site at Nunalleq.

The Arctic is littered

with societies that collapsed

because of the
fight for resources.

This is an ancient history.

The ice is on the retreat.

The cryosphere is a
changing environment

but also there's
this huge resource

rush going on there
between all of the nations

which have access to the Arctic.

And they're after
incredible fishing rights,

the incredible mineral rights,

oil, gas, shipping routes.

New would-be Arctic
communities might

be coming in but not all of 'em

have what it takes.

As a marine biologist,

Diva is more at
home under the water

than trekking over
historical sites.

But while on an expedition
in Arctic waters,

she stumbled across another
collapsed community,

this one much more recent.

So I'm completely
fascinated with unexplored

and remote parts of our planet.

The polar regions
really do embody that.

They're unlike anywhere
I've ever been before.

Now I'm just off the
coast of Svalbard

at about 79 degrees north

and I'm heading into
shore towards Pyramiden,

one of the most northerly

ghost towns in the world.

This place just feels like

nature's slowly reclaiming it.

Ben would absolutely
love it here.

This is some of the most

pristine wilderness
on the planet.

And at the time it
would've been even more so.

And now it just
feels like a scar

left on what was a stunningly
beautiful landscape.

There's no mystery as to why

this place has been abandoned.

Everything's built in
the brutalist style

of the old Soviet Union.

And the thing that
drew the Soviets

all the way up here was
naturally resources.

Even though Svalbard
was officially

a part of Norway,

many countries still had rights

to commercial activities
on the island.

So back in the 1930s,

old Soviet Union were
quick to snap up the rights

to coal deposits all
around Pyramiden.

So that was once the
lifeblood of this community.

Those coal mines
were really what

you know powered
not just this town

but also far beyond.

These villagers
were here to mine

that coal and ship it out

to Russia and beyond.

But now the mines
have fallen silent

and the town is
completely abandoned.

I don't have to go scraping

through the mud for clues

to this town's rise and fall.

It's literally frozen in time.

Oh wow.

So this would've once
been a classroom.

You can see there's a bunch

of well it looks

like you know
science stuff here.

There's some rock samples,

some old microscope slides.

This is the only
school and you can

just imagine
children of all ages

sitting in this
classroom learning

about the natural
world, their culture.

Life is hard in the Arctic.

There are freezing temperatures,

howling winds, six
months of daylight,

six months of darkness.

It is not an easy place to live.

This town was clearly meant

to be more than just
a mining outpost.

It had to be a slice of home.

They imported
grass from Siberia,

built a library, theater,

and even a sports complex.

You can just see how much time

and effort must have gone into

the construction of this place.

I mean the tiling,
the wood paneling,

all of it is so
intricate and detailed.

And now for it just
to be left here,

it just feels so wasteful.

The Soviets came to
Svalbard for the resources

that could fuel their nation

and they brought with them

everything they
thought they'd need.

This place just
feels like humans

tried to tame the Arctic

and now it's sort of reemerging

and trying to take over again.

Pyramiden's coal mines were
never actually profitable.

After the collapse
of the Soviet Union,

the funding for this
community dried up.

The flow of coal stopped
and the last residents

of Pyramiden eventually
left in 1998.

Without the external
resources to support it,

even this elaborate community
was doomed to failure.

While there is
cultural heritage here

and this no doubt is

of importance to many people.

To many others, it
feels like destruction.

I mean, you look around
and you've got like

this massive coal mine over here

and then by just
shifting a little bit,

you're then looking at one

of the most enormous, beautiful

glaciers you've ever seen.

I could tell you which I'd

prefer to see, right?

It's almost like the two choices

that we're facing
for the Arctic.

It looks like we've
got an expansion

of humans into this place

and then we've got
wilderness and nature.

It's an interesting clash.

I'm really struck by,

you know, this community here.

It just took a few
factors to change

and it led to the collapse
of this entire town.

Archaeology is
full of examples

of what not to do.

It's full of stories
of civilizations

rising to their peak

and then destroying
themselves by not

looking after the
environment they were in.

The inhabitants of
Pyramiden barely

lasted 70 years
before things failed.

If you want to avoid

becoming the next
lost Arctic community,

you need a different approach.

The Inuit have spent generations

learning this frozen land

and how to live with it.

But the ice no longer behaves

as predictably as it once did.

In the Canadian high Arctic

climate change is
a deadly new threat

and the inhabitants
of Arctic Bay want

to avoid becoming another
town lost to history.

Ice is part of our identity.

Every community in
the north travels

on the ice as our main highway

to get to their camping
grounds, hunting grounds,

or even to travel to
another community.

[Ben] Inuit hunters
like Hosia and his son,

rely on their
ancestral knowledge

of the ice to survive.

[speaks Inuit]

[Hosia] I still
orally teach my children

traditional knowledge,
Inuit knowledge

on how to read the ice,

what to avoid, and
where not to go

at certain times of year.

To check the ice
with the harpoon,

if you strike the ice twice

and it doesn't go through,

it's safe to walk on.

And if you strike
the ice three times

and it doesn't go through,

it's safe to travel
on by snowmobile.

[Ben] But this
knowledge is based

on ice that has behaved

the same way for
countless generations.

[speaks Inuit]

[Hosia] We are
noticing the changes

that are occurring
with our ice conditions

because the ice is forming

a little later each year

and breaking off a
little earlier each year.

Usually around mid-May,
our ice stops freezing,

it starts to melt instead.

The ice is not only

melting from the top,

it's also melting
from the bottom

due to warm currents.

The ice today is
getting unpredictable

and some people have fallen

through the ice before.

[Ben] Just imagine
driving your car

on a highway that could give way

at any moment into
lethally cold water.

There are reports that as many

as one in 12 people have fallen

through the ice
in a single year.

[speaks Inuit]

But Arctic communities aren't

going down that easy.

Inside this unassuming
wooden box is

something that could help anyone

living on unpredictable ice.

[speaks Inuit]

What SmartICE is able to do is

provide real time sea
ice thickness information

and map out where the
dangerous areas are.

[speaks Inuit]

[Ben] They're on a mission

to keep their community safe

but they've got a
long journey ahead,

plenty of opportunities
for things to go south.

[Colin] If an accident occurs,

you're at least
four or five hours

away from the nearest help.

[Jesse] We have to
always keep an eye out

on what's ahead of us.

This is one of the main
routes that we usually go

when people go hunting.

We will find a safe route

to go to a fishing spot.

So we will be cautious
about the dangerous ice

that we are going through.

[Ben] Colins's built-in
knowledge gets him

as far as the unstable ice.

From there, he lets
the tech take over.

The ice thickness
is 4 feet 11 inches.

It will already map the route

while looking at
it so I'll be able

to see how many feet it is

so it will collect
data while driving.

[Ben] Behind
their snowmobiles,

Colin and Jesse are
pulling the device

known as a SmartQamutik.

The box emits these
magnetic fields

which react differently
to materials

with different conductivities.

The ions in the
sea water make it

about a million
times more conductive

than the frozen
fresh water above.

So the SmartQamutik detects

a return signal
from the sea water.

A weak return signal
means thick ice

whereas a stronger signal

from the water
means thinner ice.

The collected data is
beamed to the cloud

and when the ice is
dangerously thin,

Colin and Jesse are
alerted straight away.

[Colin] We will turn
right away to a safe ice.

If it's too thin, we
would turn right away.

[Jesse] It's dangerous
out there in some

of the ice areas
that we go through

so gotta be careful out there.

[Ben] These routes are mapped

and uploaded multiple
times per week.

The longer that these teams can

keep the ice safe to travel,

the longer these communities can

overcome the effects
of climate change,

especially when fishing grounds

like these are going to be

on increasingly unstable ice.

They got here yesterday.

The thickness of the
ice is about 10 feet.

So they use an ice
auger to make a hole

and they got a few Arctic chars.

[Ben] Without this tech,

miles of unpredictable ice would

now be standing
between the fishermen

and the warmth of home.

We finished mapping the route,

a much safer route.

They'll be safer for them.

They'll check it out,

the trail we went.

[speaks Inuit]

The future is uncertain.

Make no mistake places
like Arctic Bay,

they are the canary
in the coal mine.

There is optimism but
it's also a warning.

Arctic communities like this are

amongst the most adaptive
and resilient on Earth.

So what happens
when it's our turn?

I think knowing
the past allows us

to live more fully
in the present

and also prepare for
the different futures

that we are faced with.

And we can better
understand who we are,

where we came from,

what we're doing here,

and where we're going.

Each story that emerges
from the ice is a lesson,

a microcosm of
human civilization.

Our frozen history has
so much to teach us

which is why we need to find it.

We have to study it

and we have to preserve it

while we still can.

It might just be
humanity's best hope

of avoiding the fate

of the collapsed civilizations

that came before us.

[dramatic music plays]