Original subtitles

*

*

NARRATOR: Summer in Antarctica.

The temperature is almost always below freezing.

Storms can hit in a heartbeat, and last for weeks.

CHRISTIAN: I guess we've been in this tent, what, about 16 hours?

That's snow right there.

LARS: We're in some pretty thick ice here.

MAN: I can't see [bleep] anymore.

NARRATOR: But as brutal as summer can be,

winter is much worse.

24 hours of darkness.

Winds at up to 200 miles per hour.

And almost no flights on or off the continent.

Most science grinds to a halt

as humanity races to flee winter's wrath.

Now, it's just days away.

WOMAN: Winter is coming!

NARRATOR: And time is running out.

ROHAN: It's getting to the point

where now we haven't got much data.

So, we really need to get some information.

REGINA: Gun!

BEN: Oh [bleep] Right behind us!

NARRATOR: To escape the frozen continent.

ROB: Well, it's really, very much unknown out here.

We need to get all the equipment and everything ready.

WALKER: We're at the beginning of the culmination

of our mission.

MORRISON: Shut down. Fire.

FIREMAN: Smoke in Aux One.

WALKER: Ocean Giant, break away, we have a collision imminent.

*

*

ARI FRIEDLAENDER: We're not getting anything.

I just want to hear it and know that we're in the right place.

NARRATOR: It's the end of the first night in months.

ARI: We're like right in the middle of the bay

right now, too.

NARRATOR: Starting now, daylight will decrease every day

until it quickly disappears altogether.

ARI: We've got about two or three hours

before we have to start leaving to get home.

First light, we're gonna get into a Zodiac to find the tag.

NARRATOR: Dr. Ari Friedlaender and his team

have spent weeks studying humpback and minke whales,

using dart biopsy and suction-mounted data loggers

to study the marine ecosystem as the climate changes.

ARI: These whales are one part of a very big ecosystem,

but the more things we can learn about whales

makes it easy to understand how changes in the environment

will affect our ecosystem in the future.

There's nothing.

Not getting anything back.

Well, that sucks.

NARRATOR: But tagging a whale means nothing

if they can't recover the device,

and with the savage Antarctic winter bearing down on them,

their expedition ends tomorrow.

ARI: The suction cup tags archive all the data on them,

so we have to retrieve that tag to get anything back.

Uh, the tag has a VHF transmitter in it, though,

that sends out a signal every time the tag is at the surface,

and we use a handheld antenna,

like you would in any other field,

to locate where that whale is.

There are still several things that could possibly go wrong.

First off, the whale may decide to leave this bay and take off

and go somewhere completely out of range.

The other possibility is that the tag comes off the whale

and it ends up under sea ice, and if that's the case,

if the antenna from the VHF transmitter

isn't in air, we won't hear it.

[chirping]

Uh.

That was a good hit.

Not consistent.

[chirp]

Yep, just heard it.

[chirp]

That was a good hit.

The gain is up really high,

which means that we're probably pretty far.

We're still about five miles from that glacier face

where we tagged it.

When we got a couple of good hits,

that's probably an arch, when it's diving,

the antenna hits a little higher,

and those little low beeps

are probably just when it's low in the water.

That sound is so comforting, though,

just to know that you're near the tag.

I'll feel much better when I get the tag back.

Cool.

Morning's gonna be kind of nerve-racking.

NICK: Yeah, you'll probably want to go out early

before first light.

ARI: Yeah, for sure.

NICK: Let's find these whales.

*

WRIGHT: Helmsman, steady on course 155.

HELMSMAN: Steady on course 155, aye.

NARRATOR: The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Polar Star

is at the mouth of McMurdo Sound,

just a few miles from shore.

WRIGHT: Come all ahead, five.

HELMSMAN: All head five, aye.

NARRATOR: The crew spent the last week

smashing a path through the ice,

to allow a cargo ship to reach the continent.

Now, the Ocean Giant is here.

MATTHEW WALKER: We're at the beginning

of the culmination of our mission.

WRIGHT: Alright everybody, this is gonna be the brief

for the close ice escort of motor vessel Ocean Giant.

As Polar Star, we'll break a course through the channel

to the approach channel.

WALKER: I'll, uh, you guys can see this,

we have the Ocean Giant about four miles away.

We're sitting here at the fast ice edge,

ready to escort her into McMurdo.

Any questions?

Continue, ops.

WRIGHT: Aye, aye.

SPOTTER: Aloftcon, fantail, we see 1,100 yards, over.

WOMAN: Fantail, aloftcon, 1,100 yards.

WALKER: Ocean Giant, Polar Star 1-6, over.

WALKER: In the procedure I would like to have you remain

300 yards off our stern, following in our wake.

It's gonna be up close and personal at 300 yards.

WALKER: We look forward to getting you through the ice.

Have a safe voyage. We'll be right in front of you.

Get her underway, ops.

WRIGHT: Helm, center line ahead, one.

Sir, we have the brash ice coming up.

We're about a half mile out from it.

WALKER: Roger.

NARRATOR: Brash ice is made up of small chunks that remain

after large sheets have been broken up.

Polar Star has to lead the Ocean Giant through it,

to protect her hull from being punctured.

WALKER: We'd like to proceed at approximately three knots,

but we can adjust speed as you feel comfortable, over.

WALKER: This is the most high-risk maneuver

that a ship captain can perform.

Two very, very large ships,

weighing hundreds of thousands of tons,

operating in very, very close quarters.

So we're not gonna have very much reaction time

if something does occur.

SPOTTER: Aloftcon, flight deck, we see 625 yards.

WALKER: We have to stay close together,

'cause if he's too far away from me,

I can't protect him from the ice.

My ship is designed to push that ice out of the way,

and his ship's designed to carry cargo

and resupply the continent.

NARRATOR: To deflect all the brash ice,

the Polar Star has to be less than a thousand feet

in front of the Ocean Giant.

If the cutter stops for any reason,

the 545-foot, 15,000-ton container ship

won't have time to avoid a collision.

MAN: So we're gonna go with three on this side,

two more on that side.

Give me some slack here, man.

MAN: Let's drop this one down.

BRAUN: Putting the fendering system together

on the stern here,

just kind of a precautionary measure

if we do have to slow down

and they come up on our stern a little too fast,

we've got some kind of buffer

to kind of save our hull from getting damaged.

Double check your knots,

let them tie that on there, grab another fender.

MAN: Roger. BRAUN: Keep moving forward.

WRIGHT: I'd like to set the RMD.

MAN ON RADIO: Roger.

MAN: Now, set the Restrictive Maneuvering Doctrine.

KARA BURNS: RMD is

the Restrictive Maneuvering Doctrine.

Our sole goal is to keep the lights on and propulsion going,

even if that means we're gonna destroy a piece of equipment,

that's what we're gonna do,

because we don't want to put the ship in danger.

NARRATOR: As simple as it sounds,

propulsion has been a major problem this season.

[rattling]

WALKER: Hey, what just happened?

NARRATOR: The 40-year-old ship

has already cracked thrust bearings...

...and almost lost a critical anti-rotation bar.

If she breaks down now,

the results would be catastrophic.

WALKER: Ocean Giant, in the event of an emergency

I am going to turn to port,

and I want you to turn to starboard

and remain in the channel

and hug the west side of the channel, over.

WALKER: This is the surgeon cutting that last artery,

that if I miss that cut the patient dies.

NARRATOR: Just to the north,

near the edge of the sea ice in McMurdo Sound.

NARRATOR: After a season of disappointment,

the marine megafauna team

has one last flight to study killer whales.

NARRATOR: They're working in the Ross Sea,

which makes up barely 3% of the Southern Ocean...

but is home to thousands of killer whales.

[killer whale squeaking]

Learning how these top predators interact

with this unique ecosystem...

[squealing]

...could help world governments

establish the largest marine protected area on the planet

and keep the complex food web intact.

REGINA EISERT: This is the last opportunity

to understand how our intact marine ecosystem works.

We know what we need to do, but we're almost out of time.

Our ideal scenario would be, we go out every day,

we get lots of whales, we get lots of photos

and lots of biopsy samples and lots of GoPro footage.

We haven't gotten a lot of samples yet.

It's frustrating when I can't do my work.

ROHAN CURREY: It's getting to the point

where now we haven't got much data,

so we really need to get some information.

NARRATOR: They're working along the channel

opened by the Polar Star, to find animals.

REGINA: See anything?

BEN SHARP: Not yet.

NARRATOR: But with winter right around the corner,

their time on the ice is nearly up.

REGINA: I see two penguins.

*

BEN: That ice is disintegrating as fast as it is,

and it all coming apart,

the whales have so many options for new places to feed

and places where we can't land the helicopter,

because there's too many cracks and too much crappy ice,

so we're stuck out here.

I didn't see anything, and I don't know...

I don't know that we have any options,

because we know the whales are further west

and we know we can't go further west...

REGINA: What happens if we start walking?

BEN: That's a good question.

I would be willing to do it, but you have to remember

these binoculars can see a long ways,

and I haven't seen anything, so.

Regina is in charge, so she will make decisions

about things like packing up, leaving,

moving to other locations, et cetera, and, you know,

I will freely acknowledge, I'm, you know,

the most impatient when there's not whales.

A bit of conflict might be inevitable.

It would be a long walk.

REGINA: I suggest it's what we do, please.

Why don't we just get the rifles ready to go.

This is a modified tranquilizer gun.

The dart has a biopsy tip on it, and it's tethered to a line,

here, that goes into the barrel like this.

BEN: Well, let's continue with the gear that way.

REGINA: Okay, let's go that way.

BEN: I'll pull the sled.

REGINA: Of a choice between going somewhere

and standing around, I'm gonna go somewhere.

BEN: You know, this is just about the same place

we were yesterday.

REGINA: That's true.

BEN: We got nothing.

REGINA: You have to be very lucky

and you have to be very determined.

We're getting a bit desperate now

'cause it's the last week

and we're definitely kind of extending it further,

we're just not willing to give up on this season just yet.

[blows]

Ah!

BEN: [bleep] Where's my [bleep] gun? [bleep]

They're right behind us.

Regina, wait!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, right there.

*

*

[blows]

REGINA: Ah! [bleep]

NARRATOR: After a season of frustration...

BEN: Right there.

NARRATOR: Regina and her team have a killer whale in sight.

BEN: It's coming towards the edge.

NARRATOR: Now they just need it to be in range.

REGINA: Often the whales pop up out of nowhere,

but you've got half a second to take your aim,

because the thing's moving,

and you need to shoot it while its moving,

and it's only above the water for a very short period.

BEN: It's coming this way, Rohan.

Right there. [bleep]

*

[pop]

REGINA: Hey!

BEN: Awesome!

ROHAN: Perfect.

REGINA: It's alright, you're good.

BEN: There's a little piece of blubber and skin,

it'll take a little piece of skin,

smaller than the end of my fingernail,

but that's enough for us to do genetics

and also stable isotope analysis.

Stable isotopes allow us to position

where the animal's eating in the food chain,

and so it helps us to reconstruct

what the diet of the whale is.

Once we match those with the photo IDs,

we start to understand family structure

and population size.

NARRATOR: Information from a single whale

helps the team learn about the individual,

but multiple samples help them understand

a section of the population,

and that's the goal they've been working toward all season.

BEN: Regina!

Regina!

REGINA: There's the other one.

Success is if you get any samples,

but we need as many killer whales as we can.

ROHAN: There's a big male out over here.

BEN: There he is.

[pop]

Got him? Yup, he reacted.

ROHAN: So there's a group right out over there.

BEN: There's more out there.

REGINA: I hate to say it, but I told you there would be whales.

BEN: Saw another one coming.

[whale blows]

Go ahead, go ahead. Go for the other gun.

REGINA: Where's the other rifle?

BEN: Go for the other gun right there.

*

[pop]

BEN: Got her?

I didn't even see it.

Good shot.

REGINA: I'm very pleased with our samples

because it was a lot of work getting them.

As opposed to some days

you've got 50 whales milling around

and they're just all over the place

and you don't know what to shoot first.

We had to run up and down the ice edge,

and there were one or two animals at a time,

we had to chase them.

BEN: Woo hooo.

Well, we finally saw some whales.

We had to move fast to get to them.

Here we go! Here we go!

He's closer.

He's right there, right there.

[pop]

Nice shot.

Regina just, um, got a biopsy

from that second big male in that group.

Nice. Right there.

We got six biopsies.

REGINA: Hey!

BEN: I think we did really good on the photo IDs.

That first group was the same group over and over again,

so we probably got that whole family group.

Regina found a place where the whales are,

Regina ended up getting the biopsies and got good data.

As we work it up, we're going to be able to do a lot with it.

Good day.

Alright, we did good.

[blows]

*

*

[beep beep]

TOM ARNOLD: This is a satellite phone,

so it's connecting through orbital satellites,

um, so we can phone back to Scott Base to check in.

NARRATOR: The Ross Ice Shelf team

is hundreds of miles from any base,

to study a giant ice cube the size of France.

TOM: We're gonna get on the move.

NARRATOR: Over the next three years,

they hope to learn about the ice shelf's past

in order to help predict its future.

Because this frozen mass acts like a dam,

and the ice sheet behind it is like a frozen river.

If the dam breaks, the river will flow into the ocean,

in this case unleashing 26 million gigatons,

threatening coastal areas across the globe

where hundreds of millions of people live.

TOM: It's three-plus years in the making

to actually get to the continent itself.

It's a massive deal,

there's a lot of logistics that are involved

in getting people, equipment on the ice,

so we're hoping to get the science objectives achieved.

NARRATOR: Before they can leave their research site,

they need supplies to set up a more permanent camp

that has to survive the coming winter.

[phone rings]

MAN: Hey, Tom, can you hear me alright?

TOM: Yeah, it's not too bad.

MAN: Um, has Rob started the ski-way yet?

SHUL: Our Basler flight will,

we're trying to tack that on today.

How does that work for you?

TOM: Okay.

SHUL: Fantastic.

TOM: Thanks, mate, see ya.

So, I guess we have a plane coming today.

The plane will be here at some stage this morning.

ROB TEASDALE: Need to get that track busted out, ASAP.

We're sort of already a bit behind the 8-ball.

NARRATOR: A DC-3 aircraft is already leaving Scott Base.

Rob has to have a runway ready before it arrives,

and all he has to work with

is a snow machine and a pull-behind grader.

ROB: We've already had a couple of weather days getting here,

you know, we were slowed down because of the flat tires.

I would have liked to have been started on that already,

and at least have it halfway done.

[motor starts]

There we go.

Alright, let's go build a ski-way.

The idea of grooming a ski-way

is to flatten the snow as much as possible

for the pilot to be able to land their plane,

which is not so easy, you know,

out in basically the middle of nowhere.

It has to be flat, and it has to be uniformly hard.

It is a lot of work, and it's physically quite demanding,

but you want the pilots to feel comfortable

with what they're landing on,

and you don't want the plane crashing.

We need an extended period of time to build a ski-way,

but the reality is we're out of time,

so we're going to have to see what happens.

You try and do the best with what you've got.

As long as our pilots think I did good work,

that's really all that counts.

This is it. Yeah.

He's just banking around to line himself up.

TOM: If the pilots aren't happy with the runway,

we'll have to completely start this whole process over again.

CHRISTIAN OHNEISER: Oh, game on.

ROB: There you go.

Come on down, baby.

That tail wheel's digging in,

probably a bit more than they're comfortable with.

I think it looks pretty good.

Well, it's down.

It didn't crash.

TOM: Hey, what's up, mate?

Good. How are ya?

MAN: Yeah, good, Tom.

CHRISTIAN: Awesome, alright. Well, there we go. [laughs]

So we're establishing a base camp for future seasons,

and this year it's essentially a small crew

compared with what's gonna be happening

in the following season

when there'll be larger crews, more scientists.

TOM: Shuffle it out so we don't have to go down the ramp.

NARRATOR: The semi-permanent camp will house 25 people

and 24 tons of equipment,

and it has to survive two more brutal winters.

All of it has to be set up

before the DC-3 returns to pick up the bulk of the team.

*

MAN: Can you get a reading?

SPOTTER: Aloftcon, flight deck.

500 yards.

WRIGHT: 500 yards, aye. Boatswains...

BOATSWAIN: Do you want me to come to the right?

WRIGHT: No, see how there's a natural path through here?

You just follow that.

BOATSWAIN: Aye.

NARRATOR: The Polar Star is leading the Ocean Giant to shore

through brash ice.

WALKER: There's a lot of ice getting between us.

WALKER: You'll see big chunks of ice flow up,

get kicked up along his hull,

and every time that does, I cringe

and hope that it doesn't slice his hull open.

WRIGHT: 400 yards, aye.

NARRATOR: The two massive ships are traveling at three knots.

MAN: This is fast.

NARRATOR: And maintaining at least 300 yards' distance

is absolutely critical.

WALKER: That ship is 80,000 tons.

If something should happen with propulsion,

it's going to crash into me.

So, it's very disconcerting for me.

MAN: They seem closer now.

SPOTTER: Yeah.

[alarm sounds]

MORRISON: Wait, hey, hey!

MAN: It's number two, I think.

No, it's number three.

BURNS: Con, main control. We are losing number one.

WOMAN: Main gas turbine.

WRIGHT: Get it back.

MORRISON: We had rising temperatures

that indicated a fire.

Request to set general emergency

in accordance with the main space fire doctrine.

FIREMAN: Black smoke at Aux One.

BURNS: Let's get that boundary secure

so we don't lose this area.

WALKER: [bleep]

Ocean Giant, break away, break away.

I've lost my propulsion.

So, we have a collision imminent.

[alarm]

MORRISON: We had rising temperatures

that indicated a fire.

FIREMAN: Smoke in Aux One.

BURNS: Let's get that boundary secure

so we don't lose this area.

NARRATOR: The Polar Star could have a fire

in one of her engines.

MAN: 1,200 degrees.

NARRATOR: And the Ocean Giant is just 300 yards off her stern.

MAN: It's steadily rising.

NARRATOR: They're cutting power to help fight the blaze.

BURNS: I just need you to turn the switch and shut them down.

MORRISON: Pull it.

NARRATOR: And maneuvering on just two propellers

instead of three.

MAN: Alright, tripped.

WALKER: Ocean Giant, break away, break away.

I've lost my propulsion, so we have a collision imminent.

SPOTTER: Aloftcon, fantail, we see 100 yards, over.

WALKER: Main control.

It's imperative that we do everything in our power

to keep forward momentum.

We cannot stop.

MORRISON: Roger.

FIREMAN: Everybody set? 23!

FIREMAN: Roger!

WALKER: The fire on board could shut down propulsion,

and, if that happens, it could be catastrophic

for everybody on both ships.

MORRISON: The temperatures are stable.

SPOTTER: Oh, my God.

That was just a couple hundred yards.

WALKER: Ocean Giant to Polar Star,

we're clear of the mouth of the channel.

So I'll have you proceed through the turning basin

leading to the ice pier.

WALKER: Thank you very much, sir.

Out.

BURNS: Electrical components will start to melt

and decompose,

and that'll start a smoke and a spark

and potentially turn into a fire.

WALKER: Some of the electronic equipment,

nobody has equipment like this anymore.

Those circuits in there are probably 45 to 50 years old.

You never know when it's gonna fail.

C'mon, old girl, you can do it.

*

[honk]

*

BEN: Hey.

All of that whale chasing.

This is what we're after.

NARRATOR: At Scott Base, the marine megafauna team

is in the Hillary Field Center,

a state-of-the-art research lab on site.

REGINA: Just putting some alcohol

into these vials for the DNA samples.

The main analyses we do from the biopsy samples

is DNA analysis,

and we also would like to do stable isotopes,

which is a chemical marker for where you are in the food chain.

So, here's the dart.

Alright, let's see what we've got.

We've unscrewed the tether tail,

so this is just the dart body with the biopsy tip.

There it is.

Oh, that's a very nice biopsy.

Look, nice, long core.

You can see it's a very small cut.

This is the skin proper, right here,

and there's a subdermal layer,

and then you can see where that merges

into the subcutaneous fat.

Oh, wow, look at this.

Going to be something interesting.

So that's the actual skin surface.

You can see this texture of the subcutaneous fat here,

and that's the adipose tissue right there.

This is pretty fun, isn't it?

BEN: Yeah, that's cool.

REGINA: Alright, that goes in the alcohol.

We started the killer whale program

from scratch three years ago,

and that was the first killer whale program

ever run out of Scott Base.

It's very, very exciting for us.

And the reason we're really interested in killer whales

is they are potentially affected by a legal fishery

that's operating in the Ross Sea,

so we feel a special responsibility

to make sure that that's not damaging the environment,

so we're basically on a mission from the government

to provide the data for evidence-based management.

*

NARRATOR: In October of 2016, the team's research

contributed to a huge global conservation effort.

Part of the Southern Ocean

was declared a marine protected area.

The biggest in history.

REGINA: I've probably spent years of my life

writing very small things on very small vials.

Important part of the job.

*

[squawk]

*

TOM: It is the final push.

I think everyone's, uh, pretty tired.

It's been some big days, and some, uh, some long work,

so I think everyone's kind of pretty keen

to get back to Scott Base, as well, have a shower.

So, I think everyone's kind of got the motivation

to keep things moving, and try and do this last final push

to, to get us out of here on time.

NARRATOR: The Ross Ice Shelf team's been scrambling

to set up a semi-permanent camp

before the DC-3 returns

to take most of the team back to Scott Base.

LAURINE: I can't wait for a shower.

CHRISTIAN: You can't wait for a shower?

LAURINE: And a flushing toilet.

CHRISTIAN: And a flushing toilet?

I could, yeah, you know, I like those things.

I could last longer, though.

LAURINE: I could last longer,

but I think it's because we know we're going home now.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah. That's true.

So when you know that it's happening...

LAURINE: Then I'm ready for it.

TOM: Just pull all the slack through.

NARRATOR: They still have to finish the rack tent

that will serve as a field lab,

and a weather station that'll record temperature,

wind speed and pressure over the winter,

data that will help the project in future years.

ETHAN DALE: [bleep]

The work we're doing is relatively important

because the whole climate of the Southern Hemisphere

could dramatically be changed just from this one ice shelf

if it were to melt.

If you had a day like this at home, people would complain.

MARCUS: Yeah, really cold.

Wind has just picked up.

ETHAN: As soon as it gets windy,

it gets in every crack, every bit of bare skin...

[drill whirs]

...and does its best to freeze it off.

The weather station has lots of small nuts and bolts,

and your fingers freeze up and get cold

and they feel like you've got a glove on even when you don't.

It becomes almost impossible

to do some of the things you've got to do.

MARCUS: Handling metal with bare hands is...

ROB: Put it in your mouth, and then it warms up.

MARCUS: Is that a trick?

[laughs]

ETHAN: Well, I don't really want to lose the nuts and washers

in the snow, so I've just been putting them in my mouth.

They're a bit cold, so I've been ripping bits of skin

off my tongue with them.

Woop.

[mumbling] Oh, that one's really cold.

*

Cool. Shall we put it up?

MARCUS: Yeah.

Ah, it's heavy now.

ETHAN: Yes, it's heavy.

Hopefully this weather station will become a part

of helping us understand what's going on here,

once we get a few storms through.

Hopefully it'll give us some good data.

CHRISTIAN: There it is!

Woo hoo!

LAURINE: Woo!

CHRISTIAN: It's a huge relief, to be done setting up.

Now we have our base camp for future seasons.

We figured out what we needed to,

everything worked the way it should've.

We showed that, you know, the Ross Ice Shelf program

works really, really well.

We have scientists from all different disciplines

all coming together.

Whatever we're going to discover,

it's going to be new, and it's going to be interesting.

*

TOM: We need muscles!

Give it a shove.

So we're gonna stage some stuff here for the following seasons.

So, we've left fifty-odd drums of fuel over there.

Next year, we'll be coming straight back out to this site,

and we'll have kind of the basis of the camp already set up.

Pees, poos, some of our, uh, food waste, uh, recycling,

you know, general waste,

we'll get rid of a fair bit of that.

Pees.

MAN: Lovely.

TOM: Ah.

[laughs]

Favorite part of your job, I bet.

Scott Base, they can only process

one of those pee barrels, uh, every day,

so, we'll go home with 30 full.

So, we wanted to get as many as we can back to Scott Base now,

to start that process.

It's gonna take a month to get rid of our pees from here.

CHRISTIAN: We don't need snacks. How long's the flight? An hour?

LAURINE: Yeah. Hour.

TOM: The Basler will take away five of our people,

leaving us with our little small crew

to begin the return journey.

*

LAURINE: What is this luxury accommodation?

CHRISTIAN: I know.

All this space on our feet.

LAURINE: Hello. There's Raki.

RAKI: Mama, I'm coming home.

*

*

TOM: We've lightened up our traverse team for the way home,

and we've also got rid of the last of the, kind of, big gear,

so we've kind of tried to minimize our weight

for the drive home.

Now, we're just having our last little bit of a pack-up,

and, um, and then we should be on the road.

*

[chirping]

*

ARI: I'm not getting anything.

NARRATOR: Ari has spent hours tracking a suction tag

attached to a whale, but it's moving,

and the Southern Ocean covers almost 8 million square miles.

ARI: Been going around for like three hours, and nothing.

If we don't get that tag back,

then we don't have context for the biopsy sample,

we don't have context for the drone work,

and we lose a lot of information.

[static]

Yep, just heard it.

Okay. Gotcha.

It's basically same direction we had last night.

[chirping]

Luckily, the whale did not swim out of the bay.

The signal's too consistent,

and we don't see any whales in the area,

so it's got to be off the animal.

Whales generally shed their skin pretty regularly,

and if a tag falls off, then it's harder to find.

With whales, they are the biggest animals on the planet,

but the tag is basically, you know,

half the size of a pigeon.

Bottom of the ninth.

You know, uh, basically our last,

our last afternoon here.

You certainly feel

like you're leaving something important behind.

If you lose a tag, it's gone,

and you don't have a chance to get it back.

*

[bleep]

*

ARI: Make a 90-degree turn, Lars.

LARS: Yup.

ARI: More luck than skill, for sure, at this point.

'Cause you get so much interference,

going back that way.

I'm not confident of where it is.

NARRATOR: Ari has just a few hours

before his research vessel heads home for the winter,

and he still hasn't found a video tag

full of valuable data for his research.

ARI: This is our last opportunity to find the tag.

[chirping]

It's beeping consistently.

The strength of the signal kind of changes,

depending if you're focused on where the tag is.

It's very loud, this direction.

Less loud this direction.

*

I see it. Alright, I see it.

LARS: Nice.

ARI: It's about 30 meters off our port bow.

LARS: Yep. Got it.

ARI: You got it? You got a visual on it?

Sweet.

That is a very welcome sight.

LARS: Yes!

ARI: There we go. That's it, buddy.

LARS: Nice work.

ARI: When we get the tag back

it's certainly like, like a little gift.

But we don't get anything

until we make sure that all the data is on there.

*

If you get too excited too quickly,

you're kind of setting yourself up.

There's a lot of things that you can't control.

Hopefully, this is gonna work.

Once we get the tag back on board,

we've got to clean it off, get rid of all that saltwater.

We've got to very carefully open up the data ports,

because there's some pretty finicky electronics

inside this computer that's been on a whale, underwater,

for about 48 hours at this point.

We plug the computer into the tag,

and essentially talks to it.

We've got a little program where it opens up,

and then we download all of that information quickly.

It'll show us if it's got tag data.

You think you've done everything right,

and until you absolutely confirm it with data,

you never know what's gonna be in there.

Oh, that's it.

LARS: Alright, Ari.

Tag?

MAN: Yeah. MAN: Yeah.

LARS: This is what we're hoping for, exactly.

MAN: Yeah.

LARS: So on this one you got a biopsy sample.

ARI: Yep.

LARS: Got 48 hours of tag.

ARI: Yeah.

LARS: Plus the UAV measurements.

ARI: We'll know exactly what it's doing.

We turn it into time-depth profile.

That allows us to see all of the dives that the animal made,

and then we can start to link up the video,

based on the time, with different dives,

and then we can start looking at those videos

and corroborating what we see on the video

with what we see on the dive sensors.

The Antarctic Peninsula's changing, literally,

right before our eyes.

The number of sea-ice days is decreasing,

the temperatures are going up, and because of that,

the critters that live down there

are stressed in different ways,

and understanding what it is about those animals

that allows them to either thrive or not thrive

in this changing climate is really important to us,

so that we can understand how, in the future,

this system is gonna look.

I think this season was a huge success for us.

We were able to increase our number of tags that we deployed

on humpback whales and minke whales.

We collected a huge number of samples,

and we now have a lot more information

that we can share with people.

[squeaking]

[grunt]

WALKER: Alright, we're making our approach here.

WRIGHT: Ocean Giant, Polar Star.

We have the turning basin off of our bow.

We will alter our course to port.

We ask that you can proceed towards the approach channel.

CAPTAIN ON RADIO: Copy that!

NARRATOR: After a full week of breaking ice

and the round-the-clock stress of holding the ship together,

the Polar Star has the Ocean Giant

just a few hundred yards from shore.

WALKER: So, this is pretty much the end of the escort.

We go right; they go left.

We bid them farewell.

This is like Sea Biscuit going in for the finish line.

A little slower pace, of course.

Now hear this, now hear this.

This is the captain.

The Ocean Giant is close enough to the pier

for me to say congratulations, everybody.

I know it's a lot of hard work;

you guys put in a lot of great effort.

So I appreciate that.

That is all.

I cannot give enough compliments to the crew

for keeping the old girl going.

We still have to escort the supply ship out,

then mission is accomplished.

What a great send-off for my career.

NARRATOR: A few miles from the pier...

MAC: Hi, guys, just to let you know,

the ship will be berthing at the ice pier.

Road access will be, uh, limited during the ship offload,

with trucks hauling containers out of Scott Base here

and around the pier area.

NARRATOR: Scott Base is a hive of activity.

KEITH: So, our sea container has arrived.

NARRATOR: In a last push

to bring in supplies for the winter.

KEITH: Got a lot of stuff, here.

Think it's this whole pallet.

Goes straight in that freezer.

NARRATOR: And get almost everyone

safely off the continent before it comes.

SHUL: It's the end of the summer season,

so we're wrapping up now, for the winter.

ETHAN: Pretty cool view from up here, eh?

MARCUS: Wait till you get up there.

NARRATOR: The members of the Ross Ice Shelf team

who flew back on the DC-3

are waiting for their comrades' safe return

from the same vantage point

that's been witness to tragedy in the past.

ETHAN: So, this is Observation Hill,

or Ob Hill for short.

You can see 30 or 40 miles out over the ice shelf

on a clear day.

The summer of 1912, when Scott did his push for the pole

and didn't return,

every clear day they would've been walking up this hill

and looking out, hoping to see him on the horizon,

until, you know, eventually the sun went down

and they sort of had to accept that he wasn't coming back.

So, yeah, we came up here today.

We thought it was fitting, a bit of a pilgrimage,

to see the traverse team return.

Oh, I think that's them.

Look at that, Drew.

DREW: Oh [bleep], yeah.

*

ROB: A thousand kilometers, yay! TOM: Yay!

ROB: H1, H2, we've just cracked the thousand-kilometer mark.

MAN ON RADIO: Yahoo!

ROB: When we, uh, cross over that fuel line,

we'll just pull off to one side,

we'll get our sleds unhooked, and head up to base.

*

CHRISTIAN: Woo hoo!

[laughs]

Reunited with our old comrades.

I felt a bit bad leaving them behind, but at the same time...

LAURINE: It was really good to fly.

CHRISTIAN: It was brilliant.

It was an excellent flight.

It was really wonderful.

It was a very successful season.

Next season, now we hope that our research will find out

something that no one else knows.

The history of that part of the ice shelf,

for the last 10,000 years.

*

Season one of the Ross Ice Shelf program is over and done with,

and we're going home.

This is gonna be a great return, because, you know,

you do miss your friends, or you do miss your family.

TOM: Nice work, Rob.

Home.

ROB: Right. Sweet home.

TOM: Hand brake on.

ROB: Hello.

MAN: Rob, hello.

[indistinct greetings]

MAN: Welcome back.

Welcome back.

Hi!

[laughter]

*

NARRATOR: As winter approaches,

scientists, like the Ross Ice Shelf team,

and even Scott Base leadership,

are on the last flights off the continent.

*

*

The days are getting shorter,

and the nights are getting longer.

For the few souls left on the continent,

the only goal is to survive the dark

and the loneliness

for five long months.

*

*

WALKER: It's the only opportunity I have left in me

to enjoy this trip home.

So, this'll be my ooh-rah.

NARRATOR: Far from shore, the Polar Star is headed home,

leaving the last great mystery on Earth behind them,

and after 34 years of faithful service,

this is Captain Walker's last look at the frozen continent.

WALKER: Last ride.

I'm kind of sad, but...

it's been a great career.

*

There's some times when I see things,

and it almost looks like special effects or CGI,

but this is real.

It's pretty amazing and magical.

It almost looks like the sky's alive.

I might as well be on a different planet.

It was kind of sad thinking

that it'll be the last time I see the continent.

I can only imagine, you know, the astronaut on his shuttle

zooming away from the moon and looking back at the moon saying,

'What an amazing, distinct pleasure

to have the opportunity to walk on the moon.'

I feel the same way about Antarctica.

I'll never see it again.

It's as far away to me as the moon is,

and I'm gonna miss

the last great adventurous, unexplored place on Earth.

*