Original subtitles

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This is a story of Svalbard...

a land of snow and ice

where a devoted mother

nurtures her young...

and struggles to find food

as her world melts away.

\h\h\h\hIt is a story of a filmmaker who falls in love

and embarks on a quest

that will take him to the ends of the earth.

Theirs is a story that endures

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin a land disappearing before their eyes.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hASGEIR: My name is Asgeir Helgestad.

\h\h\h\hI am a wildlife cameraman from Norway.

\hA few years ago, I met a beautiful polar bear mother

with two little cubs.

I gave her the name Frost.

\h\hNow I will tell you what happened to Frost

over the four years since then.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIt is a story about a gorgeous bear...

\h\h\h\h\h\hand about a world melting away under her feet.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Frost’s home is Svalbard,

a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean

\h\h\hjust 650 miles from the North Pole.

ASGEIR: For the last 20 years this has been my second home.

Here, the amazing light, the vast landscapes, the silence

\h\hand the feeling of being completely alone with nature

\hgive me a peacefulness I cannot find anywhere else.

\h\h\h\hI have spent a lot of time filming ice in Svalbard.

Ice is essential for our planet,

\h\hbut I also think it is extremely beautiful.

\h\h\hIt looks amazingly cold here. And yes, it is cold...

But I am afraid it is not cold enough.

\h\h\h\h\hI met Frost the first time in April 2013.

My snowmobile overheated while I was crossing a frozen fjord,

so I had to stop.

And that’s when I saw her.

Far away in the distance.

Her cubs were so small

\h\h\h\h\h\hthat they were almost impossible to spot.

\h\hI did not film them for very long,

because I thought it was best to leave the little family alone.

\h\hBut in the afternoon, when I drove back along the same route,

they were still there.

Now, Frost had caught a seal,

and she was so busy eating it

that she paid barely any attention to me.

So, I could take a closer look.

But not too close.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hNARRATOR: It’s a brief first encounter,

but its impression is lasting.

\h\h\h\hAsgeir will not see Frost and her cubs

again for several weeks.

In this vast empty land,

\h\h\h\h\hit’s easy to lose track of a wandering bear.

\h\h\h\h\hBut there are other animals to film.

The reindeer here have shorter \h\hlegs and are more compact.

The Arctic fox turns snow white in winter

to blend with the landscape.

And there are some birds hardy enough to remain year-round,

like the rock ptarmigan.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThese resilient residents survive the winter

\h\h\h\hby storing a layer of fat under their heavy coats.

\hLike the fox, the ptarmigan is cloaked in white for the season.

\h\h\hIts thick plumage even covers its feet...

\h\hmaking it easier to walk in the snow.

[wind howling]

\h\h\hASGEIR: Nature comes close out here in the cold.

At negative 22 and a full storm,

\h\h\h\hI really feel how vulnerable I am.

\h\h\hI was so occupied shooting other things,

\h\h\hbut still I could not stop thinking about Frost.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThere was something special about her,

\h\h\h\h\hso I went out looking for her again.

\h\h\h\h\hIt was three weeks since last time I’d seen her.

But after four days I was lucky to find her tracks.

\h\h\h\hEven though I didn’t know her well,

\h\h\h\h\h\hit was like meeting an old friend.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hThe cubs had already grown a surprising amount,

and this time I stayed with the family for several days.

It became a magical experience.

I was so impressed with Frost.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hShe showed me aspects of polar bear life

I had never seen before.

\h\h\h\hI wanted to give her two daughters names expressing hope,

so they became Light and Lucky.

\h\h\h\h\hFrost was the most amazing mom I had ever seen.

\h\h\h\hShe was such a kind and caring mother.

\h\h\h\hAnd, unless she was asleep or hunting,

\h\h\h\hshe spent all her time playing with her two daughters.

♪ ♪

\h\hOne night the family rested 200 yards above me

on a small slope.

Frost had been following \hme for over six hours,

wondering who I was.

What I did not know was that

\h\h\hshe had decided to take a closer look at me.

But Frost was not stupid.

Instead of going straight to me,

\h\hshe pretended to play with her cubs...

\h\h\hAt the same time she used her back legs

\h\h\hto push herself over a little ridge.

\h\h\h\hFirst she stopped for a moment until Lucky pushed her.

\h\hNow she had an excuse to slide all the way down to me.

\h\h\hI will admit that it scared the wits out of me.

\h\h\h\h\hAlthough Frost could be dangerous to me,

she had made a deep impression.

\h\hIn the years I have worked as a cameraman,

I have met many wild animals,

\hbut none has touched me as strongly as her.

NARRATOR: In the old days,

Svalbard was a dangerous \hplace for polar bears.

\hPolar bear hunting was legal until 1973.

\h\h\h\h\hThe adult bears were skinned to make coats and rugs.

\h\hTheir cubs were often sold to zoos.

\h\hThe impact on the bear population was devastating.

\hBetween 1870 and 1973, 30,000 bears

were killed on Svalbard and the nearby islands.

Polar bears were nearly wiped out.

\h\h\hBut they have started to recover.

\h\h\h\h\hNow there are nearly 300 on Svalbard.

Today, however, they face a new threat even more dire...

♪ ♪

... climate change.

\h\hThis land of ice and snow is melting.

The Arctic is warming almost twice as fast as elsewhere.

\h\h\hFor polar bears like Frost, it spells disaster.

[roar of avalanche]

♪ ♪

As temperatures rise,

\h\hthe frozen landscape of Svalbard is disintegrating.

Old photographs of the glaciers \hreveal the extent of change.

♪ ♪

\hSvalbard is losing its protective armor of ice,

\h\h\h\h\hexposing bare earth to the elements.

\hNow even the ground itself is melting and falling apart.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hOn Svalbard, the surface layer of earth and rock

stays frozen all year.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThis permafrost extends hundreds of feet deep.

\h\hOnly the top four to six feet melt in summer.

\hBut this active layer is growing.

\h\hWarmer temperatures are penetrating deeper.

No longer locked in ice,

\h\h\h\h\h\hthawing hillsides become unstable and collapse.

\hSvalbard used to be a polar desert,

too cold and dry for rain.

Now... it rains a lot.

[thunder]

\h\h\h\hSea ice typically forms an insulating layer

\h\h\hbetween the warm water and the cold air.

\hWithout that barrier of ice, the air grows warmer

and collects water vapor from the sea.

♪ ♪

That moisture falls, not as snow but as rain -- even in winter.

\h\h\hASGEIR: Ring seals are an important part of Frost’s diet,

but when the sea ice disappears, the seals disappear too.

The most common way of hunting

\h\h\his to wait at the seals’ breathing holes.

\h\h\h\hFrost could wait for several hours at such a hole.

[splash]

But, even though she was patient,

she did not always succeed.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\hIt is dramatic to see the loss of sea ice,

as it covers such a large area.

During my lifetime, the amount \h\hof sea ice on the polar sea

\h\hhas been reduced more than 40 percent.

\h\hMost likely, my generation will see

all sea ice disappear from the North Pole during the summer.

That’s terrifying!

\hWhen I went out to look for Frost

in the late winter of 2014,

\h\h\hthere was hardly any ice in her fjords.

\h\hIt was very difficult for me to find her again.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: With no sign of Frost in early 2014,

the seasons turn.

Starting in mid-April,

\h\hthe midnight sun shines 24 hours a day on Svalbard.

\hWhile the land remains in the grip of winter...

\h... under the ice, it’s already spring.

\h\hHere -- where the temperature always hovers around freezing --

\hthe sunshine spurs a massive bloom of algae

on the underside of the ice sheet.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\h\hTiny crustaceans gather to feast on the algae.

These creatures -- called copepods --

are up to 70 percent fat.

They multiply by the trillions,

turning the sea into a rich plankton soup.

Krill and small fish feed on the copepods.

And they, in turn, provide a feast for larger animals.

\h\hWithout the sea ice, the algae will disappear,

\h\hand so will the fat-rich plankton.

\h\h\h\hThe entire Arctic food chain will collapse,

\h\h\h\hfrom the smallest creatures in the ocean...

to the largest on Earth.

♪ ♪

Many species of whales migrate here in summer

to enjoy the bounty of the most \hproductive seas in the world.

But with no ice, and no algae, \h\hthis spectacle will vanish.

\hIn summer, polar bears here are forced to either

stay on land on Svalbard

\hor follow the retreating ice north towards the pole,

\h\hbut the distance to reach the ice is becoming too far.

\h\h\hAsgeir has no idea which option Frost takes.

Summer 2014 comes and goes

with no sign of the mother and her cubs.

♪ ♪

\h\hAfter four months of non-stop daylight,

\h\hthe skies begin to dim and the temperatures drop.

Fall arrives.

\h\h\h\h\hSoon darkness settles over Svalbard.

\h\h\hThe only light comes from the moon,

and the iridescent glow of the northern lights.

Winter descends on Svalbard once more,

bringing with it the ice.

\h\h\hIn early 2015, Asgeir returns in search of Frost.

But it’s the cubs who turn up first.

\h\hASGEIR: A colleague of mine had seen Lucky

out on the ice in March.

\h\hShe was now two years old and already a skilled hunter.

This was good news.

\h\h\hFrost had probably left her quite recently,

\h\h\hbut Lucky had made the transition

to an independent she-bear.

He told me that Lucky

\hwas the most playful bear he had ever seen.

This didn’t surprise me.

I remembered how she had played

\h\h\hwith her mother when she was little.

\h\hNARRATOR: But Lucky’s good fortune is about to run out.

\h\hOn March 20, 2015, there is a total solar eclipse on Svalbard,

\h\h\h\h\h\hattracting thousands of tourists.

\h\h\h\hSome of them set up camp outside Longyearbyen,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe largest settlement on the island.

\h\h\h\h\hCamps are a natural attraction for a curious bear

and need to be guarded.

\h\h\hLucky is fearless and strolls into a tented camp.

[gunshot]

♪ ♪

Local scientists are able to identify her,

as they’ve met her before.

Researchers on Svalbard capture

\h\h\hbetween 50 and 100 bears every year

\h\h\h\has they study the impact of climate change.

\h\h\hIn order to weigh and examine the bears,

they must sedate them,

sometimes also fitting them with radio collars

to track their movements.

Not only Lucky, but both Light and Frost

\h\hhave been through this process before.

\h\h\h\hThey were tagged the previous year, in April 2014.

When Asgeir hears of Lucky’s \h\hdeath during the eclipse,

he gets more bad news.

Light is also dead.

She was found two days after she was tagged...

\h\h\h\h\hperhaps a bad reaction to the drugs.

\hASGEIR: Light and Lucky were a symbol of the future for me.

Now they had both died.

\h\hThis made it even more important for me

\h\h\hto find out what had happened to Frost.

I had to find her.

NARRATOR: Summer arrives.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIf Frost is alive, she is alone...

both her cubs now dead.

\h\h\h\hAsgeir hasn’t laid eyes on her for two years.

\h\hASGEIR: I knew where to look for her in the winter,

\h\h\hbut in the summer she could be anywhere.

♪ ♪

\h\hNARRATOR: Summer brings a whole new cast of characters

to Svalbard.

\hHuge flocks of birds arrive from the south.

[bird chirping]

\h\h\h\h\h\hFor reindeer, summer is calving season.

For the ptarmigan, it’s time to change

\h\hfrom winter white to a summer wardrobe.

When the ice disappears,

\h\hthe sea’s bounty of fatty crustaceans

\h\h\his accessible to all those with wings and fins.

Blue whales journey thousands \h\h\hof miles for the feast.

\h\hFlocks of little auks have timed their arrival perfectly.

\h\h\h\hTheir laughing calls echo off the rocky hillsides.

[auks chattering]

Thick-billed murres are

much larger cousins of the little auks.

\h\h\h\h\h\hThey’ve spent the winter out on the open water

\h\h\hand now return to their breeding colonies in summer.

[murres crying]

\hThe birds flock to the foot of glaciers

\h\hthat dip their toes in the ocean.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\hSvalbard has about 1,100 glaciers,

\h\hmany stretching down to the coast.

In summer, rivers of cold fresh meltwater

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hrun under these glaciers and pour into the sea.

\h\hFreshwater is more buoyant than saltwater,

so it floats up to the surface,

\hcarrying copepods and other plankton with it.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hSeabirds take advantage of the opportunity.

\hKittiwakes gather by the thousands to gorge

on the fatty crustaceans \h\hand fish that follow.

\h\h\hAs they bring food to their young on the cliffs,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthey transfer nutrients from sea to land.

\h\hTheir droppings fertilize the soil,

spurring the growth of food for the reindeer.

All around the rookeries, the land is lush with vegetation.

So even the terrestrial grazers

\h\h\hdepend on the algae that grows under the ice.

By stealing from the birds’ nests,

\h\h\hthe fox is also nourished by the sea.

\hTo avoid foxes, some birds nest on the smaller islands,

\h\h\hbecause foxes don’t like to swim.

[birds chirping]

Polar bears, on the other hand,

\h\hare supreme swimmers and frequently visit the islands.

\h\h\hThose that choose to stay on Svalbard in summer

\h\h\hrather than traveling north on the retreating ice

feast on eggs and chicks.

\h\h\h\h\hThere are barnacle geese and pink-footed geese,

dunlins, loons, long-tailed \h\h\hducks, and many more.

♪ ♪

For the bears, it’s a buffet.

\h\hASGEIR: That’s why I went out to these islands

to look for Frost.

\h\hI saw several polar bears on these islands,

but none of them was her.

\h\h\hFrost might have followed the ice shelf

\h\h\h\h\h\hwhen the ice retreated in the summer.

\h\hBut she would then have to swim more than 60 miles

\h\hback to Svalbard in order to give birth the following winter.

\h\hWherever she was, I couldn’t find her.

\h\hNARRATOR: In December 2015, the brunt of winter

brings bitter cold.

[wind howling]

♪ ♪

But then, on New Year’s Eve, the temperature hits 46 degrees...

... accompanied by heavy rain.

\h\hVery strange weather for the middle of winter.

♪ ♪

ASGEIR: In mid-February,

\h\h\h\hwhen the sun returned to Svalbard

after four months of darkness,

I went to look for Frost again.

I looked for her in all the fjords

where I had seen her before.

\hThese fjords had always been covered

\hwith a thick layer of ice in the winter,

but now it was open water.

This was no longer a hunting \h\hground for a polar bear.

The seals had nowhere to rest.

\h\hIt was only in some bays with shallow water

\h\hthat the ice had formed a small crust.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: A thin coating of ice and snow

\h\hisn’t enough for the ring seals to build caves

in which to give birth.

\h\h\h\hThey need a thick layer of old, cracked ice

covered with deep snow drifts.

But that is nowhere to be found.

\h\h\h\hForced to give birth out in the open,

\h\h\h\htheir exposed pups are easy targets

for foxes and polar bears.

In the winter of 2016,

\h\hno seal pups survive on the west coast of Svalbard.

\h\h\h\h\hASGEIR: After having looked for Frost

for three weeks without success,

I traveled across to the east coast

as there is usually much more ice there.

\h\h\hAnd here I was back in the company of bears.

\h\hAmong them there was a small she-bear.

\h\h\h\hAnd she was always in the company of a large male.

But she wasn’t Frost.

♪ ♪

In spring 2016 I was about to

\hgive up finding Frost ever again.

Then, one day in May, I checked \ha camera trap outside a cabin

\h\h\h\hwhere I had filmed Frost several times before.

\h\h\h\h\hThe camera was there because polar bears

\hoften break into these cabins looking for food.

\h\h\hThe first clip showed a young male testing the door.

\h\hThe next clip was far more interesting.

It was from the previous March, \h\h2015, and it showed Lucky,

the day before she was shot at the tent camp,

just three miles away.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hThen... I saw the bear I was looking for.

It was Frost!

\hShe had come to this cabin on the 26th of December 2015,

just five months ago.

At that time of year she should have been

inside a den, with newborn cubs.

\h\h\h\hShe looked so well-fed and healthy

that I could not understand why she had not given birth.

\hBut at least I knew she was alive just a few months ago.

And now I was more determined \h\hthan ever to find Frost.

[wind howling]

NARRATOR: Asgeir’s search for Frost must wait another year.

\h\h\h\h\hHe returns to Svalbard in April 2017,

four years since he first laid eyes on the polar bear mother.

♪ ♪

\hASGEIR: When I arrived at the cabin I often use,

I quickly saw that someone had been there before me.

And they did not use the door.

Right outside the door I found bear tracks from that same day.

Could it be Frost?

The next day was glorious,

\h\h\hand I had a fantastic view over the whole fjord.

\hThere were a lot of seals in sight,

\h\h\h\hwhich is a good sign when looking for polar bears.

\hBoth ring seals and bearded seals

lay on the ice enjoying the sun.

\h\h\hAnd here I found what I had looked for so many times;

\hfresh tracks of a she-bear with cubs.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hAnd finally I saw a bear, a rather big bear,

one I had seen so many times before.

It was Frost.

I don’t know if I can explain

\h\h\hhow happy I was to meet Frost again.

\h\h\h\hAnd to see that she had given birth to two little cubs.

Since polar bears on Svalbard \hare born around Christmas,

the cubs were about three and a half months old now.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hI have to admit I was quite surprised to see that

\h\hshe had a big radio collar around her neck.

I learned she had been tagged by scientists the previous month.

\h\hIn addition to the collar she had a number on her back,

\h\hmaking her easy to identify from the air.

\hThe scientists that tagged her examined her cubs also --

a male and a female.

\hWhat should I call these two little furry snowballs?

\h\h\hI wished for them to have a lot of snow and ice

\hin their future, and so they became Snow and Ice.

\h\h\hFrost used all her weight and power

\hin search for seal caves under the snow.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\hIn the end, she managed to catch a seal.

But she was so busy eating it that she did not notice

that a big male bear was heading straight for her.

\hMale bears are the most dangerous thing

for polar bear cubs.

\h\h\h\hIf they can catch them they will eat them.

♪ ♪

I looked at Frost and I looked at the big male.

What could I do?

Nothing.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIn the last minute, she noticed him.

\h\h\h\hI was so pleased that the male bear seemed

more interested in the carcass \hthan he was in Snow and Ice.

\h\h\hWhen he finally left, Frost returned.

♪ ♪

She came all the way back to me,

\h\hand I had to make sure she did not get too close.

\hIt almost seemed like she wanted me

\h\h\hto watch over them when they were sleeping.

I felt so accepted and so lucky!

♪ ♪

As Frost roused her cubs,

they almost seemed reluctant to leave.

And I was sorry to see them go.

\h\h\hI really hoped I would meet them again,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwithout having to search for several more years.

It’s been four years

\h\h\h\h\hsince I first met Frost with Light and Lucky.

Her story has been dramatic,

\h\hand so are the changes taking place in the Arctic.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThey are affecting the whole planet.

\h\h\hThe future of Frost, Snow and Ice

\h\hdepends on what happens to the climate in the end.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hI do not think I can forget about them.

\hAnd I cannot ignore what is happening to their home.

But it is my home too.

\h\hThis planet is home to all of us.

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