Description
The first hour of the program covers the lost British Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, who in May 1845 sailed with two ships, Erebus and Terror, with orders to pursue the British Admiralty's long-sought goal of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The program combines dramatic segments and re-creations of the original expedition with interviews with a variety of historians and scientists. In the dramatic segments, Anthony Gardner plays Sir John Franklin, Bodhan Poraj is Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, and Thom Fell is Commander James Fitzjames; Franklin's widow Lady Franklin (née Jane Griffin) is portrayed by Maureen Bennett. The historical experts include Francis Spufford, Russell Potter, and Benedict Allen; among the scientists are John Falkingham, Roy Koerner, and Anne Keenleyside. The program re-creates the expedition's route, with on-location scenes of the graves of Franklin's men on Beechey Island, and follows them through Franklin's death in May 1847, and the abandonment of the ships in 1848. Many different kinds of evidence -- climate records in ice cores, signs of cannibalism and lead poisoning in human remains studied by forensic scientists, and oral testimony from the Inuit, are considered.
The second hour re-creates Roald Amundsen's voyage of 1903, in which he finally became the first to sail the entire Passage, thanks in part to the small size of his ship, the Gjøa, and to his crew. Amundsen is played by Norwegian star Kåre Conradi, while Gustav Wilk, Amundsen's right-hand man, is portrayed by Christian Pedersen. The experts who speak on-camera include Tor Bomann-Larsen, Bard Kolltveit, and Benedict Allen; Peter Irniq, then the Commissioner of Nunavut, is also interviewed about Inuit culture and society. A highlight of the Amundsen segment is the re-creation of his winter's stay in a settlement near the harbor he dubbed Gjoa Haven, which is now a Canadian Inuit settlement of the same name. Numerous Gjoa Haven residents appear in the film; many also worked on the set.
Read more about this topic: Arctic Passage
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is possible—indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic—to give in advance a description of all ‘true’ logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)