Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Last time on The Polar Sea...

Richard Tegner is sailing on the Akademik Ioffe.

They are deep in the Northwest Passage,

braving narrow channels

where ice can block ships big and small.

MAN 3: Okay, Nick, it's holding, it's holding.

NARRATOR: The lone sign of southern civilization out here

is the Canadian ice breaker that gets them through.

But in nearby Gjoa Haven,

founded by the explorer Amundsen,

civilization has come at a cost.

JORDAN AGLUKKAQ: I lost a couple of friends.

One of them just committed suicide.

NARRATOR: As young Inuit struggle with a changing culture

and now a change in the climate,

some are paying with their lives.

(OCEAN WAVES CRASHING) (WIND HOWLING)

RICHARD TEGNER: It was traveling, definitely.

(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)

And a big party also.

And...

Well, I hadn't had much of party

so I really enjoyed that.

How's the weather outside?

Windy and rough, you know? Oh, no.

I appreciate the contrast.

Scary, but yeah...

(MUSIC PLAYING THROUGH SPEAKERS)

CROWD: # He was a hard-hitting man #

(INDISTINCT)

Richard.

What's the most appropriate drink for a polar bear?

How about an old fashioned?

I don't want any more booze.

I will feel awful tomorrow.

Soda water on the rocks,

with a twist of lime and a dash of gin.

TEGNER: It was a Russian cruise ship

with mostly Canadian passengers

and mostly Canadian staff.

Whoops...

NARRATOR: Richard Tegner has become unofficial chronicler

of the voyage of the Ioffe.

TEGNER: That was nice actually. I didn't...

I thought maybe it will bother me

to have to use the camera now and then,

but I actually enjoyed it.

Nice views are okay,

but as soon as you have a face in front of you,

it's something totally different.

It's a bit of a personal story in all faces.

I really like that a lot.

BOAT MAN: We'll walk around the top of the engines

and see what everything looks like.

Feel free to take pictures,

and we'll eventually make our way

to the control room or MCR.

And one hand for the ship

'cause it is slippery on deck.

TEGNER: The most important thing is,

all of these people and their level of curiosity.

They were all there because they were interested

in traveling through the Arctic,

and learning more about it.

Some were interested in birds

and some were interested in wildlife

and some were interested in Inuit culture,

so different approaches.

Let's go.

And...

Are you turned on? Yes, it's turned on.

No, I'm kidding. And you don't have to speak to the camera.

We can just make it like, so...

It makes it more natural if we speak to each other

and don't bother about the camera.

No, that's fine. So... Okay, so...

My first impression

of the passenger group of this boat was

"What a boring group of elderly people."

It takes one to know one. (CHUCKLES) Yes.

You're a tourist now, not a working seaman.

I... I... I certainly am.

NARRATOR: Richard started his journey on the small boat Dax.

TEGNER: Compared with my first part of the trip,

it was luxurious, for sure.

I had a nice warm cabin,

and I could take a nice warm shower.

You have each meal served.

There was a sauna on board.

That was very nice to have a sauna.

That was really nice.

It's like everything else during this trip.

It contrasts.

The contrast between the, well, the western culture

and the old Inuit culture, of course.

And the contrasts in traveling,

the contrasts in temperature and in the nature.

It's kind of ironic that we blame the global warming

to make a lot of damage around the world

but there is also positive things.

We can come here and meet these people of this

barren land and make our experience from their living.

Yes.

Change is difficult, whatever change

that causes lots of difficulty for everyone,

I mean, we all

are very concerned about the changes that

our life brings to the world we live in.

NARRATOR: The Ioffe is steaming west in Victoria Strait,

bound for Cambridge Bay.

This is the most southerly leg of the passage,

its exact middle and the last part that was discovered.

In the 19th century,

explorers aimed to cross paths here.

Those coming north over land

hoped to meet those sailing east or west

to connect the dots

and complete the map of the passage.

Now, a new generation of explorers cross here

as they challenge the passage from both directions.

Some seek only freedom,

like Jurgen and Claudia Kirchberger,

young Austrians sailing west in their steel ketch,

Belle Epoque.

Some are seeking records for the fun of it.

Olivier Giasson and Sebastien Lapierre,

are firefighters from Quebec,

rowing eastward to be the first kayak

through the passage in one summer.

(SPEAKING IN FRENCH)

NARRATOR: Westbound in Libellule,

the Cottier family from Switzerland

is hoping to be the first cruising catamaran

through the passage.

Others want their journey to make a statement.

The crew of the Arctic Joule

hope to highlight climate change

by being the first to row the whole passage.

Then there is the crew of the American reality TV show,

Dangerous Waters.

You guys got some gas for us? CAMERAMAN: Yup!

Starving again! Need some fuel!

NARRATOR: These guys just want to be the first

to jet ski through the Northwest passage.

I was able to get the latest ice information.

I also got the phone numbers of this ship.

So they said call any time, wherever we're at,

any questions about ice or wind, anything.

They've heard about us.

That's cool. And that's good to know.

Everybody's heard of us. Yep.

We are the Dangerous Waters crew.

We will enter Cambridge Bay I suppose, 25th,

and that's the end of our journey.

NARRATOR: In the harbor is a reminder

of the twisting fates of Arctic explorers.

Here lies the wreck of Maud,

the last Arctic ship owned by Roald Amundsen.

Amundsen was the first to sail the Northwest Passage in 1903.

In 1916 he returned in the Maud,

hoping to sail past the North Pole to Russia.

He was trapped by pack ice.

The three-year long expedition failed

and bankrupted Amundsen.

He sold Maud.

She was eventually sunk by ice in Cambridge Bay.

She is one of the many ghosts here.

Shadows of strangers who lost, or won,

because of the shifting climate.

(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)

The first strangers to come here

were the Inuit themselves.

They arrived 1,000 years ago

to find another people already here.

Those first people were called the Tunit.

They are known to us only by fragments

of tools left behind

and by stories the Inuit tell.

So what we have here is a model of a Tunit longhouse

and this is actually a reproduction

of what was found at Ikaluktutiak,

which is fairly close to Cambridge Bay.

Each family had their own tent and they joined them together.

TEGNER: So this is several generations living together like this,

in a row with different entrances? Exactly.

But each family has a tent.

Okay. Exactly.

And so their lifestyles were fairly similar to the Inuit.

They hunted the same animals

and made the same use of the items on the land

and even modern Inuit have stories

of the little people,

they call them the little people...

Okay. They were short? They were shorter.

And many elders living in Cambridge Bay now

still see the Tunit on the land.

This past summer

Mary Kunnilak, an elder from Cambridge bay

was on the land and she said that she saw them.

(DOGS BARKING)

NARRATOR: The Tunit relied on the cold.

They hunted seal and walrus on the sea ice.

But around 1,000 A.D,

there began a 300 year long warm period.

That climate change melted ice in the Northwest Passage.

Sailing on its newly opened waters

came strangers from Alaska.

They were the modern Inuit.

They had new technology

like kayaks and bows and arrows to hunt caribou.

At the time, the Tunit

lived across the whole of the eastern Arctic.

But they disappear from the archeological record

soon after Inuit arrive.

For the next 1,000 years, the modern Inuit thrived.

The Cambridge Bay museum

has a group of elders

who provide cultural knowledge.

They grew up with a lifestyle virtually unchanged

from that of their ancestors.

(WOMAN SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

(MARY KANIAK SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

NARRATOR: We have a record of that life because Inuit crossed paths

with visionary filmmaker Robert Flaherty.

In 1920, Flaherty made Nanook of the North,

which was the world's first documentary.

Previously people had only seen paintings

of Inuit or artifacts.

Nanook was an intimate look at living Inuit

who seemed happy

despite a hard life in a brutal climate.

Like every documentary since,

Nanook was a blend of candid and directed footage

that only told part of the story.

But it was a huge success

and created an image of Inuit

that still haunts communities today.

TANYA TAGAQ: There's a couple parts of the film

that I really despise.

There are couple moments in the film where I just go...

You know, "Why did that have to happen?"

NARRATOR: Tanya Tagaq grew up in Cambridge Bay.

Brilliant.

She left to become one Canada hottest musicians.

You go the other way...

Her music crosses Inuit throat singing

with jazz and hip hop.

She's has created a new musical interpretation of Nanook

and come home to film it,

bringing her band mates north for the first time.

TAGAQ: There's one where he is pretending

to like, kinda eat at the record.

It's like "Oh, what's this?

"I'm just a silly person that thinks he should eat it."

Like, it's little things like that.

NARRATOR: In fact, the Inuit that Flaherty met

understood the benefits of modern technology.

While Flaherty filmed a walrus hunt

in which they feared being dragged into the water,

they begged him to shoot the walrus with his rifle.

He pretended not to listen so that he could keep filming.

Flaherty later wrote that his falsehoods

were intended to portray traditional Inuit culture

while it was still possible.

TAGAQ: I don't really get so angry with the film

because a lot of it is the land

and the land is so beautiful.

That's... It's where we are.

Like, the Earth is so beautiful.

NARRATOR: What was true was that Nanook of the North

captured the ways of the only people

who could live comfortably in the Arctic.

But that exclusive advantage ended with the Cold War,

when America and Russia crossed paths here

and the region suddenly moved

from the edge of history to its center.

(EXPLODING)

MALE NEWSCASTER: Here is the motion picture spectacle of all time.

NARRATOR 2 (FROM FOOTAGE): The Arctic...

Desolate.

Savage.

Remote.

No place for human beings.

What was once the impassable Arctic

now provides the quickest routes for attack

from a wide sector of Europe and Asia.

Beset by the nightmare of this threat,

the nation's leaders decided on a tremendous undertaking.

This was to build, with the cooperation of Canada,

a radar early warning line north of the Arctic Circle.

It would stretch 3,000 miles across the continent

to Baffin Island opposite Greenland.

Men had to conquer that unknown frozen wasteland

and transform it into a vital outpost of western civilization.

But at some sites the wind kept piling up the snow so fast

that a small tractor was helpless.

Then the only way to get a bigger tractor in

was to drop it by parachute.

The first time they tried, it didn't work.

One way they learned on the DEW Line

was from mistakes.

They had lost one tractor this way

but they wouldn't lose anymore.

They knew now how to do it right.

Finally, they had ice tips wide enough

and long enough for the biggest cargo planes.

The Eskimos too were recruited and they did a good job.

NARRATOR: They were recruited, but not required.

The US military did not need their help to survive.

Its Arctic bases were the first developments

big enough to make the climate irrelevant.

NARRATOR 2 (FROM FOOTAGE): Summer in the Arctic brings a bloom of wildflowers.

And temperature sometimes as high as 60 degrees.

Then it was good weather

for erecting the search radar antennas.

And once more the Arctic winter closed in.

But nature in the Arctic no longer seems so savage,

for life on the DEW Line has become pretty civilized.

But perhaps the true historical role of the DEW Line

will prove to be the opening up for peaceful

and productive purposes

of a vast new frontier above the Arctic Circle.

The untapped resources of which we have as yet barely glimpsed.

TAGAQ: But looking at that DEW Line site, like as a child

I was kind of taught that it was like,

"Look at this awesome thing it's going to protect us,

"it's going to protect us

"and everything's going to be great

"because we've got this amazing protection."

I didn't understand it until I went to Europe.

I started having a deeper, way deeper respect for like,

"white people"

because it's like "Oh, there's the root of their culture.

"That's where they came from."

And, you know, let's be frank

you spent the last couple thousand years

scrapping over every little bit of land there was over there.

Like, you know you guys were warring people

so when you came over you were still warring people

and you didn't know what to do but be warring people.

NARRATOR: Cambridge Bay was a DEW Line supply hub.

The remote crossroads filled up with strangers

and all their social problems.

And Tanya's generation of Inuit

became the first to grow up in the global village.

MALE NEWSCASTER: In the era of intercontinental airplanes

the polar ice cap, once a barrier,

has become an open highway.

Thanks to operation DEW Line.

Remote regions of the Arctic

have seen more visitors in a single summer

than all their previous history.

TAGAQ: I know there was a bar there

and I know bad things happened at it.

As a child, that was just a part of life.

TAGAQ: We had a lot of fun in that house.

MAN 1: What happened there?

TAGAQ: My friend Michelle Adamak, her parents

would go on long camping trips and we'd just...

There'd be a group of like 12 little kids

hanging out in there for a couple days

and we'd have a lot fun like,

we'd slide down the stairs in garbage bags

and, like, play stupid games.

MAN 2: Did you get in trouble? TAGAQ: No.

One time we stayed awake for three days

out of mere boredom.

(DOGS BARKING) (LAUGHING)

MAN 2: Look at all the dogs.

TAGAQ: Hi puppies. MAN 2: They're going crazy.

TAGAQ: They're just excited to see us, that's all.

Oh, that guy hates me, I hate that guy there.

He's the worst. He's the worst guy in town.

Driving that truck? Yeah.

Why, what happened? He's just...

He's constantly trying to sleep with young girls

and cheating on his wife.

And then spreading rumors... Oh, boy...

TAGAQ: And telling everyone I'm sleeping with people,

but that's small town dynamics for you, right?

TAGAQ: I realize that there was a time in the past

where life was so hard up here in the winter

that you couldn't waste your time on your emotions

and those kinds of feelings

surrounding sexual abuse or physical abuse or anything

because it was so hard to live

and people were dying all around you.

Just because of the environment

that people wouldn't care about something so small

as like being raped... (LAUGHS) You know?

'Cause it was so hard.

But let's be frank, it's not like that anymore.

People are allowed to care,

and people are allowed to feel.

I'm not afraid to say it

because the more people talk about it the easier it's...

Like, I was sexually abused from five years old on.

You know, I grew up seeing a lot of shit.

And I think a lot people here were.

And, you know, when I was a teenager

and I was very confused,

you know, I attempted suicide myself

and those are things you battle for a long time,

probably your whole life.

Sometimes it comes back, that feeling comes back,

and I'll never do it,

but that's a terrible feeling to have to feel.

And knowing that's why I'm so angry,

there's a whole, whole groups of people,

like, that feel this hurt.

TAGAQ: Yeah, so sometimes I do subbing in the schools

and then sometimes I'll kind of do

things like suicide prevention or embrace life kind of thing.

And I'll go from classroom to classroom

and talk to the kids.

TAGAQ: I meet a lot of people all over the world

who are in the same state and...

But one main thing I notice about everybody who's hurting,

everybody feels like there's something wrong with them.

Everybody feels like if they were a better person

they wouldn't have these terrible feelings.

MAN 2: Slush puppy.

He's drinking a slush puppy. (SCOFFS)

Hi.

Are you Lawrence's son?

Hi.

Nice to meet you. I went to school with him.

And you look exactly like your dad.

I'm Tanya.

What happened to your arm? Dislocated.

Aw... Well, I hope you locate it again.

(LAUGHS)

I got in a fight with a couple guys.

Oh, no!

Why? Huh?

Why? What were they doing?

Just got into a fight.

Aw... Well, quit scrapping.

(LAUGHS)

See you. Nice to meet you.

TAGAQ: I grew up in that house until I was 12 years old.

MAN 2: Right there? Yeah, that house.

MAN 2: Are you cereal?

TAGAQ: Yep, I remember watching Three's Company

when I was really small, like these kids.

Who are your parents?

You look familiar.

I must have went to school with one of your parents.

I want to see somebody do something awesome on here.

Oh, my goodness. (WHOOPING)

TAGAQ: Nice, nice. MAN 2: That's pretty dangerous.

Man, you got it together. TAGAQ: Yeah, that's good.

And they just put this up too, man, you got good quickly.

It must be tiring. (TAGAQ SHRIEKING)

Oh, my God!

That's scary.

Oh... How come you never wipe out?

(SHUDDERS) (TAGAQ WHOOPING)

TAGAQ: Oh, God, it's no good to have a mother watching this.

(TAGAQ LAUGHING)

MALE NEWSCASTER: Twentieth century civilization with its complexity and strife

and its promise for the future has come to the frozen north.

What changes this will bring to the ancient pattern of life

in these regions, no man can say.

One thing however seems clear.

Here is tangible, visible evidence of a shrinking globe.

NARRATOR: While the DEW Line was being built,

nuclear missiles replaced bombers.

The line was obsolete when it opened in 1957.

But it has operated ever since and now has a new purpose.

As the Northwest Passage melts,

many countries are looking to exploit

its shipping and mineral potential.

Canada and the U.S are as motivated as ever

to maintain military surveillance here.

Even though they now use private contractors to do it.

RICK CHAULK: The actual importance I guess

with the opening up the Northwest Passages

that are projected to happen for year round shipping.

Without the contestant of the north

between the Soviets, the Americans,

the Canadians, the Norwegians,

it probably will remain

a prominent part of the North American,

prominent part of the Canadian's...

Canada's signature for the north for a while.

NARRATOR: In the Arctic, nothing goes away quickly

and so, bizarre encounters abound.

Just out past the DEW Line station,

elders still meet Tunit ghosts.

(MARY AVALAK SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

(JIMMY MANIGYOGINA SPEAKING IN OTHER LANGUAGE)

(VOCALIZING)

(APPLAUDING)

(SINGING FOLK SONG)

TAGAQ: In case you can't tell I'm mad.

Just like the whole happy Eskimo thing, you know?

Look we're happy Eskimos.

And a lot of the performers and a lot of people,

to tourists they really want to go

"Look we're happy Eskimos."

Yeah, I'm happy and I'm an Eskimo

but I mean, people they... Just... It has to stop.

(BIKE MOTOR RUNNING)

TAGAQ: If those colonialists would have at least gleamed

a little bit of information from us

and lived a little more harmoniously with the Earth

then none of this would have been happening.

I've gotten that stand point,

but frankly we enjoy the niceties

of the modern existence as well.

You can take care of people socially

and you can have progress

without destroying everything completely.

Hi. CAMERAMAN: Who are you?

(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)

I'm Rygoul.

(SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT)

I'm Rygoul. Evily.

CAMERAMAN: Rygoul? Rygoul.

CAMERAMAN: Rygoul. Okay.

(SPEAKS IN LOCAL DIALECT)

TEGNER: I prefer to think that

this development will be for the better.

They are building an Arctic university

and they're building a huge research center there.

New facilities for sewage and water

and they are building new housing.

So we shouldn't think that we destroy everything we do.

We also

do good things.

We build up possibilities.

(WIND HOWLING)

MAN: All right, we gotta wait for a chance

to get a position.

(INDISTINCT CHATTERING)

(LAUGHING) MAN: Tense up, everybody.

I gotta get the background going here.

Great.

MAN: Go. Tap the line.

Take one!

(THUDS) (AMBIENT MUSIC PLAYING VIA SPEAKERS)

(SINGING INUIT FOLK SONG)

TAGAQ: When I'm singing, I feel like I could not be a human.

The beauty of this life is completely overwhelming.

The joy of life can come to you

in a way that

is so grand.

The way I love, not just being human,

but being, being alive, like being a living form.

NARRATOR: The Northwest Passage cruise season is ending.

The Akademik Ioffe will sail back to the East.

TEGNER: This evening, I'm expecting a Catamaran from Switzerland

coming here to Cambridge Bay.

Hopefully, they can take me along.

I might join them as a crew member,

might be a lot of ice that will force us to stay and...

Well, you'll just have to adapt to the circumstances.

If I can't get away from Cambridge Bay with a boat

I have to try to do it in some other way.

NARRATOR: August is almost over. Soon freeze up will begin.

Yachts challenging the passage must race to the finish.

For eastbound boats, it will not be easy.

Ice flowing down from the north

is clogging the narrow channels

between the eastern islands.

(CONVERSING IN FRENCH)

MAN: You know, under normal circumstances

I would think this was like, beautiful and awesome.

What we're going to have to do is

we're going to go more offshore.

To get out of this.

We can't. It's like sucking rocks with the propeller.

NARRATOR: For boats sailing west, along the mainland coast,

there is still blue water.

And Richard Tegner still has a chance

to hitch a ride to Alaska.

It's cold now.

It's really cold.

And sitting at the tiller on a sailing boat

in this temperature,

and with unknown

place to harbor,

little scary, but nevertheless,

that's what adventures are for.

You don't know what's ahead of you,

you just have to jump

and do the best of it.