Original subtitles

Antarctica is the coldest continent on earth.

For humans, a hostile terrain.

During the summer, researchers come here from around the world

to unlock the secrets of the eternal ice and its inhabitants.

Provision supply is a masterpiece of logistics.

Even families with children live here at the end of the world.

The really extreme time begins with the Antarctic winter.

Even the penguins have already left.

Yet more than 100 people hold down the fort in the Antarctic stations.

It will now be dark for months.

The Fildes Peninsula on King George Island is free of ice in summer.

It is the perfect place for the Antarctic stations of four countries.

One of them is the Russian station Bellingshausen.

During the Antarctic summer, a group of German researchers from Jena is also stationed here.

In the early morning, expedition leader Dr. Hans-Ulrich Peter

and five young scientists prepare for a day in the wilderness.

In the Antarctic summer, from December to February, the sun shines to up to 20 hours a day.

Temperatures hover around freezing.

The researchers can largely move about safely in the ice-free areas of the island.

To gather as much data as possible, the group splits up.

Some head for the penguin reserve, others for the hills.

And seabirds, known as south polar skewers.

Marie-Charlotte Röhmler and Christian Pfeiffer are testing to find out at which

point the use of drones will become stressful for the penguins.

To do this, Marie-Charlotte must briefly

take eggs away from brooding Gen 2 penguins.

They will be protected from the cold and the skewers during the experiment.

The penguins are given plastic eggs with

hidden microphones in place of their own eggs.

As soon as the penguin sits on the prepared egg, Marie-Charlotte can hear its

heartbeat over the microphone.

Christian prepares the first drone, a fixed-wing aircraft.

It depends a lot on it.

Christian tests altitudes of 100 to 10 metres.

The lower he flies, the faster the penguins' hearts beat.

Starting at 40 metres, they are noticeably stressed.

The drone causes excitement in the air, too.

Skewers perceive them as invasive fellow birds.

For Christian, this means a quick landing.

Christian now tests a second drone, an octocopter.

The researchers are not allowed to enter the protected area without a permit.

They must also keep a certain distance from the penguins.

Only with an additional permit for experiments

is Marie allowed to get really close to them.

For instance, to exchange the plastic eggs for real ones.

Antarctica is comprised not only of the white continent and the southern hemisphere,

but everything south of the 60th parallel.

Off the Antarctic coast lies King George Island, which is

nearly covered with glaciers, but has a few ice-free coasts.

For this reason, nine nations have stations located here.

Brazil, Peru, Poland, Argentina with a German summer camp, South Korea,

and on the Fildes Peninsula, China, Uruguay, Chile,

and Russia host to the German researchers from Jena.

The Chilean Air Force is stationed at the Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva base.

Commander Sergio Copillos summons his troops at dawn.

He's only been in Antarctica a few weeks, and has

recently been promoted to the rank of commander.

The troops' morale hit a low point under the previous commander.

Now, it's time to get the station back into shape.

Sergio Copillos builds on military polish.

Fifty-four men and two women report to Sergio Copillos.

They swear an oath of allegiance to the fatherland, which they have committed

their lives to serving, even on the seventh continent.

A decommissioned oil tank and 152 tons of scrap

metal from previous years are rusting on the beach.

All of it is going to be shipped to Chile today.

A task like this cannot be managed alone.

Chen Bo, the commander of the Chinese station,

assists in moving the 12-ton tank with his crane.

Today, luck is not with Commander Sergio Cubillos, a snowstorm is forming.

Moving objects weighing tons is one of the most dangerous challenges in the Antarctic.

Machines can easily tip over on the sandy ground, crushing limbs.

And evacuation is impossible during this weather.

The Chileans and the Chinese keep at it nonetheless.

In the eternal ice, it goes without saying that nations help one another.

But then ice floats into the bay, and the oil tank gets stuck

in one of the summer's worst snowstorms.

The wind reaches 100 kilometers per hour.

The wind-chill temperature is 25 degrees below zero.

For the German researchers, this means house arrest.

The researchers use their downtime to get their equipment ready for its next use.

Nothing else can be done.

The data they've collected will only be evaluated in Jena, 13,000 kilometers away.

During storms, the researchers are cut off irrevocably from the rest of the world.

Palladi is the priest in the world's most southerly Russian Orthodox Church.

He provides pastoral support when extreme isolation

renders the Antarctic a psychological prison.

He attempts to give people strength through

familiar rituals from their distant homelands.

For instance, with a great blessing of the waters

in remembrance of the baptism of Jesus.

Palladi baptizes everything and everyone in the Russian station.

In this way, even pots, the stove, the machines and the buildings benefit

from the renewed energy needed for everyday life in the Antarctic.

Antarctica is the only continent that does not belong to anyone.

With the Antarctic Treaty System, more than 50 nations

agreed to the peaceful use of the region.

But still, many nations have a permanent presence.

Not least, to secure territorial claims should the Antarctic pie someday be cut up.

In addition to the research stations on King George Island, there is a civilian settlement,

Villa Las Estrellas, the Star's Town.

The families of Chilean officers live here.

This is how four-year-old Sebastian Castro and his 11-year-old sister, Sofia,

came to be here.

Sofia's appendix was even removed as a precaution.

Sara Castro also had her appendix removed.

And she had to prove her mental fitness in psychological tests.

But to her, the move to the Antarctic island was worth it.

The only airport is one kilometer away.

Carlos Castro, the head of the family, works here as a pilot.

He has become familiar with King George Island

through countless supply flights over the course of 15 years.

This is the first time he has been stationed here permanently.

For all the nations on King George Island, the Chilean airport

is the umbilical cord to the outside world.

Fresh vegetables only come by air freight.

And sick people can only be evacuated by air.

Carlos pilots a twin otter.

It is considered indestructible and particularly reliable.

Today, Carlos Castro has spare parts on board

that are desperately needed on the Antarctic mainland.

He is heading 140 kilometers towards the South Pole.

Temperatures hovering around freezing.

and an acute lack of movement.

represent a big adjustment for the Castro family.

They have to be regularly checked out in the station's clinic.

Doctor Denise Echeverria is guiding the family

through a study on vitamin D deficiency.

She must be versatile, and serves as an emergency physician, family doctor,

dentist, and pediatrician.

It's Sofia's turn for a blood test today.

The checkup is meant to prevent iron or vitamin deficiencies.

Less than five hours after taking off, Carlos Castro is back on King George Island.

Before he was stationed in the Antarctic,

Carlos' assignments often lasted several weeks.

Eating lunch at home was a distant dream.

The family almost fell apart because of it.

Antarctica is one of the last largely intact ecosystems on Earth.

Extreme cold has preserved the glacial ice for millions of years.

Yet advancing climate change is already affecting the population of native animal species,

as constant monitoring by polar researchers has shown.

Rules of behavior apply with respect to untouched nature.

And exhibition leader Hans-Ulrich Peter follows them precisely.

Nothing can prepare you for the attacks by the skuas.

These piratical seabirds use all possible means

to drive the researchers from their nests.

Masters student Daniel Provasnik practices catching them.

To accurately determine the skua population, the birds are ringed and measured.

The researchers also draw blood to determine their sex.

The best time for this is when the skuas have chicks.

Their flying attacks are especially aggressive then,

which makes catching them possible.

Daniel has to wait for just the right moment.

Many researchers have already been knocked out.

The wound can easily become infected.

Skuas are hunters and scavengers.

Their beaks, full of bacteria.

Now Daniel is by himself.

High in the hills is one more nest.

Daniel has to measure the chicks to document their growth.

They just hatched ten days ago.

An Antarctic evening buffet for the whales.

Now, in the summer, there's a lot of krill.

The whales follow it into the ice-free bays, close to the stations.

Yet the summer is coming to an end.

During its last mild days, a strange event is taking place on King George Island.

The White Continent Marathon.

Newly landed organizer Steve Hibbs from Minnesota is marking the running course.

For Americans Lisa Davis and Dave Jones, the marathon on the White Continent

represents the fulfillment of a very special dream.

This was given to me by my husband for a birthday present.

Because I completed 50 states, a marathon in every state, plus DC,

and 100 marathons.

And I wanted to do one more goal, which was to

complete a marathon on every continent in seven days.

And this is it. This is the culminating point. This is what we work for.

Finally here. It's gonna happen.

This is the start and finish area.

Well, actually, we have some banners that will eventually get posted right,

tied up over there.

But we're gonna go out this way, back to the landing strip.

I was setting up the cones that would go around.

There are four cones that would go around.

Everybody turn around and look at the Chinese base.

Say, hi, Chinese base!

We're gonna keep going straight towards the Chinese base.

You'll see orange cones on your left-hand side.

That has never been done before.

So this is the first time in all of the humans that have ever lived that

seven public marathons, seven continents, seven days.

We're going to be able to do it.

When this watch says 6-17, the seven days are up.

168 hours is over.

So it says 23.46 right now.

So we've got about six and a half hours to

get in under seven days and be the first ever.

Go!

The runners have already completed six out of seven marathons.

Day one in Australia at 40 degrees Celsius.

Day two in Singapore at 100% humidity.

Runs through the chaotic traffic of Cairo, in Russia, the USA, and Chile.

All that's missing now are the six rounds in Antarctica.

It's going. It's tough. But it's fun. I can admit it. It's kind of fun.

It's very challenging.

Lots of rocks. I've twisted my ankle twice.

But that's okay.

I'm learning as I go.

Some runners dream of setting Guinness Book World Records.

Yet gravel and snow make running difficult.

And the cold air burns the lungs.

Nice job!

Looking good!

Looking good!

Good job!

Looking good!

The steep hills in the middle of the course are the runner's nightmare.

Insiders call them the hate hills.

It's all tough.

I'm a big boy.

And nothing's easy about this.

It's all just self-transcendent.

You just got to keep fighting it.

Every time you want to stop, you just don't.

The rocks and the wind, the hills, they're bearing down on me.

I can feel every step.

I feel every pebble.

I feel every bump in the road.

It's grueling at this point.

And the sad news is I still have two and a half more laps to go.

Have I mentioned I hate running?

Almost all the runners have overcome misfortune or illness.

For Dave, too, this is the crowning achievement of a difficult time.

Good job, Dave!

Good job, Dave!

Come on, Dave!

There it is! Done deal!

Yeah!

Come on, Dave!

Woo-hoo!

Come and get it, buddy.

You shouldn't be short.

Now I'm done.

Good job.

I was 285 pounds, and I was a two-pack-a-day smoker in 2012.

And today, here I am.

I've got to get a towel.

Seven continents, seven marathons, six days, 23 hours, 56 minutes.

And a swim off of Antarctica.

You can do anything you put your mind to.

Anything.

Yeah!

Go ahead!

Go ahead!

This shows you what you got inside when everything falls apart, when the wheels

fall off the vehicle, how you get the vehicle to keep moving, it's in your heart.

This just shows you what your heart is made of.

I did, I did, I did, I did, I did it.

It was hard, but I made it happen.

Yes!

Winter is approaching.

In Billingshausen, the rusty buildings must be

repaired before meter-high snow buries everything.

Yet, Russia doesn't provide much money for repairs.

Igor Tikhonov, the head mechanic, sometimes despairs.

Corrugated metal and a couple of wires.

The Russian workmen are masters at patching things together.

And when the ladder isn't long enough, an excavator's shovel extends their reach.

The Russian team has been stationed in the Antarctic for nearly a year.

A year without their families, a supermarket or vacation.

They're never alone when they want to be.

Or in company when they need it.

You have to be cut out for this.

Before he gets Antarctic cabin fever, Igor heads for the Uruguayan station.

They have a drum set there.

Just the thing to let off steam.

It's only five kilometers to the Uruguayan drum set.

But it's quite an undertaking.

The mud is hellish.

Once you get stuck in it, you can't get out without help.

Igor is in luck.

A snowcat from the Uruguayan station heard his radio call for help.

The helpers also have to watch out.

Many have lost their boots irretrievably in the morass.

Everyone is aware that you cannot survive alone out here.

Tequila!

No, vodka!

Together, they head on to the Uruguayan research station.

Despite the challenges, this is Igor's fourth time in the Antarctic Circle.

Here, they say he's been bitten badly by the Antarctic bug.

Igor shares his passion for heavy music with Commander Gustavo Dalmonte.

It's time for a few drum lessons.

Precious moments of diversion from the daily routine.

Take this, all this, all this.

The center.

It's nearly time for the German researchers to depart.

This means all samples to be sent to the laboratory in Jena must be carefully packed.

Daniel Provaznik has collected pellets from the skuas' nests.

They consist of all the indigestible things the birds swallow and regurgitate.

Daniel mostly finds feathers of penguins and tern, fish, and bits of krill in them,

but manufactured trash is appearing in the pellets more frequently.

In March, the final supply flights land at the Chilean airport.

They bring urgently needed supplies for the long winter months, when contact with

the outside world will be nearly impossible.

Commander Sergio Cubillos personally oversees the unloading.

The survival of his troops depends on his logistical planning.

All the worse, that this flight contains less than half the planned provisions.

Priest Palady also prepares for the long period of winter isolation.

Soon, temperatures will fall to 60 degrees below zero, and a walk through the hills

will no longer be possible.

The German researchers and most of the military

take the last plane back to their homelands.

Only an emergency staff remains in the stations.

Then, the really extreme season begins.

Winter in Antarctica.

Antarctic midwinter nights last nearly 20 hours.

Extreme darkness surrounds the research stations on the Fildes Peninsula.

With the darkness comes the cold.

Wind chill temperatures of 60 degrees below zero Celsius.

To combat it, the men of the Bellingshausen research station turn to a

proven method from their Russian homeland.

Maksym Sikorsky, the cook, brought the birch branches from Russia.

They're meant to open They go up in the pores and get the blood circulating.

They go right into the snow.

To cool off.

This is the first time in Antarctica for the four men in the sauna.

Each of them had ideas about what kind of people they'd be spending the winter with.

Anyone who gets sick or injured must be flown out to Chile.

A particular challenge in winter.

The twin otter requires exactly five centimeters of snow on the frozen tarmac

for takeoff and landing.

If there are more, the snow prevents the aircraft from starting.

If there are fewer, the plane slides on the ice.

Carlos Castro, the pilot, has discovered technical defects on the twin otter.

Despite difficult weather, he must deliver the

plane to Chile and exchange it for another.

For safety reasons, the twin otter is always accompanied by a helicopter when it

takes off, which can provide immediate help in an emergency.

The winter pushes Diego Escudero to his limits.

The helicopter only accompanies the twin otter during the critical takeoff phase.

On nearby Nelson Glacier, the pilots train

for rescue missions in dangerous white-outs.

They must keep the overview, even when their

bodies react to disorientation with extreme stress.

Seven Chilean officers' families live in Villa Las Estrellas,

the only civilian settlement on the island.

They import almost daily routines to the end of the earth.

Every morning, Sofía and Seba Castro pick up Matías Cubillos, the commander's son.

Twelve-year-old Sofía doesn't always manage to bring the two little ones to

school on time, even though it's only one hundred and fifty meters away.

Six children attend the little Antarctic school.

Five of them are taught together in the first through third grades.

Sofía is the only pupil in the fifth grade.

Seba and Matías don't really belong here.

Since there's no kindergarten, their teacher, Andrea Carrasco,

started them in school a year early.

Sebastián?

The children must learn to get along.

Whether they like each other or not,

they'll be each other's only playmates for two years.

As a fifth grader, Sofia gets serious lessons from Rojas Rivera.

But even now, research stations are manned by the military.

The ice reaches out nearly 800 meters into the bay.

Penguins have long since left King George Island.

Only leopard seals, and crab-eater seals, and snowy sheathbills still hold out here.

Sergio Copillos is the commander of the Chilean airbase,

he has been stationed in Antarctica for nearly a year.

He is on his way to the neighboring Russian station, Berlingshausen.

Commander Igor Idrisov has a problem.

His 14 men are often left high and dry.

There's an acute shortage of water, which both stations pump from a frozen lake.

Of course, they could melt snow, but that costs energy.

And takes a lot of work.

So it's only viable in emergencies.

The commanders want to find out how high the water level under the lake's ice cover

must be, in order to provide enough for everybody.

Okay.

In the winter, only Vasily Mesera's bulldozer is suited for heavy loads.

The two men from Uruguay have spent a cold night in their stranded snow cat.

Manny Rios just wants to get back to the station.

He gave up trying to repair the vehicle on site a long time ago.

It's three kilometers to the Uruguayan station, but with a heavy bulldozer,

the maneuver takes several hours.

The entrance to the garage is much lower than the

snow cover, Vasily weighs the risks of digging around.

Handling heavy machinery is the greatest accident risk in the Antarctic,

and evacuation is often impossible for weeks.

In their daily interactions, the nations in Antarctica work together unconditionally.

Bellinghausen, the Russian research station, was

founded in 1968 and is the oldest on the island.

Few resources for repairs have reached the Antarctic outpost from Russia.

The station is rusting.

The two youngest station members are Vadim, an oceanographer, and Maxim, a cook.

Maxim is 28 and comes from an industrial city in northwest Russia.

He never would have believed he'd make it to Antarctica.

Fourteen people stay through the winter in Bellinghausen.

Until the scientists return in summer, they make sure the station doesn't fall apart.

Food comes to Antarctica once a year.

In April.

By ship.

One of Maxim's tasks as a cook is to watch over the storage of provisions.

He builds on the wealth of experience of station physician Vladimir Anferteev,

who has completed 62 Russian Antarctic expeditions.

Especially on the topic of eggs.

Normally, they would spoil in about two months.

An Antarctic household tip.

As long as an egg is moved regularly, it won't spoil.

Every three days, it's time to turn the eggs.

The shelf life of the remaining 1,200 eggs can thus be extended by up to a year.

The gentle snowfall is deceiving.

A storm warning has been issued.

In Villa Las Estrellas, Sara Castro immediately picks up her children from school.

In this inhospitable region,

the families have learned to respect the forces of nature.

Far from civilization, Sara has found temporary happiness.

She has already been stationed here with her husband and children for a year.

She can stay one more.

No one knows what effect their stay will have on the children.

A lack of vitamin D can make bones and teeth

soft and contribute to cancer and depression.

Imported bacteria and viruses can scarcely spread in the extreme cold.

As a result, the body's immune system weakens.

But what will happen when the children return to Chile?

On the other hand, family life in this isolation is particularly intense.

The storm brings a wind-chilled temperature of 56 degrees below zero

and wind speeds of up to 196 kilometers per hour.

In Billingshausen, too, the great challenge is to pass the time without

losing your good spirits for days or weeks on end.

One of them always keeps watch in 12-hour shifts.

Today, it's Vasily's turn.

Every couple of hours, Vasily patrols the station.

He's only been here two winters in the Antarctic.

Last year, he stayed home with his wife, children and grandchildren.

Despite the 15,000 kilometer distance,

his thoughts were always with his South Pole machines.

So far, they're running without any problems.

Vasily notes the pressure and the water and oil temperature.

Carlos Castro came to the end of the earth with his

wife and children, so they could become a family again.

During his routines as a pilot, he rarely saw them.

Deceleration, time and togetherness are their goals.

And every little adventure is a gift.

Another motivation drives Commander Sergio Cubillos

to hold down the fort on the most remote post in Chile.

He often sits late at night at his desk in the headquarters.

He has hardly any time for his family.

There aren't many carefree moments for Marcela either.

Whenever it gets a couple degrees warmer, fog rolls in.

Nevertheless, the Russians want to get to the

Drake Passage on the west side of King George Island.

Commander Igor Idrisov drives ahead on the

snowmobile to scope out a safe path for the snowcat.

No easy task in the fog.

A review of the situation takes place in the Artiga station.

The Russians try to agree on a common radio channel with

the Uruguayan military men Manny Rios and Gustavo Dalmonte.

But even this presents problems.

Different languages and meagre English will

make radio communication even more difficult.

More than 50 nations have signed a contract to use the only uninhabited

continent on Earth only for scientific purposes.

There is a great potential for conflict, since gigantic deposits of raw materials

and almost 80% of the Earth's fresh water supply are in Antarctica.

What's more, according to climate change prognoses, Antarctica could be one of the

last inhabitable places for humans in the future.

The Antarctic Treaty was concluded for an indefinite period.

Yet the tendency of some countries to noticeably

increase their presence in Antarctica cannot be ignored.

For years, nobody has checked on the Pre-Rhoda shelter.

Its condition is questionable.

A shelter that isn't one can cost lives in Antarctica, where sudden changes in the

weather make every wilderness expedition an unpredictable risk.

For years, the expedition participants have hoped for money from Russia so they

can modernize the installations on the island.

They haven't seen any yet.

Igor conjures up an effective household remedy for snow boundness.

At least, so long as everybody plays by the rules,

and nobody opens the race for the raw materials.

To keep the peace, the rule is that they never discuss politics.

South Korea's research station, King Sejong, is just a few kilometers away.

But the only way to get there is across the sea, which has been

iced over for months.

Despite their isolation, stubborn guests have

sneaked in during the previous summer season.

Biologist Chung Young Kim uses them for his latest research project.

He picks up a species of mosquito from a special insect trap.

The mosquitoes are deep frozen and sent to research

laboratories in South Korea during the next summer season.

They're probably leaving Antarctica the same way they got here.

Chung Young Kim is mostly interested in the introduced mosquitoes because he's

concerned about the other living creatures entrusted to him.

He's a botanist in the station's greenhouse.

Song Yong Pak, a cook, adds dried mushrooms from Korea to transform the

Antarctic vegetables into bibimbap, the favorite dish of his 17-person winter team.

And not only because it's tasty.

Winter's end is drawing near.

In Billingshausen, the first penguin has been sighted.

Their inflatable boat freshly patched, the Russians venture out to sea on their

first tour of the season.

They're headed for Ardley, the island of penguins, to check

whether the birds have returned after the long winter.

Vladimir, the skipper, will be at the rudder for the first time.

But then, the wind changes.

Ice presses around the boat.

Vadim, the oceanographer, and Vladimir, the

skipper, look for a path through the dangerous chunks.

Maxim has been allowed to come along today.

Though, as the cook, he's irreplaceable.

He has never seen a penguin in his whole life.

Ardley Island is the summer breeding ground for thousands of gen 2 penguins.

They spend the winter on the open sea.

For years, researchers have tried to determine

exactly when they return to their breeding grounds.

On King George Island, this means the winter is over.

But it will take another six months before the next Russian supply ship takes the men

from Berlingshausen home to their families.