I'm travelling through the Arctic,
the Land of the Midnight Sun.
The most amazing view.
For thousands of years, only the hardiest hunters and herders
lived in this inhospitable land.
But now, the Arctic is warming
faster than anywhere else on Earth.
Go back. Go back.
As it thaws, new riches are being revealed.
This is what it's all about - the oil.
All eyes are turning north.
For one bright summer, I will live with the people of the Arctic.
Absolutely loving it.
This is the real thing.
I want to understand how their lives are changing
and discover what the future holds for this great wilderness.
MAN CALLS TO DOGS
I'm in the far north of Greenland.
The sun has just returned, after the long winter night.
This is the Arctic of the imagination -
a frozen land, swathed in ice two miles deep.
Just looking around, it's so surreal,
it's a magical place.
Along its rugged coast live the most iconic of Arctic people -
the Inuit.
Weapons at the ready.
This really is a hunting trip.
How are you, my friend?
MAN SPEAKS IN GREENLANDIC
Ah, thank you so much.
I live with traditional hunters and experience the realities
of life...
GUNSHOT AND HOWLS
..and death. But Greenland's exploiting new frontiers.
It's about to strike it big.
EXPLOSION
The amount of metal in this pillar is about $1.5 million.
This is the front line of change in the north...
Wow!
..but is there a place for hunters in the Arctic of the 21st century?
WIND GUSTS AND HOWLS
I've always been fascinated by hunter-gatherers,
but just imagine trying to eke out an existence
from all that you can find in a barren, desolate landscape like this.
Now, for the Inuit, most of those traditions have died away
but, amazingly, here in the north of Greenland,
some of those traditions still are alive today.
And that's why I've chosen to come to the village of Qaanaaq.
Greenland, a protectorate of Denmark,
is the largest island in the world,
but with the lowest population density.
A vast ice sheet covers the interior,
and its 56,000 people are spread out
in a few coastal settlements.
Qaanaaq, in the far northwest,
is one of the most remote
and traditional.
This is one of the last places in Greenland
where people still live by subsistence hunting.
I'm going to spend two weeks living in this community.
I want to learn about the traditions of the high Arctic.
But I also want to see how hunters' lives are changing.
How are you?
How are you, my friend?
HE SPEAKS IN GREENLANDIC
Ah, thank you so much.
Lovely to see you.
Look at your sled. Amazing.
HE SPEAKS IN GREENLANDIC
Kamochitka? Kamochi.
Kamochi. Sled. Kamochi. Kamochi.
DOGS YELP AND YOWL
Rasmus, like almost 90% of Greenlanders, is an Inuit.
His ancestors colonised the frozen north,
travelling from Alaska to Greenland on sleds pulled by dogs like these.
These are Greenland dogs, half-wild,
often scrapping with each other, in my experience.
But this lot...
they're like just any old mutt
you'd have at home - really friendly.
Hello there.
One look at Mads Ole tells me I've come to the right place
to learn about Inuit culture.
I'm very jealous of what you're wearing. What is this?
Polar bear. Polar bear? Polar bear!
And did you hunt this polar bear yourself?
Mm. You shoot?
Yeah. You? OK.
And, um, and these? Seal skin.
Seal skin? Wow.
Wow. And this?
Shopping. Shopping!
THEY CHUCKLE
A team of hunters, led by Rasmus Avike,
has agreed to let me tag along on their next hunting trip.
Will I be with you on your sledge? HE SPEAKS IN GREENLANDIC
With you? Yeah. OK. Yeah? OK, fantastic.
Though snowmobiles have replaced sleds across most of the Arctic,
dogs are still the preferred mode of transport in northern Greenland.
Rasmus is in his mid-40s
and has hunted all of his life.
He's going to be my guide out on the sea ice.
But before we head out hunting, he's going to take me fishing,
a few miles south of Qaanaaq.
Just looking around, it's so surreal.
It's a magical place.
Just to think, I'm on the sea. I'm on...
I'm actually on the Arctic Ocean.
And all of these little hillocks around me are icebergs.
Moving quite a pace as well.
Ah...
I'm so happy.
So happy. It's amazing.
We're here.
We arrive at the fishing grounds and get straight to work.
First, we need to reopen a hole in the ice.
Using mackerel for bait,
the hunters gently lower hooks through a metre of ice
and into the ocean below.
Hard to think of a more iconic
scene than this -
a bunch of guys in furs stood around a little hole in the ice.
A flat metal weight catches the strong current
and sweeps the lines hundreds of metres away from the hole.
It doesn't even bear thinking about - being sucked in.
Now that I know how strong the current is,
this makes the whole notion of going under the ice so much more scary.
The lines will be left out for a few
hours, so we retreat to the warmth of
the fishing hut.
Mads Ole tells me the key to happiness out on the ice
is lots of snacking.
Shall we go out? Mm. OK.
Let's see if, er, we've had any success.
They can't leave the lines out
too long, in case predators eat the fish.
I'd be lying if I said it felt like we had a shark at the end of this.
Wahey! My God!
Halibut and rays come out thick and fast.
Plenty of food to keep us and the dogs happy.
Great day's work. Really enjoyed that, actually.
A really mellow, nice pace,
but always something going on. Just the most surreal surroundings.
And a great catch, you know. There's some nice, tasty fish
that we're going to take with us on our journey tomorrow.
Back in Qaanaaq,
Rasmus invites me to his house to meet his family.
Rasmus. Hello. How are you? Yeah. Is your house?
OK, thank you.
It's Mahlia, yes? Mahlia.
Mahlia? Hello, Mahlia. Hello there.
Hello. ..Bruce.
Lovely to meet you. Wow!
It's very nice to be in out of the cold,
and what an extraordinary house.
And...
It's like the elephant in the room, isn't it?
You can't really walk past it without having to ask a question.
Rasmus, please, tell me, what is this that I've just stepped past?
Walrus. This is walrus? Mm.
And why is it here, in the middle of the living room?
I keep my dog food in little, er, little bags by the larder
and, er, this is the equivalent here.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm getting like that too, I must admit!
Rasmus must give his dogs a decent feed before the hunt.
Fatty meat like this is the secret to a sled dog's endurance.
It's energy-rich and very long-lasting.
Animals aren't just a source of meat to the Inuit.
Skins and furs are used to make clothing.
Rasmus shows me his cold-weather gear -
polar bear trousers and a reindeer jacket.
I feel like Pan, out of some fairy tale or other.
HE LAUGHS
Rasmus, you are the dude.
Thank you. And that's so clever.
Just the fur ruff there
sort of seamlessly fits and stops any spindrift blowing into the cuff.
I want one!
HE CHUCKLES
Rasmus...
Minus 50. Minus 60. Mm.
This gear is only used in severe cold.
It's a mere minus five at the moment,
so Rasmus says I won't be needing it on this trip.
THEY CHUCKLE
Ah... It's amazing stuff,
and it's so... it's really light and flexible.
Next morning, it's time to go hunting.
Mahlia has come to see Rasmus off.
Hunting is a dangerous occupation in spring,
when the ice is melting and can break up at any moment.
BOTH: Bye.
RASMUS CALLS TO DOGS
Greenland dogs can drag a sled
100 miles a day, for up to a week at a time,
but this ancient partnership between dog and man is almost at an end.
There are less than 40 hunters using
dog sleds in Qaanaaq.
Rasmus and his team are among
the last of their kind.
I always have mixed feelings when I set out on a hunt.
I have deep respect for nature,
but death has always been
an intrinsic part of life
this far north.
Traditionally, in this part of the world, hunting was everything.
There's very little gathering here. There's no trees
to chop your firewood. Even the warmth in your tent or shelter
at night was from the blubber of the seals and the whales.
The clothing, the sledges,
traditionally were made from the animals themselves.
And of course, things are changing now and you can buy stuff in town,
but these guys are still hunters. That's what they do.
They are out and they feed their families from the food that they get
from hunting. So, this trip is really important.
It's not just a little look at the past,
this is what they're doing still today
and, as a result, I really hope we get something.
Rasmus says it's almost two days' travelling
to the walrus hunting grounds,
so I've got plenty of time
to soak up the scenery.
After many hours travelling across
the ice, we stop for the night
at a hut on the edge of the fjord.
Come on. This way.
First thing, always,
after a long day like this, you've got to sort the dogs out,
cos they are our life source,
our lifeblood, and they need feeding,
separating, sorting.
BARKING AND YELPING
It's walrus on the menu for the dogs,
but I'm treated to another local speciality -
raw narwhal fin.
DOGS YELP
Gives you strength? Mm.
Mm!
Mm...
Rubbery.
Cold.
Thank you.
A sort of blubber sandwich, with a bit of rubber either side...
..but strangely tasty!
You did? With a harpoon? Mm.
And then shoot? Mm.
OK. And then pulled in? Mm.
Wow.
Is this the halibut from yesterday? Mm.
Yeah? Yeah? Mm. Wow.
Perfect end to a great day.
Halibut curry. Nice and hot.
And a great little hut to sleep in.
The dogs will all sleep outside,
perfectly warm with their thick coats,
guarding us against polar bears.
Just nipped out of the camp to come and have a wee,
and, er...
broad daylight...
and the time is midnight.
I am truly in the Land of the Midnight Sun,
and how glorious!
Of course, in the winter, they have the reverse.
Four months of the year -
complete darkness.
I'm quite pleased I'm here now.
Unbelievable.
Another glorious sunny day.
All the dogs working perfectly.
And we're plodding away,
getting closer to the hunting grounds.
After a few hours, we head into a patch of freezing fog.
I can begin to feel, sort of...
crystals of...
ice in the air.
We're quickly enveloped by tiny ice particles.
As they sparkle in the sunlight,
it feels like we're travelling
through a cloud of glitter.
Then, I hear the distant sound
of sea birds.
Wow! Open water, by the looks of it.
Finally, we've reached the edge of the ice.
It's just so surreal.
So still and serene.
Untouched by humans, frankly.
No tin cans and shopping trolleys in this stretch of water.
It's breathtakingly beautiful,
but there's no sign of walrus,
and Paulos says we can't go any further.
The sea ice has melted much earlier than the hunters expected.
There's no chance of us getting anything here.
Man and dog could do with a rest, so we make camp on
a safe bit of land, not far
from the ice edge.
Wow! It looks great!
We're just settling down for the night
when we see dog sleds on the horizon.
One minute, you think you're the only people in the entire world
and then, suddenly, you're overwhelmed with dog sled teams.
And a boat, of all things!
This new hunting team has come prepared for open water.
They're going to head out to sea first thing tomorrow morning.
Everyone's up early. Walrus have been spotted a mile or so offshore.
The new hunters invite Mads Ole and I to join one of the boats,
but on two conditions.
First, that I wear Inuit cold-weather gear.
They don't want a freezing foreigner on their hands.
Second, the film crew must stay on shore.
Over to my little camera now.
Leaving everyone else behind.
Harpoon.
Weapons at the ready.
This really is a hunting trip.
Walrus are iconic Arctic animals.
They live where pack ice meets open water,
diving for clams and other shellfish,
then hauling out onto ice floes to rest and sleep.
Scanning the horizon now,
looking for the telltale sign.
They shouldn't be hard to spot -
adult walrus can weigh in at more than a tonne.
That's a lot of food for these hunters and their dogs -
well worth risking these treacherous waters.
We've just come into shore so that we can climb a little bit,
get a viewpoint to look out onto the ice floes,
see if there's any sign of life.
No luck so far.
It's like a layer of latex, this ice,
and you can wobble it,
sending little waves off.
Quite the strangest thing.
And, of course,
if you stick your finger in it,
well, you can play with it.
The things you can do while waiting for walrus!
They've just been up to have a look, erm...
and there's a lot of ice out there,
and it's coming this way, apparently.
You can feel a little surge occasionally.
The walrus that were seen earlier have moved off
but, right now, that's the least of our worries.
The tide is coming in, bringing massive chunks of sea ice with it,
blocking our way back to the camp.
It's a real maze, trying to make our way through all these floes.
You go into these open-water channels,
and then there's a dead end. You come back out,
try and go back the way you came, then the ice has closed behind you.
This huge mass of ice isn't giving us any real...
any real passageways through.
We've come to another block,
can't seem to find our way out of this solid ice.
All around us, our world is moving.
The constant groan of the ice
shifting in different directions as the wind's catching it.
You look around and you see that everything around you is unsteady,
moving left and right.
HUNTERS CHAT IN GREENLANDIC
Newest turn-up of events
is that we're going to drag the boat
across this floe,
out onto the ice the other side.
Woah-oh-oh!
CHUCKLING
Whoa! Oh, my God!
That's where I was a second ago - right at the back, pushing -
and I came to one side to get a better shot.
I'm quite glad I did!
OK, and we're off,
and so are our friends.
Spring is when the Arctic is at its most dynamic and most dangerous.
We seem to be making some headway.
This looks a lot more promising.
I think we might be getting there.
Finally, we find a way through
and head back to camp,
but no-one feels like celebrating.
Sadly, we're coming back empty-handed.
We've had to accept defeat.
Didn't see a single thing all day.
So, it's really disappointing,
but it's been an extraordinary day out on the ice and the water.
But for these guys, sad, because
we really wanted to get something.
The mood back at camp is pretty low.
Paulos says it's becoming much harder to hunt at this time of year.
The one thing I'm really picking up on here is that...
things are changing here really very dramatically.
This was almost a certainty that they would be able to get out on that ice,
and now it's much warmer, it's softer, it's thinner,
and it's shifting earlier in the year,
so that's having a real impact on these people's lives.
Temperatures in Greenland have risen
by twice the global average in recent years, with dramatic impacts,
but Mads Ole says hunting
is the way of his ancestors
and he's not going to give it up.
There's no chance of getting walrus here but, tomorrow,
the hunters want to look for seals on the ice further north.
Rasmus has run out of walrus meat,
so the dogs have to
make do with dried biscuits.
Unless we get some meat,
we're all going to go hungry. That's the way of it out here.
The dogs need meat and we need meat.
So, erm, it's really serious, we've got to find something.
DOGS HOWL AND WHINE
Oh, that is so much better! You can't beat...
You can't beat a good cup of tea in these conditions.
OK. Feels good.
Yeah? You have good teeth.
What's that?
You are old man. Whole man?
Old. Old man?
By my teeth?
My God! That's the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me, Mads Ole,
but I forgive you.
THEY LAUGH
Best bit of the day.
Done all the boring bits...
..packing up the sledge, breaking camp, and now...
it's on for the ride.
Looking for seal today, predominantly.
We have to spread out, so that we can observe the landscape,
but it really is the proverbial needle in a haystack here -
there's such an expanse of snow.
HE CALLS TO DOGS
Just stopping every now and then,
scan the horizon for seals
that might be out basking.
BRUCE CHUCKLES
Seal, seal. Yeah, seal.
There's ringed seal, yeah? Yeah.
Wow, it's a long way away.
That's pretty impressive eyesight.
It's only just visible with these binoculars. Mads Ole?
Did you stop and use binos, or did you see with your eyes first?
With your eyes? No way!
HE GASPS
Mads Ole is going to go and see if he can get it.
HE WHISPERS: OK.
Good luck.
I'm going to stay back and make sure his dogs don't chase...
after their boss.
GUNSHOT AND HOWLING
Very good shooting.
Of course, the last thing you want
is to maim it and for it to go into the hole. Have to get it,
have to kill it instantly.
And so far, that's what they've done.
Ringed seals are very common in the Arctic.
They're a staple for predators
like polar bears and Inuit hunters.
Adolf has seen two close together.
He says I can go with him this time,
as long as I camouflage myself by turning my anorak inside out.
I must stay in line and keep quiet.
GUNSHOT
While I was with Adolf, Rasmus got a seal of his own.
So, that's three seals...
..and that'll be us for the day.
BARKING AND WHINING
When we've eaten our fill, it's the dogs' turn.
I tell you what, the dogs deserve all of this,
because they've pulled us...
I don't know, I've been measuring
some of the distances on my GPS.
We've gone about 60km so far,
not including being on the boat,
and the dogs have done all of that work.
Hard work.
They deserve every bit of this.
Good for them.
Well done, boys and girls.
Though rising temperatures are makings things unpredictable,
Rasmus is more worried about limits on the animals he can kill.
New quotas have recently been introduced,
and he blames pressure from animal rights campaigners.
It's time to head back to Qaanaaq.
We didn't get any big animals,
but at least we're not going home empty-handed.
When I came here, I thought that the hunters would see climate change
as the biggest threat to their way of life.
I'm shocked that they are more worried about conservationists.
But with so many pressures on both
wildlife and the Inuit,
I wonder how long
this kind of hunting will continue.
After a long day travelling across the ice,
we finally pull into town.
I'm really looking forward to a hot shower.
Yeah, I think I might get changed!
BRUCE CHUCKLES
Get rid of this.
Nice stuff, mate. No, I really enjoyed it. Thanks. You're a star.
Life out on the sea ice felt timeless and ancient,
but town is much more familiar.
Rasmus is going to the supermarket
to stock up on supplies for his next hunting trip.
Ha-ha!
Now, I really wasn't expecting this.
First impressions?
I could be anywhere in the world.
I said we could be anywhere in the world,
but having bullets, rounds, next to the Rizla
isn't quite the same as back home!
Let's keep going.
Milk. And this is powdered.
Where's the price? 90. 90?!
Wow! You need some cows up here. Mm.
It's 12 quid.
13 kroner.
That's nearly £2 for a vegetable that, quite frankly,
has been on the shelf a while.
Pretty much what I would expect, actually, considering where we are.
You can't grow this stuff. It comes a long, long way.
It's going to cost, doesn't last.
That's the way of it.
But the price of fruit and veg
is nothing compared to meat.
What's this? Lamb. Oh, lamb.
257. Yeah...
£35 for a few chops.
Most of this was shipped up
from Europe almost a year ago.
It seems mad to be importing frozen meat
when there are thousands of seals out on the ice.
If Qaanaaq loses its hunters, it loses its main supply of fresh food.
Yet more empty shelves.
By far the most expensive things in the supermarket
are local delicacies.
Narwhal. Mm.
OK, you need to be earning 20 quid to get that.
We were eating a whole
narwhal fin earlier.
Rasmus, if you catch a whole narwhal,
or you're very successful in the hunt,
you can actually earn quite a lot of money. Is that true?
Commercial hunting can threaten species,
but I understand that Rasmus needs cash to live in town,
yet can earn very little from hunting.
The family can only afford to shop here because of the income
from Mahlia's job as a teacher.
Rasmus is caught between two worlds,
the traditional and the modern.
I've seen how expensive your supermarket is, Rasmus.
It's mind-blowing.
Is it easy to make a living as a hunter?
It's not just the supermarket that's expensive.
Rasmus and Mahlia need to pay for their heating,
water and electricity.
The high cost of living is forcing
more and more hunters to look for paid work.
But if you're a skilful hunter, you can certainly get by.
Someone has just returned with a prize kill,
and a crowd gathers to take a look.
Are you the hunter?
Wow.
No prizes for guessing what this is.
I know that you wear the fur.
What else are you going to do with the body parts of this animal?
Does it taste good? Tasty?
Each year, six polar bears
can legally be killed in the Qaanaaq area,
compared with 85 narwhal,
but scientists still say the local bear population
is almost certainly in decline.
Can you imagine a future
when you were told that
you were not allowed to hunt polar bear?
This is about much more than
warm clothing and nice meat. It's an assertion of the right
to live here as they have done for millennia.
The hunters say that it's the industrial nations' way of life
and our excesses that are endangering the polar bears, not them.
I respect always the rights of indigenous peoples.
I think they are better placed
to know how to treat the environment
than most of the nation states and the corporations out there.
Having said that, of course,
indigenous peoples are part of the larger world
and they need to know that, and we all need to work together
on many issues. So...
I don't know what I think about them shooting a polar bear.
I think that it's really important for them.
I've just been wearing polar bear trousers all last week.
I understand the reason why,
culturally, these people
are still hunting this.
I find it hard to stand here holding a polar bear
because I'd rather it was still alive,
but I'm not out there in the freezing cold,
trying to make a... Trying to
feed my family from hunting.
Greenland is now a technologically developed country.
The hunters are no longer isolated.
They have rifles and bullets from the outside world,
so perhaps they have to come to terms with outside restrictions too.
But I hope that some are able
to continue hunting. They're more than just a source of fresh meat.
They act as a cultural anchor
for the whole community.
They connect people here
to their ancestors and provide
some protection against the social changes
that are sweeping through Greenland.
It's time to journey south.
I want to find out more about
Greenland's rapid modernisation.
Qaanaaq has given me a glimpse of Greenland's past,
now I want to look into its future.
It's been really lovely to get to know you,
and thanks for all your hospitality.
Rasmus, this is one question I've never asked you.
What does your future hold? Are you going to stay a hunter?
Stay well, mate. Stay well.
All cultures are dynamic,
but rapid change, as a result of strong external forces,
can be devastating.
I wish my friend well.
With every degree of latitude I fly south,
the temperature increases,
and you can really see the difference.
We haven't been flying long
but, already, there are telltale signs of the ice-pack breaking up.
And ahead of me, I can see that
it's really quite dramatic.
It's not just the sea ice
that's being affected.
Most of Greenland is covered by a vast ice sheet.
In recent years, this has been melting at an unprecedented rate,
revealing new land and new riches.
I'm flying halfway down the coast,
to Disko Bay.
This region is rich in oil,
metal ores and gemstones.
The more ice melts,
the more investment pours in.
The Greenlandic government hopes that the wealth and jobs created
as the ice retreats will seal the island's transformation
into a modern economy and buy it full independence from Denmark.
Hey, how you doing? Can I come in?
Come on in! Thanks, mate.
I'm heading into the wilderness again
but, this time, I have a very different guide.
Tim Daffern is an Australian,
and he's a mining entrepreneur.
This is like a taxi to work for you, Tim!
It's a beautiful place. It's a lot of challenges,
but I just love coming to work here. It's fantastic.
Well, fundamentally, where we're flying now,
if you went back ten years ago -
and certainly 25, 30 years ago - we'd be flying over solid ice.
The change is, the ice has gone.
What that's allowed us to do is to expand
our geological exploration work.
When you've got 80 metres or a couple of hundred metres of ice,
you can't see the rock. Five years ago,
while hiking on these rocks, Tim and a colleague
discovered a billion-dollar deposit of lead and zinc
that had been covered by glacial ice.
We are now in an area that, 20 years ago, was...
There was 60 metres of ice above us. 60 metres of ice.
All that has gone for a kilometre,
revealing your riches. Correct.
After this discovery, Tim and his business partners formed a company,
secured investment and leased the land and mineral rights
from the Greenlandic government.
The mine is still in development
and access is tricky, to say the least.
The entrance is down here, below us.
Beneath us? Yes! We're going to be going down these ladders here. OK.
We've got about 120 metres vertically to go.
You didn't tell me about that, Tim.
Well, you know, I've got to leave a few surprises for you.
Wow!
The first little bit where it gets very precipitous.
I'm just looking over the edge now.
Really don't want to be falling here!
The zinc face is at the end of a long tunnel,
carved out by high explosives.
EXPLOSION
You just heard the blast
where the guys are doing some excavation work.
I felt the blast! Yeah, you can feel it.
It pushes the air past you. Yeah.
Here's a pretty good sample. Excuse me.
You can see the sparkling, here.
This is a really nice piece of
sphalerite. High-grade zinc.
Zinc doesn't rust, so it's used to coat steel.
There's a growing demand for it
in the booming economies of India and China.
What we've got here is
a really nice example of galena,
which is a lead.
It's got quite a shiny, metallic look to it. Hasn't it just?
In today's terms,
the amount of metal in this pillar
is about $1.5 million.
There are 1,000 of them in this mine. Wow!
Our estimate of the remaining worth
is in excess of $1 billion-worth of metal.
Wow!
I know that lead can be very damaging in the environment
if tipped into fuel, for example.
What's the toxicity of zinc?
Zinc is not as bad, but it is damaging to the environment.
One thing we're very careful to do
is make sure all our processing is here, underground.
We have no waste - liquid or solid. Nothing escapes from this mine.
Sure. All that comes out is concentrated metal.
It's secured in bags, inside special steel boxes,
and then carried down across the fjord.
I'm going to spend a day working here.
I want to get a sense of the challenges facing these men.
The first task is getting a cable car
up to the tunnel entrance.
For that, Tim needs specialists,
and they don't come more specialised than this
Swiss climbing and blasting team.
Nils is in charge.
He works 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for months at a time,
in very testing conditions.
You see out there, this rock face?
Yes. We have to clean that rock face.
How do we get there? We have to climb up the ladder again,
cross, and then abseil. Wonderful!
You've got all the best jobs for me! Yeah, of course!
I think I'm about to get vertigo.
The blasting has loosened the rocks above the work area,
making it very dangerous for the people below.
Because we've got so much daylight here,
there's going to be people working here all through the night.
And it's so important that all this area is clear,
because the size of some of these pieces coming out
would kill you, without question, if they landed on you.
Be careful with your leg. Yeah. I'll try.
Woo! Wow! Good work!
Good work! Well done. Yeah.
Fun, isn't it? OK, I concede, that was fun!
Nils is a real Arctic adventurer.
He works hard for a few months, then takes the rest of the year off,
travelling the world and climbing for fun.
What do you think, Nils,
here, or in an office?
Here!
BRUCE LAUGHS
This is your preferred workplace,
hanging from a rope, in the outdoors?
Yeah. I can see why.
The last job of the day is even more risky.
This is the danger -
detonator, dynamite.
When you put them together...
You said bend it? Yes, exactly. I can bend it and push it.
Feels a bit incongruous, but I'm going to trust him.
And, er, here we go.
So, this one goes in.
And I guide that with the stick.
Yep. Thanks.
And I hit that hard? Hard, yeah.
That's the bit that's weird.
That's good. Good enough.
How did Bruce go? Well, he was stupid enough to think
that it was a good idea to bang dynamite and detonators together.
NILS SPEAKS ON RADIO
Everything's done? Everything is done.
Press the button? You can press the button.
If something goes wrong, it's your fault!
Because you drilled some holes as well. Don't you start on me!
OK. Are you ready for this?
I certainly am. Press and hold,
green light. One, two...
BLAST
Everything's changed,
and it certainly has.
Once this area has been opened up,
the cable car will be installed,
and then the mining will begin in earnest.
Though most of the set-up is being done by outsiders,
there are a few local Inuit men doing unskilled jobs.
Hi, gents, my name's Bruce.
Gideon. Gideon? Yeah. Hi, Gideon...
I ask Lars Ole how this compares with traditional life.
When the mine is operational, it will employ 120 local people,
with many more working in related industries.
Though I've seen the devastation mining can cause
in other parts of the world, this feels more responsible.
Other mines are about to open in Greenland,
and large deposits of oil and gas are thought to lie just north of here.
All this could make the country rich.
But as they move away from traditional ways of life,
many Inuit are losing their cultural identity,
and Greenland is suffering from a social meltdown.
100 years ago, it had one of the lowest suicide rates in the world.
Now, it's believed to have the highest.
There's one last place I want to visit.
This is Uummannaq,
the closest town to the mine.
It's a typical modern Greenlandic settlement,
where people are more likely to work in an office
than go out hunting for seals.
Does the old way of life still have a role to play
in such a forward-looking community?
One man is convinced that it does.
So, these are your dogs, here?
Yeah, this one wants to fight a lot. This one wants to fight.
Ole Jorgen Hammeken embodies both the old and new Greenland.
He grew up in the capital city
to the south and studied law in Denmark,
but almost 20 years ago, he moved here and bought a dog team instead.
In-between hunting trips, he recently starred in a feature film,
and he's just at home on a red carpet
as he is out on the ice.
You're interesting, Ole Jorgen.
You're a film star, you were born in the south,
you're a very modern person, yet
you are very interested in
traditional ways and you're very proud of your cultural heritage.
Yeah. I was able to be born in this part of the world
and I think that's fantastic. I mean, without...
our ancestors, we wouldn't have been here.
When you are born in Greenland and feel Greenlandic,
you have this identity, I think.
BARKING
Shh!
His teeth are very close to something
I don't want him to start biting.
Oi! Stop it!
Ole Jorgen is working with children from Greenland's broken homes -
the victims of the country's frenetic pace of change.
He wants to unite the Inuits' past
with their future, and he believes that the key lies with these men -
the last of Uummannaq's hunters.
That's seal skin? Wow.
They really are good.
They're great!
Many of these children are victims of abuse and violence
at the hands of alcoholic, dislocated parents.
To show them a more tranquil way of life, Ole Jorgen takes them
out into the wilderness, often for weeks at a time.
It's not just hunting skills that they are learning.
He wants them to adopt a state of mind,
a way of being which is in tune with their surroundings.
It was really evident to me when I was in Qaanaaq hunting,
we were there on the dog sleds for seven days,
and most of that time, I was sat in stillness,
experiencing the surroundings,
and the serenity of the surroundings. And...
And the hunters are particularly unique beings,
in that they really are connected to the landscape in a...
in a tangible way, I believe,
and that's what's being passed on here to these children.
And that's also what many cultures are losing today,
is that connection with the landscape,
the connection with nature.
And this is an attempt to try and regain that, and I really support it.
Despite the traumas that they've endured,
these children seem to be well on the road to recovery.
You're not even in the snow!
The hunters are playing a small, but significant, part
in this process.
In the same way, maintaining some link with their traditional past
could help all of Greenland's Inuit to make sense of their future.
It's time for me to leave Greenland
and begin the next stage of my Arctic journey.
I knew when I came here, I'd see some changes,
but they've been much more pronounced and rapid than I was ever expecting.
For a variety of reasons, the tradition of hunting
is being lost to many Greenlanders
and, with it, a state of mind going back many generations.
Without doubt, there are plenty of challenges on the horizon here,
and my only hope is that modern Greenlanders
don't lose their connection to the natural world,
here, in this stunning frozen landscape.
Next time, I live with the pioneers
making their fortunes
in the Alaskan wilderness...
You can really see that stuff, it's shining away.
..and I meet the indigenous people
fighting for their ancient rights.
If they want to stop us from whaling, we're going to fight.