Documenting melting glaciers in the most remote corners of the planet is no small feat, but when that documenting is being led by professional nature photographer and all-around badass James Balog you just know it’s going to be good. But Balog’s new film, Extreme Ice (which you can watch for free here), is more than impressive. It’s incredible. I’m going to risk hyperbole here and go ahead and say that it could be one of the greatest environmental documentary achievements I’ve ever seen.
Balog takes an exciting approach to documentary. He’s a proven photographer with over 30 years of professional experience and his work has been featured in dozens of magazines, from National Geographic to The New Yorker. But he is also a former mountain guide with a Master’s degree in geomorphology. So when it comes to capturing footage of the planet’s rapidly melting glaciers Balog not only knows what to shoot, but he’s got the grit to literally get in there and do it.
Extreme Ice features footage of Balog rappelling into the depths of fresh fractures on arctic glaciers while cascading waterfalls of melt water burst through the sides, threatening to break the ice out from beneath him. It’s a wild, exciting ride that takes viewers both above and within some of the earth’s most violently changing glaciers.
The most unforgettable scenes in Extreme Ice are a series of time lapse shots of glacial retreat. In order to capture these images Balog and his team traveled to the frozen ends of the earth and rigged up dozens of cameras and set them on a timer to snap photos of the glaciers once every few hours for something like three years. Amazingly, it worked. The resulting images show just how quickly these glaciers are receding. It’s one thing to see evidence of glacial melt via satellite, but it’s another thing entirely to see it happening right before your eyes.
Wend has no professional connection to James Balog or PBS Nova. I stumbled across the documentary online after missing a breakfast screening of it at the Winter Outdoor Retailer trade show a few weeks ago. It’s just so good I had to share it with all of you.
You can watch Extreme Ice for free here.
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