Polar Passage Arctic Adventure： Field Notes with Renan Ozturk

Mark and I had schemed for decades. A big ocean sailing expedition. The fabled Northwest Passage. An 8,000 mile journey up over the Arctic from Maine to Alaska. This is awesome. I've been dreaming about this for 15 years. It's a long time coming. The goal was to solve a mystery for a Nat Geo film and article. But it was also a first-hand look at the state of the far north. Mark and I have done Nat Geo stories together before. We did Everest, The Last Honey Hunter, Tabui. But this one was different. He wanted to do something completely under his own decision-making power. And this was his own boat. It was like a member of his family. Whenever really heavy, heavy sh** was going down on the boat, Renan would want to film it. And I would want to make sure that the boat was okay. And I was like, hey dude, you gotta come and work with me here. We gotta keep the boat afloat. It was kind of like he looked out and was like, yeah, yeah, and I think I'd rather not die. 12 o'clock to 2 a.m. night watch. Just looking for icebergs. I'll be honest, the split roles of storyteller and sailor were a bit more than I bargained for. On the front end, I really only had one trick up my sleeve. Drawing from my experience filming in the mountains, one way I've learned to give scale is the distinct human element. Showing how we move through and engage with a place. I kind of find if you're able to figure out just how to show that scale and contrast, the story just begins to write itself visually. Especially when your canvas is as powerful as a place like the Arctic. Heading into it. Unchartered territory for us. It was around day 80 of the expedition when the ice finally caught us. Even our local Inuit crew member, Jacob, was worried. We lost sight of where the sky met the sea and the fog provided enough cover that made the chunks of ice seem like floating landmines. We just bailed back into Pazli Bay. And then we got the news of a storm that was barreling towards us. The fog came in super thick, barely see past the bow of the boat and then ice. This was a solid wall and we just started motoring along it and there was no openings. It wasn't it was like a glacier. We're getting a lot of strain on the anchor. We're now officially trapped. It's the adventure within the adventure. The storytelling and the survival. Look at Peel Saladus. The ice chart is comical in that it's wide open except for the one spot where we are. See the dark red? Yep, that's where we are. Every day is a fire drill to save the boat. I film when I can but new perspectives are few and far between. Rudy, what's the plan now? Maybe anchor to that piece of ice for 30 minutes before it starts moving. It's probably the fourth time we've moved today. These guys are doing an incredible job keeping the boat safe. It's just really hard to document at the moment. Renan is, I don't know if he's okay with me using this word, but he's obsessed with the art of creating, you know, imagery and capturing these stories. I just want to do Mark's character and everyone on our team justice. Yeah, we've been in Pavley Bay for eight days. We're gonna process some more wood. This is all driftwood that we scrounged out on the shore. Who knows where it's from? Pretty cool to be here and I'm not just saying that. I think we all, we all realize it's a pretty unique thing that we're doing and it's really cool the way the crew works together to take care of the ship. So you either have to like get, just let yourself get frozen into the ice and then there's a chance that the pressure will be too great and it'll, you know, crunch your boat and you'll sink. Or you try to dodge the ice. Yeah, things would potentially reach a breaking point if we had to go through another round of this, you know. If anybody shows up and they need driftwood, just give us a call. You're a little business here. I've made the mistake too many times having this tunnel vision for the main assignment and not focusing on the little things. The friendships, the new perspectives, the things you truly want to last for a lifetime. Jacob didn't say much but getting to see him interact with the land was one of the gifts of being stuck. You just have to remain curious and keep shooting on the fringes. I mean the ship would be sinking and he would be like, oh my god, this shot is incredible. Like Brody, get me the dry suit. I'm going in the water. I gotta get the boat sinking from underwater. It's a hard roll to fill. If there's no boat, there's no film. Oh, there is a film because there's dinghying to shore and getting rescued out with a helicopter. If there's no boat, that's the most dramatic film of all. Can you pick up the tube maybe and just poke the depth? Cool. That's amazing. I started seeing these new ways that I could tell the story and also new ways that I could add value as a crew member. I can put in underwater screws with the dry suit if you want. And within a day or two when we all started to work with the ice instead of against it, that's when things started to change. Today's the first day that things are actually looking good. The ice is slowly starting to break apart. The pieces are crumbling and there's a chance it might break free. There were leads in the ice. It was like, start the engine. We're going to do this. Then you're going to turn to starboard. Got it. Good on that course. Keep that heading. I had scrambled to the top of the mast and incidentally could also see the route for us to take out of the ice. I'd say we're about 10 minutes from total promised land. Home stretch, open water. I see clear water, man. It's like no ice in the water. Just a quarter mile ahead. We just have to get through this last little crux. Okay, you're good. Okay, yeah, looking good. Holy ****. Finally out of the ice. Oh my God. Full sail, sun, open water. In the end, it wasn't just me who learned a lesson in vision. I think we were all confronted with how being stuck can really limit one's perspective and how important it is in those moments to simply keep at it, keep experimenting, keep moving, keep looking, continue seeing the world anew as it is anew in every moment, everywhere on earth.