All language subtitles for The.Polar.Sea.S01E05.720p.WEB.x264-CRiMSON Eng

GORDON PINSET: Last time
on The Polar Sea.

The passage explorers are in
the kingdom of the polar bear,

where the mythic beast
is a source of
fear and concern.

MAN:
We have to be able to track

the condition
of polar bears

and determine
what's happening.

PINSET: On the rugged coasts
of Baffin Island,

scientists are racing
to fill knowledge gaps

in Arctic biology,

as it changes
before their eyes.

You're starting to get robins
up here,

I mean, think about it.
Robins up in the Arctic?

PINSET: Yet ancient
traditions remain,

like the hunting of narwhals.

Now, as some sailors make a
dash deeper into the passage,

the crew of Dax
find themselves broken down

in the wilderness.

PINSET:
Dax has traveled
almost 4,000 kilometers

on its quest,

and it's worn out.

RICHARD TEGNER: We didn't have
much wind so we motored a lot.

Maybe up to 90% of our time

on the boat we spent motoring

and which would show later
on that was not very

good thing to do
with this boat.

MAN: Here you are.
Thanks.

(BOY SPEAKING)

Hello.

You are fine?
Yeah.

MARTIN SIGGE: We
have a leakage from
the water pump.

We need to bilge every hour.
It's just, we...

You know, what can we do?
We can't just continue,

so we're back here.

So we'll see what we have.

We don't know
how long it's going to last.

I'm going to get a hold
of our mechanic tomorrow

in Sweden and talk to them
and see if it can be mended.

Yeah, it's...

We are safe.
We are alive.

That's number one.

These problems
put a kind of...

Cloud over...

The...

The nice views.

PINSET: They hang on to hope
that Dax can be fixed.

But they're too far from home
to get the parts it needs.

SIGGE: We realize that this

engine cannot be trusted.

It would be stupid to go on.

I am, of course,
very sad for this.

That's all I've been planning,
really, for 18 months or so,

so it's a hard blow.

But,

what should I tell their wives

if I survive and they don't?

(CHUCKLING)

There's a loss to not see
the rest of the passage

but we have seen Greenland

and we have seen
part of Canada and...

One should be
satisfied for that.

There were some good moments
in Greenland,

but I don't remember
them exactly.

I spent most of the time
in the engine room,

with my feet up
and my head down,

trying to fix various
technical issues.

It feels like...

A bit like
an amputated adventure.

I agree with Bengt
who described...

Our experiences so far,

which has been
wonderful, but

I really

would have liked
to complete this journey

and sort of cope
with all the difficulties

that would have occurred
during the rest of it.

TEGNER: I didn't feel like
going home really.

I was at the beginning
of the Canadian Arctic

and I saw all of
this beautiful mountains

and glaciers and wow.

I don't want to go home.

I talked to Martin and Bengt

if it was okay with them

that I would continue
on my own.

I really asked them

more than once if they agree

on me leaving the boat and

causing them more work.

Sure. Yeah.
We are all for it.

It's...

Good for him.

I will go out to the boat,
get my stuff...

This is what I dreamed of.

And the way to get here
was this boat.

DAX.

And my friend, Martin
who gave me the opportunity.

I love this place
and I'll see what I can

get out of it.

WOMAN: (ON SPEAKERS)
Ladies and gentlemen,

the first airplane
for Iqaluit is now boarding.

(ALL SPEAKING SWEDISH)

Take care.

PINSET: Dax will go by barge

to be stored in Montreal.

BENGT: We only got
halfway this time.

We may...

Complete the other half
another time,

maybe from the other end,
I don't know.

I'm not giving up.

Just making a stop now
for a year or so.

PINSET: Martin and Bengt
will fly home to Sweden.

TEGNER: When we
made the decision,

I felt sad

because we couldn't complete
the Northwest Passage

with this boat.

It's no principle to complete

the passage
in the traditional way.

I'm an Arctic hitchhiker now.

PINSET: Richard is alone
in Pond Inlet,

at the entrance
to the Northwest Passage,

6,000 kilometers from
its end in Alaska.

TEGNER: Being onboard the Dax,

I must say it has been
an experience for me,

very useful.

It made me

look at myself
in a more clear way.

And

look at myself through,
for example, Kerstin's eyes.

At home,

I am a bit critical
about Kerstin,

how she does things

and being on board the Dax,

I experienced Martin behaving
the same way

I think I do at home and

it was not at all pleasant.

Because of these experiences
I have made,

I think I will come back
as a better Richard.

No water.

No washing.

No toilet.

No tooth brushing.

Not today.

We'll see
how it gets tomorrow.

I've gone for
a walk along the beach

and now I am at Salmon Creek.

I borrowed a

polar bear deterrent
at the Parks Canada,

and I'm going to try it now.

That's the gun

and bangers.

(LOUD SQUEAKING)

Well, that's quite
frightening, isn't it?

I enjoyed working
with the video camera.

I got the documentary mood

turned on.

(DOG YELPING)

TEGNER:
The last week, it has been
very comfortable weather,

sunny and warm.

It's like any Scandinavian
summer's day.

But these last days,

you really feel
that you're in the Arctic.

Very hard wind.

Traveling shouldn't be
too comfortable all the time.

You need a little pain
to understand

other people's pain, also.

I got to know a little
of the soul of Pond Inlet.

WOMAN:
Where do I start the story?

This is my house,

that's where I grew up
and I was born in there.

PINSET: Zipporah Kalluk

grew up just outside
Pond Inlet in the 1950s.

The community then was
a tiny gathering of tents.

KALLUK:
We didn't know anybody else
living in the whole world.

We didn't hear nothing.

We didn't even know.

We thought we were
all by ourselves

in the world,
in that community.

We were a very peaceful living
when we were children.

Seal skin tents.

My father had
to catch about seven

for one tent.

There's no rooms
for anybody.

It's just the flat bed
for everybody.

It was more peaceful.

Families are together.

There is a lot to love
in a little house like that.

We traveled by dog team.

We would have
about 14, 15 dogs

to pull the whole families.

Very peaceful.

The dogs never tied up.

They live in peace too.

And then our lives
start changing.

PINSET: In the 1950s,
the Canadian government

feared that its claim
of national sovereignty

over the Northwest Passage
was weak.

The United States
has always considered

the passage
international waters.

Canada worried about the US
and other countries

sending icebreakers
or submarines through.

To claim sovereignty,

Canada needed people living
in the high Arctic,

but no Canadian citizens
lived North of Pond Inlet.

Higher in the passage,
at Resolute Bay,

Canada had just built
an air base.

Now, bureaucrats decided
it needed civilians there

to bolster
its sovereignty claim.

So, they hatched a plan
to move Inuit North.

They convinced Inuit
from Port Harrison,

on Hudson's Bay, to move north

with the promise
of better hunting.

The officials did that knowing

that Port Harrison's Inuit
had no experience hunting

the big game
of the high Arctic.

So hunters from Pond Inlet

were also recruited
to go north

and help those
from Port Harrison.

That's where Zipporah's family
came in.

Joseph Idlout was
known in Pond Inlet

as a great hunter.

There had even been
a documentary about him.

Now government officials
convinced him

that the hunting would be
even better further north.

So he agreed to move
his family to Resolute Bay

and Zipporah's father felt
compelled to follow.

KALLUK: The people who
asked us to come here,

they're more powerful
than my father.

He had to listen to him
all the time,

whatever he says.

That's how...

That's how we're
supposed to be.

That's life.

We had to follow.

Anybody who's older than you,

you have to follow,
everything what they say.

PINSET: Zipporah left
Pond Inlet for good.

Her group eventually
labeled themselves

"Human Flagpoles."

Watching the Northwest Passage
for foreigners,

who never did show up,

until climate change made
the passage safe

for cruise ships.

(HORN BLOWING IN DISTANCE)

TEGNER: My plan is to jump

on a cruise ship
that comes here

and leaves on Monday the 19th

and that will hopefully
take me

all the way to Cambridge Bay.

This is where
my adventure starts.

I was waiting
for the passenger group,

and I saw them
coming up the hill

like any tourists with
their gear and their cameras

and I thought,

"Well, look at this
boring group
of elderly people."

PINSET: Richard boards
the Akademik Ioffe.

She's a Russian submarine
hunter from the Cold War

that is now rented out
for cruises.

The cruise will visit
historical sites

on the Northwest Passage.

This leg is dedicated
to the Franklin disaster.

John Franklin
was a British naval officer

famous for exploring
the passage.

All but 300 miles of it
had been mapped

when he sailed in 1845

on what Victorians assumed
would be the crowning mission.

His warships,
Erebus and Terror,

carried 128 men

and everything
they needed to maintain

proper British society.

All they lacked
were the skills

to survive the Arctic.

The ships sailed into
Lancaster Sound that July.

Ships had probed
the sound for 20 years

but repeatedly been stopped
by ice at its western end.

Franklin made it to
Beechey Island and got stuck.

A century later,
Zipporah Kalluk

and the Arctic exiles
sailed the same route.

Their ship also met heavy ice
in the western sound,

but managed to push past
Beechey to reach Resolute Bay.

Neither the British explorers

nor Inuit exiles realized

they had sailed
into a different climate.

At the western end
of the sound,

the relative warmth
of a maritime climate

gives way to
a colder polar desert.

It was a difference
Zipporah's family felt

as soon as they landed.

KALLUK: We come here by ship.

When we land here,

we couldn't walk on the rocks

because we were only wearing
Inuk made kamiks.

They had to give us
rubber boots to walk around.

It was very cold.

Colder than
where we come from.

Yeah.

PINSET: Inuit had thrived
here 500 years earlier.

Then came a cold period,

now known
as the Little Ice Age.

Inuit abandoned their
whale bone homes

and left the region.

None had tried to return

before the
human flagpoles arrived.

There's these everywhere
you look.

It wasn't that high,
as you guys can see.

Just enough.

PINSET: Jeffrey Amaraulik's
grandfather

came from Port Harrison.

He intended to return

if the hunting
was not as promised.

My grandparents first came

and another group
come over.

They came to these
desolate shore

to pursue
the government's promise

of a more prosperous life.

PINSET: But they weren't
equipped to hunt the big game

that were the only food here.

AMARAULIK:
They had to get a couple
of families from Pond Inlet

to come up and help them

get familiarized
with the hunting.

So the Kalluks,

the Kalluk family came up and

helped my family out.

Zipporah, I think
she was just a little girl,

but her,
her brothers and sisters,

parents came up here to

help us

know this land.

'Cause when you get out here,
there's nothing, gravel.

KALLUK: But us,
we never really complained
to governments.

And it's the people
from Port Harrison.

They moved them,

but they didn't know the land.

They didn't know
what kind of animals it has.

They have no dogs,

and they have
no sleds, nothing.

So they couldn't do nothing.

So they were...

They didn't like it.

PINSET: Jeffrey's grandfather

carved a monument
to their experience.

AMARAULIK:
This is one of the last
carvings my grandpa ever did.

He was a good man.

Great hunter,

great grandpa.

We miss him.

The government promised
my grandparents,

there would be a ship
that would come,

and they would stand
and wait for hours, even days.

That what's this means.
They were waiting and waiting.

Looking that way
where the ship would come,

but it never came.

Just a lot of promises
that weren't kept, I guess.

(HORN BLOWING)

PINSET:
Today, ships come through
all the time

to see where Franklin's
sailors began to die.

MAN:
The sad story about Franklin.

It's such a tragedy.

We have visited the place
where he first overwintered.

That's called Beechey Island.

It's a really rough place
to stay in the winter.

It's all gray and no colors,
no vegetation, no nothing.

PINSET:
In the Royal Navy tradition,
Franklin's men kept busy.

They built their ice fort.
They played games.

But the Arctic
pressed on them.

They froze in
their woolen uniforms.

Without fresh meat,
they got scurvy.

Three sailors died
on Beechey Island.

Their bodies were exhumed
in the 1980s,

perfectly preserved
by the cold.

They showed signs
of pneumonia,

scurvy and possible
lead poisoning.

All were maladies
they might have avoided

by following Inuit ways.

But they were far
North of Inuit villages

and most game.

Moreover, Royal Navy personnel
did not deign to hunt

or wear fur and they dismissed
Inuit ways as savage.

They were stuck
inside their ship

and their Victorian attitudes.

Only when Inuit
became Canadian

did attitudes seem to change.

By the 1970s, Canada even had
a picture of Joseph Idlout

and Zipporah's father
on its currency

to proudly show Canadians

living on
the Northwest Passage.

But the respect
was just symbolic.

Oh, we just do everything,
what the white man says.

Anything. Everything.
Little things. Big things.

We couldn't say no because
they were white

and way up there.

We were just the little people
down there.

That's how we see
the white people that time.

PINSET: The new arrivals
had been dropped

near the Canadian
air force base.

They were not allowed
into the base, but

used its cast-offs to survive.

KALLUK: There was no woods
around here, so

the air force people

bring some woods,

so my father built that house.

So, we had a house.

One year, we didn't.

We had to borrow
other people's houses and

live in the tent first

and then have
somebody else's house

until my father finished
the house that he made,

our own house.

PINSET:
The famous Joseph Idlout

was allowed into the base

and he began
to frequent its bar.

One night, he left the bar,

drove his snowmobile off
a cliff and died.

His family believed
he killed himself.

His was one of many
drunken suicides

linked to the despair
of the Arctic exiles.

Those who survived
the dark times

did it by clinging
to their culture,

especially their music.

KALLUK: When we got here...

People,

they throat
singing a lot.

When they have
everything they need,

like food,

animal skin for clothing,

they celebrate and

they get together
and they do that

throat singing and

it reminds you of

families were around you and

it makes us feel better and
remember all that.

Proud of my daughter Celina

for that she could do that

and she's doing very well.

I started practicing

when she was
still a little girl.

And then when she was coming
bigger and bigger

as she starts interested how
we do it a little bit,

teaching her how
to do it a little bit and

she's get into that
with other people

who could throat singing and

that she is. She is...

That she's very good now.

CELINA: Being sung to
by my mother

most of my childhood,
all my childhood.

We would... I would hear
all kinds of

different kinds
of throat singing,

hymns,

traditional
Inuk music, even...

I kind of grew a love
for Inuit songs

very early on and I realized
throat singing

by Inuit is very unique

to Inuit but
we didn't hear it very often.

The traditional style
of throat singing.

I cherish that forever

and I respect that

and I'm able to teach it
to my daughters.

Now we've been able
to teach younger girls

throat singing
and I can throat sing with

almost anyone now.

I think the best way
I've seen it,

comparing it to
an English style of singing,

is when you sing

in a canon,

or like a zipper.

You can't zipper a zipper with

the little teeth hitting
each other like this,

they have to

alternate
and overlap a little bit

and hook to
each other like that.

When one girl will breathe in,

the other girl or boy
will breathe out.

So it becomes
a circular breathing.

And in that, it becomes a game

because you have
to be very quick,

and you have
to last pretty good,

and your breath...
You have to be able to

control your breath very well,
so that you don't pass out.

(LAUGHS)

(LAUGHING)

(THROAT SINGING)

PINSET: The exiles even
had a special song

to banish the darkness

by celebrating
the midnight sun.

(CELINA SINGING)

PINSET:
It was their attitude that
enabled the exiles to survive.

Just as it was attitude that
condemned Franklin's sailors.

Franklin's ships
fled Beechey in 1846,

but were soon
trapped in pack ice.

Eventually the sailors left
to walk out of the Arctic,

hauling heavy sleds
and lifeboats.

And then true darkness
descended.

Over the next 30 years,

Britain sent dozens of parties

to look for her lost warships.

One was finally found
170 years later

on the ocean floor.

The sailors' remains
were found in 1857.

They fell beside life boats
that contained silver cutlery,

silk scarves and chocolate.

They had died hauling vestiges
of Victorian civilization.

Even as they became cannibals.

TEGNER: Franklin died
officially in 1847

and all of his
crew members died on

Victoria Island.

They found pieces of
human body parts in pots and

this news came back to England

with the research expeditions
and they were terrified

and they couldn't believe
that noble English gentlemen

ate each other,

but nevertheless,

I think they did.

So, what do you do?

When you're starving

and your company sailor
is dead?

Could I have another bottle?
Thank you.

Thank you.

Just a drop.
You got it. Just a drop.

Look at the geese!

Beechey Island is the island
where heroes rest.

In 1845,
John Franklin and his crews

bade their farewells
as their ships,
Erebus and Terror,

came down the Thames,

heading out on
their expedition

into the Arctic
and the unknown.

They were last seen that
summer, moored to an iceberg

high in Lancaster Sound,
taking on ice.

They were never seen again.

Franklin and all 128 of
his men never returned.

Drink to their health
and their memory.

To Franklin and
the Northwest Passage.

Hip hip hooray. Three cheers!

Hip hip
ALL: Hooray!

Hip hip!
ALL: Hooray!

Hip hip!
ALL: Hooray!

And if you don't want
to drink it,

share it with
these thirsty sailors.

It's walrus,

narwhal, seals,
narwhals and fishes.

PINSET: In 2010,
the Canadian government

formally apologized
to the Inuit exiles.

Their survival story

has become an inspirational
example for young Inuit.

Zipporah and Celina
work together now

to pass their culture
to the next generation.

CELINA: We're having
this bonfire today

to gain interest
for a youth committee.

So, we've invited
everyone in the town.

We don't know who's coming.

Right now
there's a few children.

I know it's cold, but

we don't let cold stop us
usually, here, so.

Pick two rocks equal in size

that will fit comfortably
in your hands.

Does everybody have two rocks?

Yeah.

Everybody ready?

CELINA: Okay, go!
KALLUK: Okay.

(ALL SINGING)

(LAUGHING AND SINGING)

(APPLAUDING)

You better... You guys better
learn good to do.

This is what
you're gonna get!

PINSET:
One irony of the exiles story

is that global warming has now
shifted the climate north.

The exiles have gotten
got back the climate

that they left behind
50 years ago.

KALLUK: When we just got here,
it was different.

Colder.

You had to wear big jackets
all the time.

Right now, it's changed.

Flowers are growing.

There's even green grass now.

There was nothing, nothing!
No moss, nothing

when we just got here.
Just all gravel.

Today, there's lots of things
growing and

all kinds of bugs,

even bees and all that
that never used to
be here, nothing.

But we can't change that
so we just live in it.

It didn't change us.
We still accept whatever

comes.

(LAUGHS)

PINSET: Another irony is that
the exiles today promote

Canadian sovereignty
more strongly

than does the government.

AMARAULIK: They used Inuit
as human flagpoles

or whatever they call it,

but they're still
fighting over this high Arctic

like we were moved
here for nothing.

We're here, we're Canadians.
This is our land right here.

This doesn't belong to
nobody else but Canada.

I'm proud to be a Canadian,
even after all this.

PINSET:
The greatest irony is that
Canada's government today

encourages foreign ships
in the Northwest Passage

and hopes global warming
will open a trade route.

Its biggest opponents
are the exiles,

who hunt on the sea ice.

They want to put
this Northwest Passage as

as an international
strait, but

we're trying
to put a stop to that,

because they're gonna have
ice breakers breaking up

all of the ice all the time

and we'll have
trouble traveling down

to the next island.

Every year, there's more
and more ships.

PINSET:
That traffic will only grow.

To shiver on the shores that
murdered Franklin's crew but

retreat to a warm cabin

is tourism
at its most sublime.

MAN: Our bartender, Gus,
told me we'd run out of ice.

The freshest ice for miles
around is often to oldest.

This is millions
of years old, this stuff

that fell as rain as mammoths
walked the Earth

and we're going
to do it justice

by having it in
our gin and tonics.

TEGNER: All these amenities.

The comfort

and the warmth and the food.

It was like heaven
compared to the Dax.

Very soon,
I felt totally relaxed.

(PEOPLE CHATTERING)

So, limericks,
it's very simple.

Or I thought
it was very simple.

Franklin's sailors
were not superstitious

though some started
to get quite suspicious.

After months,
they were famished

then the first mate
just vanished.

Some say that
he was quite delicious.

(PEOPLE CHEERING)