The Arctic is a majestic world. A legendary blanket of ice shelters its rich wildlife, from bowhead whales and polar bears to tiny plankton and algae. At the end of each spring, after long months of darkness, the sun shines for 24 hours a day and all living species gather at the floe edge — where ice meets open ocean — for a feeding frenzy.
But global warming is melting the perennial polar ice at an alarming rate and Canadian extreme divers and cinematographers, Jill Heinerth and Mario Cyr, are concerned. In 2018, they combined their formidable skills to investigate how Arctic wildlife is adjusting to changes in their habitat. Things do not go as expected, and as they search for animals and travel over the ice, they experience first-hand the repercussions of rapid climate change.
The documentary Under Thin Ice tells the story of this extraordinary expedition. Viewers will travel on ice floes with Jill and Mario to Tallurutiup Imanga, also known as Lancaster Sound in Nunavut, Canada, where they will dive with belugas and narwhals in the open Arctic Ocean. They will follow them to Greenland's Disko Bay to explore the underside of icebergs and discover the luminescent world of algae. Back to Canada in the Naujaat region, they will swim with walruses and polar bears, the supreme predators of the Arctic.
Filmed in stunning 4K, Under Thin Ice brings viewers into an awe-inspiring underwater world threatened by melting ice and rapid climate change.