Exploring the Glacial Arctic Ocean | SLICE SCIENCE | FULL DOCUMENTARY

To explore the hidden site of the glacial Arctic Ocean. We load up in an hour at 4 p.m. and that's it. Don't forget anything. Then we're on our way. 176, that's a lot. I'm Guylain, the one who started this crazy project. I can take a little. That's Manu, the only woman on the team. That's Alban, with the red cross on his cap, always cheerful. As for Sam, he's sort of our genius handyman. The other four, Clement, Benoit, Pascal, and Vincent are all experts. Mountain climber, photographer, emergency medic, cameraman, and last of all, kayak, our bear detector. You can't tell who's who because we're all dressed the same. For Manu and me, this flight towards the pole is the accomplishment of two years' work. In this no man's land, the pilots eventually find a safe landing site. Then we are dropped off on the frozen ocean at 40 nautical miles, roughly 70 kilometers from the geographic North Pole. Valentin is our logistics expert. She's heading for Resolute Bay to take charge of base camp. She'll be in touch with us daily through the satellite phones. The DC-3 leaving without us, how I've dreamt of this. Not one familiar mark to guide us. Ahead of us, due south, 800 kilometers of ice field to cross before reaching land. Our main objective, to do about 50 dives between the pole and the Canadian coast. What I suggest is that we take it easy, don't rush. Take all the time you need to get ready. We have to be careful and watch out for frostbite. Rule number one, as soon as some part of your body feels extremely cold, you say so. Hands, eyebrows, cheeks, whatever. So do whatever's left to be done, and when we're all ready, we start off. Okay, Kayak, let's go. He traveled with us all the way from France. Taking our young husky along was no easy matter. This apparently motionless ocean is an immense ice field that drifts according to winds and sea currents above a depth of 4,000 meters. The first kilometer confirms that all the training in the world will never give you the feel of the real terrain. From now on, the sun will stop setting. My hands feel terribly cold, and I know this isn't always going to be easy, but it's my responsibility to bring everyone back safe and sound. It's cold. I feel something. Yeah, but you still have to be super careful. How is it? It hurts. Well, that's a good sign. But it's still numb, and I've been at it for five minutes already. Give it a good rub with your hands. Yeah, I tried that, it worked pretty well. Yeah, that's what you should do. Now we have to get our bearings. See, it just takes a little while. Well, it served as a good warning. So, it's cold. We're complaining about the cold. In a month and a half, when it gets hot, we'll be all wet. We'll complain about the heat. Let's just concentrate on getting some sleep now. When we woke up this morning, we all felt groggy, as if we'd been anesthetized by the cold. It was minus 40 degrees Celsius last night inside the tent, but no one really wants to make a big deal of it. We're getting into a daily routine. The University of Alberta asked us to take some measurements. The only way to evaluate the thickness of the field, which the satellites are unable to detect, is to measure it on the spot. It's March 29th. This morning, it's precisely minus 39 degrees centigrade. It's Manu and Alban get ready. I'm happy to give them the privilege of the first dive under the pool. The inflows are set at minimum. I tightened them. They're at minimum and they stay that way. If you open it, it's because you need more air. Are they good and tight? As tight as possible for a minimum amount of air to avoid any frost. Good, because the joint is going to be very cold. I figured out why it took so much effort. It's because they're frozen. Go ahead. Go on. I can't breathe. You've got to warm it up with the heat gun or it's impossible. Well, I can't say it's too comfortable. Let's try it again. Go for it. One, two, three. The feet feel okay. All right, I feel great. The spit freezes right away. You okay, Manu? I unfroze it a little while ago. No problem. Making my way into this formidable world is a bit frightening. The water is so clear it makes me dizzy. It feels like I'm floating weightless in space. The lifeline is all that connects me to the surface. I've never held onto it as tight as at this instant. Above, they have no idea of what I'm going through. In this mineral world, we never expected to come across any traces of life so soon, barely out of the polar night. Perhaps the first rays of the sun awakened this school of krill. The ice is bright, the cold biting, the shards are razor sharp. Despite the frost in the mask, I can see blocks of ice crystals appearing. A shrimp trapped inside one seems to be waiting for a ray of sun to release it from its icy abode. Yes, there are enormous crystals. The colors are extraordinary. Blue, turquoise, white, it's stunning. The visibility, the clarity of the water, it's amazing. We really get an eyeful. So many wonderful things to see that we'll have to come back tomorrow. We always dive two or three people at a time, just as we do in cave diving, and we double up on vital equipment, regulators, tanks. The teams take turns at each site. Sam has gone to measure the temperature of underwater ice. Seawater in the Arctic generally freezes at about minus 1.8 degrees centigrade, depending on its salt concentration. The temperature of the ice on the surface is much colder, closer to air temperature. Minus 1.6 degrees is water temperature, and minus 1.7 is ice temperature. I'm giving you my jacket. I'm okay. My gel off, my tights. It's okay, I feel good. I'm okay. We continue our way south through the whiteness of the day. Compared to regular expeditions, we carry a lot of weight. Tanks, compressors, a generator, fuel, a heat gun to warm up the diving equipment, all the essential technology reduced to an absolute minimum. We had planned to cover an average of 12 to 15 kilometers a day. Because of the wind, it's drifting at a rate of 0.3, 0.4 kilometers an hour. We're advancing at an average speed of one kilometer per hour. We've gone 6.5 kilometers in six and a half hours after all that effort. Let's not spend too much time on this damn ice pack. We still have to keep pulling the sleds. Oh my God, wow, that big chunk just turned over. It turned over? Yeah. Oh yeah, I didn't know that could happen. If you'd been on it just then. Bad luck. Okay, let's go. The first leads appear. To negotiate these channels is exhausting. We rapidly understand it will take an immense team effort to overcome these obstacles and continue on, but no one complains. Dinner. The simplest gestures accomplished in a temperate zone take considerably more time here. It takes an hour to melt enough snow for our cooking and water consumption. That's why I always carry energy bars. We're going from minus 35 degrees to minus 20 degrees. It'll cost us. We lost 13 millibars yesterday, and since then we went from 1,038 millibars to 1,002. Which means if it's less than minus 30 degrees tomorrow, our clothes will be freezing. And it'll be chaos on the ice field. We're ready for it. Just a mess. We lose too much time morning and evening, especially in the morning. This morning we left one hour and 15 minutes too late. There are always two to four people who slip out of the tents after the others and it makes us late. Our timing is completely off. So no lounging around in the morning. I'm just like you. I don't feel like getting out of my sleeping bag either. I'd like to stay in another 15 minutes or so too. So whatever it takes, departure time is 9 a.m. We'll try to be ready by nine. We all have to be ready by nine and that's that. We have to stop losing so much time. We keep losing time and that's a problem. We just cannot afford to. Could you explain what you're doing with that little bottle? First, I pee into it. Then I check to make sure it's closed tight. I tip the bottle over to make absolutely sure. And then? Then I put it against my feet. I don't believe it. You keep it on you like that? Sure, when I feel a cold, it's like a hot water bottle and it warms me up. We've lost Michon's. Good night then. Good night. Despite a heavy lateral wind, we still maintain our course southward. 10 years ago, there used to be multi-year ice here that was several meters thick. Today, there is only young ice that's never more than a meter and a half thick, which is easily deformed by the winds and ocean currents. The old ice has almost entirely disappeared, a sign that the ocean will soon be completely free of ice in the summer. Sometimes, I feel a little lonely. I haven't told them, but we lost five kilometers yesterday because of the drift. We've got to get over the ridge and onto some good pack ice. We won't make it before seven. It's better to go back 200 meters and knock off at 6.30. Or we knock off at seven and get up at 10. We can sleep an extra hour. It's up to us to get organized and keep moving. If we didn't have to cross this thing, I wouldn't mind, but it's gonna be very difficult. And I think this is a really bad time to do it. He's right, I don't feel good about it. This way is slowing us down even more. We can't go around the lead. It'll take us too far east. We'll have to go across. I think we should use the rafts. We don't have much choice. Yeah, we'll slide them in there from where it's easier to step in, and then we cross where there's the least ice in the water. It shouldn't tip forward too much. No, no, we'll keep it centered. Good, it's well balanced like that. Perfect. Let go, let go. I could use a paddle. You have to have sailing skills if you go to the pole. Hope there's no submarine about to surface. Bring another raft to help them out. One, two, three. Easy, easy. What I didn't know was that at that very moment at base camp in Resolute Bay, Valentin was consulting maps and satellite images and starting to worry about our slow progress. Then she discussed it with Wayne Davidson, a prominent polar meteorologist who has lived here for 30 years. They're too loaded down to make it to the coast. The ice conditions are the worst I've ever seen. With what they're hauling, they should have left much earlier. The ice conditions would be bad for anybody, no matter how light they traveled. Everything is changing. The temperature will be more comfortable for them, but ice conditions will get worse. The ice is going to start moving more and more, and it will be difficult for them to get very far. What do you see from up there? It's a mess. Chaos everywhere. There are several compression crests that look like super diving sites. Right, Sam? We have to go down and see if the ice isn't too thick to drill a hole. Exactly. It will take us four hours to travel one kilometer to the good ice where we camp tonight. It's a little bit chilly, I'd say. How about my back? Luckily, we're in good spirits. It's funny, but the brush turns out to be the best polar tool there is. The beauty of a gesture repeated over and over. Morning and night, it can take as much as two hours to brush off the icicles formed from our breathing and sweat, as well as the frost in the tents and sleeping bags. That's it for tonight's episode of Valentin. Hi, Valentin, it's Guylain. So we're at 88, 1947, and 48, 3206. Okay, you've drifted pretty far south. We walked, too, 5.63 kilometers southward. It was quite cold, beautiful, but cold. This morning, it was minus 40. It's chaos on the ice field. We're making very slow progress. Tomorrow, there's a violent blizzard heading your way at an incredible speed. In the afternoon, you can expect winds at 20 to 30 knots. So Wayne suggests you get settled on good pack ice and build walls of snow and ice to protect yourselves. It's going to be extremely violent. Valentin wasn't kidding. Violent is definitely the word. Rather than keeping warm under the covers, Albon, Sam, Manu, and I get up the nerve and give it a try anyway. It's opening up and closing, too. It's starting to close up. One thing for sure, we can't go too far. Could you get through from where you are? You okay? Yeah, but it sure is thick. Whereas the first site was predominantly flat and angular with sharp crystals, here it's like the shock of the titans. The packs and crests seem to tumble over each other as in a ballet of petrified giants. The underwater relief is eight times what's visible on the surface. Like frozen cumulonimbus clouds, the word exploring