Where the Wind Takes You | FULL FILM

Once you've been on the boat and you've felt how it rolls and rocks, you turn off the engine so you can feel the power of the wind and the landscape and the sea. And being at the mercy of nature to move us along, I think that's unique. It's a dramatic landscape. It's interesting to see because the landscape's constantly changing and and being formed by the motion of the glaciers as they're sliding down into the oceans. I think what people really want is to go back and tell a story. From my experience, you get that story through adventure. So I've been here in Svalbard pretty much on and off ever since 2017. Svalbard's a bit of a tricky place to sail but I heard a rumor that there was a need for skippers in this area and I went for that and I've been here working as a skipper slash guide up here in the summer season. Not sailing up here in Svalbard during the summer months, I returned back to Minnesota, helped managing the family dog sled business there. You don't know what's normal until you grow up and think about it. Grew up with at least 50 to 70 sled dogs. In the winter months, for a living, my parents will be doing dog sled tours. You know, freezing our butts off, dog sledding and camping, venturing around through the boundary waters. So I'm pretty used to going on adventures. I think my parents were trying to pass that down on to us. The cool part about my parents' lifestyle was my dad's very strong sense of adventure. My dad, Paul Schierke, he joined Will Steger on an expedition to the North Pole in 1986. Suddenly, the difference between failure and success depends on Paul's ability to work a The first unsupported dog sled expedition to get to the North Pole. Schierke's readings show the sun to be revolving in a perfect circle. There can be only one explanation. They are standing at the pole. Too far from the tree, whether you like it or not at times. It's through my dad that I've ended up here in Svalbard. Yeah, so I came totally different than most people. So I came to visit these friends who lived in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know so much about Svalbard, so it was just so many new things, and so these big landscapes and all this, and of course the animals. So I was, maybe you call it starstruck. The cycle of Svalbard is constantly new people coming and going. Marina was with us on this trip and she's been here for 30 years and it's nice to have her along and share the old days with us. I talked to the people who had been living here and asked them questions like the questions you asked. They told me once every fifth year the ice was safe enough to travel so we could take the snowmobile and travel over the glaciers. It has been in the 29 years I've been on Svalbard only twice the ice was safe enough to travel and in the last 20 years nothing. Svalbard's definitely heating up. Charting can be really difficult because it's changing so quickly. It's really wild to see your boat as it's going further and further into where a glacier recently was just five, six years ago. I feel like I'm kind of lucky to see it before it's gone. The glaciers really are changing the landscape right now as I speak and so being on these smaller boats and we can now go in waters that have not really been navigated before. With a cruise boat you have no influence like you cannot change your destination. It's even like if there is something much more interesting in the next fjord. We were in the north and of course because of the ice the possibility of seeing polar bears in the north is more than in the south. After seeing some polar bear tracks and it was fast ice and there were seals so everything was there. We turned around the corner but no polar bear. But in a way it's always never too late to see it. We left and turned around another corner. It's why I live here to feel it and to see the animals. When you travel with a small boat you can decide where you want to go. You're still in contact with the nature. You still have the contact with the adventure. So you still have this freedom of go where where the wind takes you in a way. I've definitely seen how like social media has affected travel and places to go. Going on adventures here and a lot of what you hear people want to see is a polar bear or see this whale. I do love seeing bears and whales as well but adventure is more than just getting that picture of yourself with that one thing and then going home. It's the whole experience of hearing the ice crack or break. Feeling the cold arctic wind. The weather turns. The weather is nice so you might as well stay here and enjoy this or go while you can. It's the whole good and bad type experience. There's two different types of people that travel. Either they're going there to take a selfie, check it off the bucket list, go home and say they did it. Then there's others that choose to go out there to feel it, to experience it, to go back and tell a story. People love telling stories and they love to be part of that story that they tell.