Descending into Greenland's most astonishing ice cave ｜ FULL DOCUMENTARY

For the last 30 minutes, the helicopter has been flying over the largest glacier in the north of the polar circle, an inlancis, located on the west coast of Greenland. Aboard is Serge Javiot, GRAIL, Greenland Animal and Algae Research Project expedition leader. As the name suggests, this really is the quest for the GRAIL, i.e. life in the ice cap. So we want to go as deep as possible into the ice. The French expedition team for this subglacial exploration includes... How are you going to take the samples? Cathy, Catherine Perret, biologist and microscopy imaging specialist, Alessio Romeo, Italian glaciologist. That's a division of this cell. Alain Coutet, professor at the Natural History Museum in Paris and specialist in extremophilic fauna, the kind that survives in ice. Hervé Jarradi and Lionel Blin, the two glacionauts. I bought some rope. I had a shoulder strap added for Cathy. And Philippe Galetien, aka The Dog, the expedition doctor and cook. We're advancing over the inlancis, which represents 9% of the planet's fresh water. It is an immense reservoir and at the same time it acts as a refrigerator, preserving the atmosphere. That's why it's important to protect it. Serge Aviot is making his 14th expedition to the glacier. On this kind of expedition, the hardest thing is finding the ideal area. We're always very tense. I link up my GPS and eventually we'll approach the area I was aiming for. I think it's good. We should be able to do this. A bit of work, but it should be OK. We'll see. We'll send this team down. I'm bound to be a bit anxious about the camp location. Yeah, it's tricky. The team sets about unloading 1.4 tons of equipment, which is essential if they are to survive this icy and inhospitable environment, where temperatures can drop to below minus 30 degrees in September. Now we're going to be alone and I hope that everything will go well, because there's quite a lot of work to get the camp up and running. Let's go. We're going to the other side. I'm digging half moons. It's a system with two holes through which we feed a rope, enabling us to prop up the tent. We do it because normal pegs won't hold in the ice. We'll collect the rest of the equipment, in particular Alain Coutet's equipment, and then I think we'll be all set to start work on the ice cap. And then we really will be all alone. This rope is a pain because it twists around. It's OK, I'm in the groove. Scratch a bit, bring it back, hit there, hit on there. The electric generator is working, the binocular magnifier and the lamp work too. Nothing's broken, there's light, it's perfect. Then everything's ready to start work. But what a struggle. It's a devil of a job bringing all this equipment, a real ordeal. But in order to study the extremophiles in their habitat, you have to sit through the snow, the rain, the damp, it's hell. But to look at living organisms and to study them correctly, that's what we have to do. At certain times of the year, on this ice cap, streams of meltwater run over the ice. These glacial rills, as they're called, run into the crevices carving moulins. So, in order to get down, we're partly equipped from above, on the ice of course, with spindles and then we work in shifts, relaying at 20, 50 and finally 100 metre intervals, either when we get to the draining channel or to the lake. So tomorrow, we'll go and hope that we find a very deep moulin that we can both equip safely and in a way so that the entire team can go down. Serge, why is the term moulin, meaning mill in French, used when referring to the ice cap? Well, moulin, it's a funny story. It's a term that comes from shamanics in the French Alps. Apparently, when the locals went down into Vallée Blanche, they heard what sounded like a water mill. As they went through there, they said, there's a mill here. At the time, Fontaine and Vallot, two well-known mountaineers, had the crazy idea of going down there on ladders, which wasn't an easy feat. They got down to almost 60 metres on a rope ladder, then metal ladders before the innovation of the fixed rope. These are static cords that make it possible both to descend without the use of plugs and to come back up using only the ropes. Naturally, this all involved a radical evolution of the techniques. All of these techniques were developed by speleologists, myself included, and were widely diffused by the French School of Speleology through clubs, which led to these techniques being developed even further. That's how we obtained the methods of descent and ascent that we use today. And which we use in the crevices and in ice moulins. What we refer to today as a moulin, in the time of Paul-Émile Victor, on maps of the Inlandsis, weren't marked as moulins. They were labelled crevasses. However, like any good Frenchman would, they gave them French names. La Garonne, La Seine, etc. What I mean is their association with these rivers, when we saw them on a map with crevices at the end, we said, that has got to be amazing. OK, well, listen. The hopes of this expedition rest on your shoulders because you've seen the conditions and the place which is quite disrupted. It's your turn to try and find this moulin. Yes, I'm sending two of the, shall we say, younger explorers to look for a moulin which is both active and fossil. It's true that I've never seen the ice cap so disrupted. So that is causing big problems. We're going to have to rely on experience and luck to explore and descend as deep as possible. You see, you leave the bags on the floor and they get wet because there's so much melt water. It is a bit worrying. It's really the worst case scenario. It's vital that we remain optimistic. Let's move on to the next step. Serge and Lionel have decided to go with the scientists to collect samples. We're going to continue to press on through this wilderness. Be careful here. We're going to cross a snow bridge. Take care. Yeah, great. Great. We're going to take a few samples. Is it good? Is the ice good? So here, you see that, Cathy? The red substance we see, it looks like traces of blood. Well, it's absolutely typical here. They're all microorganisms that adapt to the cold. Here, and then here, and then we'll take a bit from there. The temperature drops suddenly over the glacier. Cathy and Alain have to use their gloves to handle the samples with difficulty. So you see the red spherical shapes we have here? These are green algae, in fact. It's surprising. It's red, but usually it's green. What happens is they produce a substance to protect themselves from harsh conditions. This substance is red and gives them this appearance of having red corpuscles. Despite the extreme temperatures, numerous varieties of algae populate the ice cap. These inhabitants of the cold all make antifreeze systems, giving them these vibrant colours. What's important to know about algae is that they produce 70% to 80% of the oxygen on Earth that we breathe. So what we're interested in today is to know how these algae continue to live, continue spreading or not in relation to the glacier on the inland. Serge is beginning to get worried. Hervé and Alessio have still not returned. On the ice cap, the weather can change several times in the same day. So there's good and bad news. Give me the bad news. The bad news is that there is water everywhere. And the good is that we found 12. 12 moulins, are they active? Yes, most of them. There's one, the one on the glacial rail, that's really active. That's impossible to... Yes, I can believe it. And then near it are loads of peripheral moulins and channels that could well freeze. If it's a channel, then we must be able to descend. Down the side, perhaps? No. OK, but for the time being, they're still very active. The 12 of them? Yeah, more or less. Of course, there are some that we could go down. A few metres, perhaps, yeah. Some have very little feeding them. It won't take much on a night of frost. We just have to hope it'll be cold. Are you a little bit tired? You OK, yeah? Well, we're going to have some good food, I think. You've deserved it. Well, good, listen, it's good news, though. Go on, get your strength back, because everyone's going to need it tomorrow. Oh, yeah, I just wanted to tell you all that in terms of biscuits, there are only a certain amount left, and they've got to last until Tuesday lunchtime. That means we can have seven per day, per person, and no more. The same goes for chocolate. Two squares per day, per person. I'm telling you this because if there is nothing left to eat on the last day, everyone will be upset and it won't be very nice. So try and be careful about how many biscuits and how much chocolate you're eating. Be careful with the soft cheese, too. One portion per day, per person. There. Some of you won't be happy about that, but too bad. The cold and the frost set in overnight, and the meltwater in the stream and the glacial rill that runs alongside the camp has reduced. However, in order to explore the Moulin, this mass of ice must stay frozen all day. Moulin can only be explored during the short season between July and September, when meltwater carves crevices and then freezes. I think we're going to have a good descent with a lot of water, unfortunately. So we'll see. Be careful, guys. Someone watch out for me. Hard to see how deep it is. It's a great crevasse. I think that we can go very deep down. It may even be a world record. Lionel! You'll have to pass me another harness clip. In fact, the refreeze conditions we require are very specific. We cannot go down into the Moulin if there's too much water, because the risk of danger from the falling water is too high. That said, weather conditions on the inland can change very quickly and drop to temperatures of minus 25 to minus 30. And that will enable us to descend. On the other hand, we won't have long to explore, because the water being held in the bottom of the Moulin will slowly start to rise. So really, this kind of exploration is about a lot of luck. And as I said, very little time. You could say our days are numbered. It's true that a lot of people say, what do they do down there? Why do they do that, et cetera? You have to have done it to understand that feeling of being alone inside a body of ice. For me, it's vital. It makes me feel alive. And the feeling you get when you continually push your limits, which makes you want to live. You have to experience the desire to think, I'm going down a deep well. What will I see down there? Will it go on forever? Will it ever end? I hope it keeps on going. I hope there's an amazing gallery. It's great. Very big, very beautiful, but far too much water. We're still in what I'd call a warm season. I think it's related to modern climate change. So we cannot go very deep, unfortunately, because of all the spin drift. On the waterfall going back up, you'll see it's like a cloud or a fog of some kind. But this has a really exceptional form. It's a shame that we can't go right the way down, because I think it's a big moulin, a really big moulin. I hold a world record, but I don't know if it's been beaten since. Because the thing about ice is that the topography has to be meticulously calculated. For the simple and very good reason that it changes from day to day. The water inside a moulin can rise. So there's a code of ethics in the speleological world that states that if a crevice is 980 meters deep, it's not 1,000 meters deep, because less than 1,000 sounds more impressive than less than 980. It's the same under the ice. We have to be extremely accurate because these kinds of expeditions into moulins are becoming increasingly common. And then it will become very difficult to know if people are being honest about the depths they've reached. That's the reason why we say I hold a record which is 173 meters deep, not 190. The camp flag has been erected. I hope that Expedition Grail 2 will be a success in terms of the depths we hope to reach and in scientific terms that we can achieve all our goals. It might snow tonight, that's crazy. Oh, here we go. This is a very nice hole, a cryoconite hole. We tend to think, at least we've always thought, that there was no existing life in the glaciers. But this isn't true. There's life everywhere, but it's in these little holes. And the organisms that live there are microscopic. These holes are called cryoconite holes, conite meaning dust and cryo from frozen. These cryoconite holes have been a mystery for years. Now we know more about how they're made. In fact, these are mineral and organic particles that are carried in the wind. These particles land in the ice and when the sun shines, they heat up quicker than the ice, thus melting the ice around them. And then some of them remain on the surface of the fusion water, swirling around in the wind and creating a small circle which creates a cylinder shape in the ice until they end up sinking to the bottom, creating this brown substance that we can see in the bottom of all the holes. We use a syringe to extract this substance. It consists of microorganisms such as microscopic algae and minute animals like tardigrades, which are the top dogs in this environment. They're at the top of the food chain, the equivalent of the lion in the savannah. Great, these are perfect conditions for catching some tardigrades. There we go. It's very difficult to isolate a tardigrade. They're very fine. So we fashioned some micro pipettes, very, very fine tipped pipettes. And with this cryoconite hole, which is black, we're going to try and find a sort of transparent or perhaps yellowish mass which may or may not be moving. So we can say here we have a tardigrade. The tardigrade is an animal that resists the cold by hibernating like a bear. And it wakes up when conditions improve. When the cryoconite freezes, it's trapped in the ice. But this doesn't harm it. When the ice melts, it wakes up. We think that its ability to stay alive is due to a substance, a sugar called trehalose. And we think that it takes this sugar from the microscopic algae that produce it. Guys, I think we'll have to look at this area tomorrow because I can see some glacial rills. I don't know, what do you think? So tomorrow, team, you three, leave as early as possible so that you don't get back to camp too late. Is that OK? That's what we do tomorrow. OK, now you can bring it. There you see, it has to be blue. You can go. We've boosted it a bit. We always hope to beat a record, of course. That's why I come with my team. But the problem is that, as always, it's nature that decides. Here we found a moulin that is really, really great because it is supplied by two glacial rills. The problem is that it isn't stable. It's extremely dangerous. You can say what you see. Especially since the three of us found ourselves on a ledge that was about half as wide as a box. We heard an explosion and the cavity began to shake. We wanted to go down deeper, but there we just looked at each other and said, what do we do? Shall we go back up? Nobody even gave it a second thought. We got out of there and quick. I'm ready for my team to beat my record. I'd rather they do it than anyone else. That said, I hope they won't beat it right away. It would be nice for me to hold on to it a little bit longer. But then again, it's part of the game. In any case, a record is set to be beaten. The speleologist Serge Aviot is attempting to beat the record for the deepest descent into a glacier. The record is currently held by Serge Aviot himself at 173 metres. Yes, I hear you. I have a team here on exploration and I hope we're going to go really deep. Yes, indeed. We've some slightly different conditions. I think it's related to the climate. In fact, we're talking about warming up here. I'd say it's more like a climate modification. See you soon. In reality, the record isn't mine. It belongs to an entire team. If I were to be philosophical about it, I'd say that it really isn't the most important thing for me. The main thing is to have a solid group. Even if it's not me going as far as I can in my crampons, as deep as possible into a crevasse, I couldn't do it without them. The team explores several moulins in succession, but they have to abandon the mission every time because of bad weather conditions. Water is gushing. Be careful at the end. There might be a little bit of water under the ice. Stay on the rope. Although the weather is not on their side, their luck improves with the discovery of a magnificent blue gallery carved by a river that dried up, leaving the gallery in a fossil state. It's only about a year old and it's abandoned. A year, you say? Yeah, no more than that. It's very big with crystallization, stalactites and stalagmites. They look like the rostrums of narwhals. Oh, yeah. This twisted shape, which resembles the narwhal's horn, is caused by meltwater trickling in spirals. The gallery seems to be made up of a palette of different blues. As the light is filtered, it produces varying shades of blue or white, depending on whether air bubbles are present in the ice. If there are bubbles, it's white. If there are none, it's blue. Because the pressure of the ice eliminates the air bubbles. The deeper we go, the more we penetrate the past and we can find very interesting information about climate and pollution, etc. Water is pouring in. It's time to stop the exploration. The glacial rills flow into the lake at the bottom. 70 meters down. Into the moulin first. Yeah, into the moulin, and then it arrives in the lake. The lake must be 15 meters in diameter. There is a rock bar, and then behind it, the gallery begins. Exactly. This type of drainage could be interesting because it's quite rare to find a moulin that has a gallery at the bottom of it. But that is practically... It's a shame I wasn't with you to see it, but it's interesting. The temperature this morning is way above zero degrees for the first time. Water is gushing everywhere. The glacial rill was empty just a few days ago, but now it has transformed into a powerful river that is flowing dangerously into the moulin. The team must give up on the record. It won't happen today. Some of the team make the most of this change to wash in the ice baths. The days of minus 15 degrees are over. The team feels more or less at home. There, it looks pretty good. You see the different colors and layers. That's drainage. If we can take samples from this area here, but we need to find a spot where it's easy. Okay, I think we'll have to go up a little higher. I think it'll be easier to equip. The sides are strong. Perfect. Lionel and I will set it up. So your descender is safely installed. No problems. As soon as you press on the baudry, it stops. And to go down, press again. Okay? Let's go get some tardigrades. Tally-ho. Let's go. I'm with you. Here, we'll take one here. You see? Here. All these different colored veins. They reflect the annual deposits of dust and matter on the surface. Here, we have an area where lots of organisms are trapped. In fact, you can see a sort of trickling. We'll go deep down, take off the surface bit, and extract the organisms trapped in there. Tardigrades appear to have a curious ability to live for hundreds of years in a sort of hibernation. And then to reanimate when rehydrated. In this way, it is possible that tardigrades over 200 years will have been brought back to life. If we can understand how the tardigrades can resist these conditions of dehydration and apparent death, perhaps we can apply it to humans. But it's a bit of a dream. In similar conditions, these are substances we could inject to survive in extreme situations. But sometimes reality surpasses fiction. Some of these properties are already used in the surgical field to prolong the shelf life of transplant organs. Surge has selected a fossil glacial rill. A glacial rill that is no longer active but dead. It becomes fossil and then disappears in the space of one or two years. It will be replaced by a new rill the following year. There are some interesting samples to take here. We're going to take a sample from the ice. Are you ready, Cathy? Yes, I'll just clip this on. We're going to take samples from there. Here, do you want the flask? Give me the flask. A nice little sample. It looks like there are small traces inside. Let's have a look at that in the microscope. Okay, I've got it. I can do it too. Don't bother trying. No, let me do it because I'm more used to using the clips. You're more the microscope expert. This is my job. No, I'll wait over there. Have you seen the foam? This is a dangerous operation given that the substitute glacial rill can reach a flow rate of 40 cubic meters per second. You want me to help you? Is it okay? Come on. Oh, what a mess. Look at the microscope. Completely wonky. It's melted underneath. And there, look at that. Did you see how it's moved? Wow, it's a good job we came back early. Otherwise, everything would have been on the floor. Luckily, Alain brought samples of a tardigrade about to spawn. This animal is really special. Because it lives in a poor environment, it's difficult for it to find a partner. Therefore, to ensure the survival of the species, it has the ability to transform its female sexual cells into eggs directly, without there being any contact with or contribution from a partner. Here we can see two eggs attached to the back. They'll come loose and the animal will free itself from its rear part. This strange animal, known as a rotifer, is a little bit smaller than tardigrade. Some are even two times finer than a human hair. It owes its name to the rotation of the two rings of fine cilia. This unique system sucks up bacteria and carries it to the mouth so the animal can feed. The rotifer moves around with the use of a foot equipped with a sticky gland that enables it to adhere to surfaces. Thank you very much and bon voyage. Safe journey. There's a lot to be thinking about when you're overseeing a scientific mission. First of all, there's a lot of responsibility. We're bringing scientists of a very high calibre. But on a technical level, you have to watch over them, we have to supervise them and make sure they're safe. It's true, this involves a lot of equipment and a lot more fuel because they're going to work with the microscope. So, in any case, part of GRAIL 2's mission is to bring scientists out here, to be able to work with them and to take them back safe and sound. But accidents can happen at any time, usually when we're least expecting it. How did you do that? Like an idiot. I got my foot stuck in a cryokinite hole I hadn't noticed. I got stuck but didn't notice straight away, so I carried on walking. And I stuck my crampons right into myself. And look, you see, it was like a petanque ball going into the back of my heel. You might have pulled a muscle, we'll have to see. Hello, I'm going to put your leg on my thigh. Is your calf muscle hurting? It's OK. I'm going to take your boot off now. I hope it won't hurt too much. Yes, be careful, it's... Oh yes, you seem to be in quite a bit of pain. Wow. It doesn't look too swollen though. Does it hurt more here or there? There. And when I do that, where does it hurt? It hurts on the left side. OK. And there. A little bit. A little bit, but it hurts most in the ligament? On the left, yes. Listen, you've got a nasty sprain. We're going to have to take it slowly. How does the bandage feel? Well, it's better, but it still hurts. Of course. I'm going to give you an anti-inflammatory injection. Oh yeah. But you're going to have to pull your trousers down. Well, yet another opportunity. Your ankle OK? It's OK. My hands are cold, but there you go. Watch out. I'm away. Here we go. A snowstorm with gusts of wind reaching up to 160 kilometers an hour hits the ice cap. Today, it's really impossible. And I think that despite the fact we've been able to explore a dozen or so moulins, one of which was significant, and although we did get down to 100 meters, I think that what happened three years ago is going to happen again. I.e. I cannot see how we're going to be able to keep going. But I do hope, despite everything, that we can. You've got to be tough and persistent in this kind of exploration. Again, it's always nature that decides. But maybe next year or in two years, because it does take a lot of preparation. We've been lucky enough to discover galleries halfway down. My dream for the future is to go as deep as possible. It's a childhood dream. I mean, why couldn't we run around in enormous blue galleries deep down in the ice? That's the dream.