Maybe I’m biased. After all, this was just some of the fabulous footage captured by Disneynature crews working with Arctic Kingdom. And, despite un-self conscious the ease with which the walrus cradles her young, the shoot was not without its challenges. In a recent article posted at the Canada Tourism Centre’s Media center, AK founder Graham Dickson explains:

“Walruses are not only potentially dangerous, but the mothers tend to be protective of their young. So finding one, in clear water, that keeps doing her thing naturally, was pretty incredible.”

Graham goes on to explain that finding animals in the wild is just one of the challenges of filming Arctic wildlife.

“The challenge is to find meaningful connections” between the animals, he says. Some animals are frankly too self-conscious; they’re so aware of the dive crews that they aren’t … themselves. Sometimes, strangely enough, the most intimidating animals make the most fittingly Zen subjects. Like, for example, a big alpha-male polar bear, caught at a moment when he’s well fed and king of all he surveys. Bears in such conditions “are almost blasé,” Dickson says. “They don’t care that you’re around. They don’t fear you. You’re not part of their food chain.”

Arctic Kingdom’s secret lies in the relationships we’ve formed over years of working and returning to the Arctic. Meaningful connections built between our expedition leaders and the local guides we work with help us to find and form connections with the wild creatures that make the Arctic their home.

“[The Inuit] have the strongest connection of anyone to the wildlife,” Dickson says. Roughly half of Arctic Kingdom’s field personnel team comes from the local native communities. “We work not only with youth but with very old elders who don’t speak English. We’re a ‘southern’ company that has spent enough time in the North to actually know some Northern ways. We bring the sophisticated logistics, but we still plug into the local community network and everything the Inuit hold near and dear.”

By relying on the traditional knowledge of Inuit guides, Arctic Kingdom is providing jobs for far northern communities that draws upon traditional knowledge and values, helping build and strengthen the Arctic economy for a changing future. Simultaneously, we’re helping other “southerners” connect with the world of the North (including some extremely photogenic walruses). Not a bad way to make a living!

Disney’s secret weapon: Canadian Arctic footage in new doc ‘Oceans.’ | Media centre | Canadian Tourism Commission.

The Northern News Service Online has a story up about Oolateeteh Iqaluk, the Resolute resident who served as lead guide on the expedition.

Iqaluk was the last guide to lead a group from Resolute to Grise ford, six years ago, making him the best person to lead our expedition.

“The most challenging part of the trip was the weather,” said Iqaluk, who said the first three days of the trip were very windy with whiteouts.

For three days, the group was weathered in and covered little ground. Iqaluk said the weather did not clear until they reached the end of Ellesmere Island. The whiteouts made the animal tracks hard to see on the snow and Iqaluk said it was hard to tell where the animals were and they were lucky to see some polar bears and muskox. On April 20, they arrived in Grise Fiord after travelling 720 kilometres.

Following a few days rest, the group, along with Iqaluk’s 22-year-old nephew Harry Iqaluk and several of the company’s clients, left Grise Fiord for Resolute on April 24. For the five days Lennartz said they had beautiful weather. The group was fortunate enough to see many polar bears and muskox daily.

By using local knowledge from their guides and hunters in Grise Fiord, the group made it back to Resolute on April 28 after traveling 600 kilometres

For more on the expedition, including some great photos, check out Thomas’s account of the trip!

via Tour company explores eco-tourism trips.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Graham Dickson

One of the things that’s great about this interview is that it really gives a sense of the scale of the work that Arctic Kingdom did on the Arctic portion of Oceans, and the wide range of considerations a small word like logistics covers. As Graham notes in the interview, it involves more than getting people and equipment from point A to point B:

“We had a post-production black-out tent, a kitchen and dining area in another tent with water supply, medical facilities and an emergency physician on site,” Dickson says. “Just to survive and run a camp in a remote location, let alone film there, requires a huge amount of equipment – it was approaching a military scale.”

While the tents themselves were heated, on raised beds and large enough for people to stand up in, the exterior conditions weren’t as cushy.

“Everything that we shot was obtained the hard way,” he says. “We’d be setting up rails on the ice while looking out for polar bears, while also sending out a crew on a boat. The logistics to move that number of people, supply them, feed them, have enough fuel, choose the right locations, making it all safe — it’s gargantuan.

“Furthermore,” he adds, “figuring out the right locations and right times to go is challenging. Climate change doesn’t help, nor do shifting migration patterns and ice floes, so it can be very unpredictable.”

From keeping people fed (not an easy task so many kilometers from the nearest corner store) to finding animals and helping crews get the right shot, bringing a film crew to the Arctic is no easy task. All of which makes Oceans an even more momentous event — a lot of people worked very hard to make this footage look effortless!

Read more: National Post: Meet Graham Dickson: essential Arctic tour guide

And in case you missed it, Graham’s interview with CBC’s Ian Hanomansing is now online. You can watch it on the CBC’s website.

And of course, Disneynature’s Oceans opens today in North America! As Ian Hanomansing points out in his interview with Graham, all the footage from the Arctic in the film is from Canada, and we’re proud to have played an instrumental role in obtaining that footage. I, for one, can’t wait to see the finished product!

Happy Earth Day!

The Twin Icebergs

For those that have never been to the arctic, most, probably I would say rarely even think about it. Yes, it’s up there on the news – it is melting, the polar bear is endangered, and the news can go on…but few probably have thought about ’seeing’ the arctic in person.

When I meet people for the first time and they find out that I work for Arctic Kingdom and head up to the Arctic to lead expeditions and animal photography trips the reactions range from: “Wow that’s cool!” to…” oh.. really.. Why do you go?Isn’t it …freezing cold? What’s there to see?”    The latter reaction is typically quickly changed once they see the Arctic Kingdom gallery of images - there obviously is much to see and over the next few months,  I’ll be posting some of my favourite pictures  like this one…

Base Camp Fly By

taken on Arctic Kingdom expeditions over the last 10 years  (wow..has it been that long already!)  and the story that surrounded those pictures

TheArctic is one of those places that you either love it, or you haven’t been there.  I am still asked why I go year after year – I mean, once you’ve been there once haven’t you seen it enough?   I reflected on this recently as to why I love the Arctic – the ice, the snow, the animals and the many Inuit friends.  For me, the primary draw that fuels the passion, that drives me to return and also to show those around me what the Arctic is really all about…is most definitely the animals – especially the whales .

I am going to post an article  below I wrote for a dive magazine back in 2002 after my first expedition to the Admiralty Inlet floe edge out of Arctic Bay.  I wrote this after my first time ever having swam with beluga and narwhal… and after re-reading it just now.. memories come flooding back..and the Arctic calls again.  Without further adoo..  here is that article titled “Dancing with Beluga”

Belugas "Dancing" with the photographer

The Beluga whale and I stare deep into each others eye’s – the Beluga upside down, facing the surface of the Arctic Ocean craning her neck to examine me with a seemingly permanent smile, and me, floating face down, with only a few feet of crystal clear icy water separating us. I float in the water, breathing gently through my snorkel, totally mesmerized by the dark pools of brown that make up the Beluga’s eyes – a stark contrast to her milky white body. I am oblivious to everything except the surreal world below me. Any direction I face, I see pods of white Beluga and charcoal speckled narwhal whales swimming toward me from the black depths below – all with necks angled towards me in unison. All I can hear, aside from my breathing, are their canary-like songs enveloping me from all sides – a virtual orchestra of clicks, whistles and flute-like notes. All I can feel is the icy arctic water pressing tightly against my drysuit. My lips are numb from the cold, but I don’t care, this is a beautiful and magical world unlike any I’ve ever experienced before and I never want this to end.

Beluga pod coming to fill the dance card

As I turn away from my Beluga to look at the other 30 face-up Belugas surrounding her, she turns and follows. With a kick of my right fin, I turn left and she follows my lead. I kick right, and she mirrors my move. I think to myself, “I’m dancing with a Beluga!” and from the depths of my soul, I let out an uninhibited laugh through my snorkel…a laugh of pure joy and exhilaration of having connected one to one with one of nature’s most wonderful animals. I had never laughed so freely and spontaneously before until that moment.

From the surface looking down at the belugas...who are also looking up

Click here to view the embedded video.

But ice diving can be dangerous, particularly in the kind of conditions found on the St Lawrence River in the wintertime: a mix of water, frozen water, and thin ice as well as layers of solid ice several inches thick. Add to that the fact that the water beneath the ice is moving (this is a river, after all), and you’ve got some seriously challenging dive logistics.

It’s factors like these that inspired Arctic Kingdom to have an Airboat custom-built specifically for ice diving expeditions. Because the Airboat can travel across all types of ice and water, we’re able to traverse the river safely, and dive remote areas never before accessible during the winter months. And, by utilizing rebreathers, we’re able to stay beneath the water longer, enjoying the “crystal world” to the fullest.

The Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet crew recently followed some of Arctic Kingdom’s team as they scouted out new ice dive sites via Airboat on the icy St. Lawrence. The resulting video shows a lot of what makes AK dives so special: rebreather technology, expedition leaders with extensive experience in the field, and, as highlighted in the video, the unstoppable Airboat, able to traverse all sorts of winter conditions easily and (if I may) pretty darn stylishly. Check out the video, and see for yourself!

Want to join the fun? It’s too late to join us on the St Lawrence this year, but we’re already accepting bookings for next winter’s trips! Find out more about Ice Diving on the St Lawrence on the Trips page.