About the show

The Arctic is on the point of enormous, irreversible change, and this stunning series highlights what that means to those who make their lives there. It’s the story of the winners and losers in the last great wilderness.

TV adventurer Bruce Parry has built a worldwide reputation for getting right to the heart of a subject by immersing himself in the culture and environment.

So, whilst the series documents how the region is being dramatically transformed by global warming, the focus is human rather than scientific, about people not politics.

Over the course of one bright Arctic summer, Bruce and the Bafta-winning production team travel nearly 11,000 miles (17,700 km) through Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia and Northern Europe. The effects of global warming are magnified here – sea ice is melting, new land is appearing and new boundaries are being drawn.

Indigenous ways of life that have remained virtually unchanged for millennia will regrettably cease within our lifetime, while the untold riches of the oil, gas and minerals slowly being revealed under the polar ice cap promise countless new opportunities.

This beautifully-filmed series captures all the incredible scenery of the Arctic Circle as Bruce uncovers the fascinating stories of fishermen in the Bering Sea, oil workers tapping the vast wealth of the Alaskan reserve, native hunters desperately clinging on to the last breath of their culture and scientists mapping the shrinking ice cap.