BBC - Frozen Planet (2011) Part 6 The Last Frontier

Frozen Planet

Frozen Planet is a nature documentary series, produced and filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit. The production team, which includes executive producer Alastair Fothergill and series producer Vanessa Berlowitz, were previously responsible for the award-winning series The Blue Planet (2001) and Planet Earth (2006), and Frozen Planet is being billed as a sequel. David Attenborough returns as narrator and as with Planet Earth, the series will be shot entirely in HD. The seven-part series will focus on life in the Arctic and Antarctic. The production team were keen to film a comprehensive record of the natural history of the Polar Regions, because climate change is affecting landforms such as glaciers, ice shelves, and the extent of sea ice. Sir David first visited Antarctica 17 years ago, but this was his first time ever to visit the geographical North Pole. To get there, meant flying in to a Russian ice camp on the frozen Arctic Ocean, where he could (after several days of bad weather) finally reach the pole itself by helicopter. He also returned to Scott's hut, a place he first visited several years ago, but still touches him today. This is the place where Sir Robert Falcon Scott and his men began their fateful journey to reach the geographical South Pole. “I remember very vividly indeed the first time I entered this extraordinary building…it was not like any other place - because it isn't like any other place on earth. If ever there was a place that held the personality of the people that had lived in it, a century ago, this surely must be it”. Sir David authors On Thin Ice, the seventh film of the series, which explores the effects of climate change on the Polar Regions and the lengths that scientists are going to, to understand it. Some regions, like the Antarctic Peninsula, have warmed significantly in the years since Sir David first visited them. He explores what this means, not just for the animals and people of the polar regions, but for the whole planet.

Part 6 The Last Frontier

The documentary series reveals the extraordinary riches and wonders of the Polar Regions that have kept people visiting them for thousands of years. Today, their survival relies on a combination of ancient wisdom and cutting-edge science. Most Arctic people live in Siberia, either in cities like Norilsk - the coldest city on earth - or out on the tundra, where tribes like the Dogan survive by herding reindeer, using them to drag their homes behind them. On the coast, traditional people still hunt walrus from open boats - it is dangerous work, but one big walrus will feed a family for weeks. Settlers are drawn to the Arctic by its abundant minerals; the Danish Armed Forces maintain their claim to Greenland's mineral wealth with an epic dog sled patrol, covering 2,000 miles through the winter. Above, the spectacular northern lights can disrupt power supplies so scientists monitor it constantly, firing rockets into it to release a cloud of glowing smoke 100 kilometres high. In contrast, Antarctica is so remote and cold that it was only a century ago that the first people explored the continent. Captain Scott's hut still stands as a memorial to these men. Science is now the only significant human activity allowed; robot submarines are sent deep beneath the ice in search of new life-forms, which may also be found in a labyrinth of ice caves high up on an active volcano. Above, colossal balloons are launched into the purest air on earth to detect cosmic rays. At the South Pole there is a research base designed to withstand the world's most extreme winters. Cut off from the outside world for six months, the base is totally self-sufficient, even boasting a greenhouse.

Wikipedia Site

Full Version Available Upon Request