The Americas (2025) s01e05 Episode Script

1
This is The Americas,
an extraordinary journey
across Earth's great supercontinent.
The widest variety
of life on the planet.
The untold story of our home.
Tonight on The Americas
The Frozen North.
An adventure through the vast wilderness
of Alaska and Canada.
Here, winter's beauty
disguises her dangers.
But when snow and ice retreat,
the North reveals landscapes
teeming with life.
All animals here must endure or escape
the extreme swing of the seasons
as the North changes before their eyes.
At the top of the continent
lies a frozen frontier,
larger than the rest
of the United States.
The night reveals just how few of us
live up here.
From the East Coast to West,
three million square miles
of wilderness.
A late November dawn
in Canada's Hudson Bay.
By now, this place
should be frozen solid.
But this year, it's still too warm.
And for a polar bear,
that's a problem.
He's a seal hunter.
But those seals
are way out on the sea ice.
And right now,
the ice still isn't thick enough
to walk on.
He's forced to wait
until it really freezes up.
A few dead leaves
won't fix an empty stomach.
In just ten years,
the bear population has fallen
by over a third.
Waiting for winter
is becoming a dangerous game.
While polar bears occupy the shore
the forest belongs
to wolves.
Winter is their prime hunting season
when the deep snow
slows down their prey.
A moose would feed this 17-strong pack.
As a second moose is flushed out,
the pack splits.
It's a costly mistake.
Nine out of ten hunts fail.
And with this blizzard rolling in
They've missed their chance.
But that doesn't mean they'll go hungry.
In this weather,
the exposed coastline
will claim casualties.
The pack must find them first.
They're nervous.
This is not wolf territory.
A dead polar bear
is an unexpected feast.
They must feed quickly.
This is no-man's-land.
It's now that Canada's top predators
come face-to-face.
As winter descends
on the shoreline of Hudson Bay,
the rulers of the forest
confront a king of the ice.
The wolves have strength in numbers.
But at 800 pounds,
this bear has a massive
weight advantage.
And this time, that's what counts.
As winters arrive later,
polar bears trapped on the shore
are growing more desperate.
But the fortunes of all who live here
are about to change.
For six months,
winter buries much of the Fr North.
Now the wolves will get their kill.
And Hudson Bay
is finally frozen solid.
For polar bears,
the path to seal hunting grounds
is clear, at last.
The North's extreme seasons
are caused by the tilt of the Earth.
For months, the Arctic is plunged
into darkness.
But still,
the sun makes its presence felt.
A magical display.
The aurora borealis.
These are the traces of a solar storm
as radiation from the sun
reacts with gases
in the Earth's atmosphere.
Green for oxygen,
purple for nitrogen.
In Canada's Yukon forest,
temperatures in early February
drop to minus 30.
There's so little food in winter,
you're best to either leave
or hide away until spring.
Unless
you're a snowshoe hare.
Wide awake and perfectly at home
here in the frozen forest.
They survive the winter
on nothing more than twigs
and bark.
But they're smart,
only picking plants
that provide the most protein.
He's about as tall as the snow is deep.
But he's got something
that makes living here
seem like a walk in the park.
Enormous webbed feet.
They're built-in snowshoes,
so he's always ready for a sprint start.
And he needs to be.
He's not alone in these woods.
A Canada lynx.
In winter, a lynx
has one main source of prey.
And he's it.
His ears rotate independently,
always listening out
for the ominous crunch
of footsteps in the snow.
Spotted.
Lynx are agile hunters,
though not quite
as light on their feet
which buys the hare precious seconds.
But no hiding place
will be safe for long.
Deep in the Yukon,
a snowshoe hare freezes
not from cold, but from fear.
Canada lynx
don't give up on dinner easily.
So escape must be timed to perfection.
With the help of those snowshoes,
he can hit a top-speed
of 30 miles per hour.
A clean getaway.
And that's unusual.
Canada lynx rarely miss.
This is one lucky bunny.
When the breeding season arrives,
there will be more hares
to take the heat.
Until then,
he'll need to stay on his toes.
By late winter in Alberta,
12,000 feet up,
the towering mountains of the Rockies
are coated in layer upon layer of snow.
In places, more than 20 feet deep.
A playground for millions of visitors
every year.
But be careful.
The spring sunshine weakens
the vast shelves of mountain snow
priming one of nature's
most destructive events.
Avalanche.
A million tons of snow and ice
race downhill at speeds
over 100 miles an hour.
More than 2,000 avalanches
are reported in the Rockies every year.
Many more go unwitnessed.
As the planet warms,
avalanches are becoming ever more
unpredictable.
In the shadow of the Rockies,
even in late April,
snow still falls
across these vast grasslands.
But make no mistake.
Spring has arrived.
And so have a group
of determined dancers.
But will all this be enough
to melt the heart
of an ice queen?
Standing high
over the plains of Alberta,
the Rockies channel warm winds
down their eastern flanks,
winds known as "snow eaters."
As they descend, they heat up,
raising the temperature
of the plains below
by as much as 20 degrees.
Out on the prairies,
pretty much everyone
is an early riser.
None more so than sharp-tailed grouse.
They're here to catch
the very first rays of sunshine,
but they can't resist any spotlight.
- Gimme some lovin' ♪
- Gimme, gimme some lovin' ♪
Gimme some lovin'
Every day ♪
The males gather every April
for a mating dance-off.
The females are the judges,
and the prize is
well, bet you can guess.
As dawn breaks, it's show time.
Stomping their feet 20 times per second
with a shake and a shimmy,
it's all about seduction.
They look their best
at this very moment.
And they know it.
She'll be looking for style.
And stamina.
Very nice.
He's not bad either.
The choice is bewildering.
But without a clear winner,
fights break out on the dance floor.
With all this testosterone
flying around,
she's losing interest.
They seem to want the fight
more than the prize.
The males need to up their game.
By June,
under a sun that no longer sets,
even the most stubborn snow melts away
to reveal lush grasslands.
New life transforms the Frozen North.
This is America's
largest wildlife refuge,
30,000 square miles of Alaska.
The Arctic Refuge.
In summer,
one animal dominates these plains.
Caribou.
You might know them as reindeer.
They're nomads,
following the retreating snowmelt,
sometimes for a thousand miles.
The longest land migration in the world.
Every summer, for centuries,
caribou have been coming here
to have their calves.
This little male
is only three weeks old.
But he can already run faster
than an Olympic sprinter.
It's easy to lose track
of whose mom is whose.
Wanting to explore
can get you into trouble around here.
Anyone who can't keep up with the herd
will be left behind.
But their unique calls and scent
usually mean they can find each other.
Come wintertime, he will be independent.
But until then,
Mom is his whole world,
whether she likes it or not.
As the herd eat their way
through more than a thousand tons
of tundra grasses every day,
they move further west
across the coastal plains.
But hunger is driving
them towards danger.
The snow that blanketed the Frozen North
now descends from the mountains
as billions of gallons of meltwater,
channeled into raging torrents,
cutting across the caribou's path.
These rivers are deeper and faster
than ever before.
And the feeding grounds
lie on the other side.
This crossing is more
than a young calf is ready for.
But survival depends on it.
The current takes them by surprise,
sweeping him off his feet.
This mother now
has a tough choice to make.
On the riverbanks
of Alaska's Arctic Refuge,
this caribou mother scans the water
for any sign of her missing calf.
The herd is moving on.
Her instinct to follow them
is just too strong.
Downriver,
the calf is still alive.
He has a fighting spirit,
but he's exhausted.
Mom's nowhere to be seen.
As the herd slows down to feed,
all a lost calf can
do is try to catch up.
Female caribou rarely adopt
lost or orphaned young.
Mom recognizes a familiar bleating.
Reunited.
You have to grow up quickly
in the Far North.
These ancient routes will soon
be ingrained in his memory.
His destiny is
to endlessly wander this vast
American tundra.
As summer warms the North,
hundreds of these swollen rivers
carry soil and nutrients from the land
to the sea.
And for some,
this becomes a time of plenty.
In July,
on Alaska's isolated Round Island,
a strange sound is carried on the wind.
Just listen.
This is the surprising song
of male walruses,
known as "chiming."
It's made by pockets of air
in their throats.
Usually, they sing to impress females
during the winter mating season.
But there's no ladies in sight.
Which probably suits
the ladies just fine.
On Alaska's warm summer evenings
Perhaps this is nothing more
than their very own lullaby.
For walruses, the short
summers are all about downtime.
But in the shallows
of Alaska's mainland
there is no time to rest.
Pink salmon gather
at the starting line of a race
that will test them to their limits.
Driven by an urge they cannot ignore,
salmon arrive at the entrance
of the very same stream
in which they were born.
Now, two years later,
it's their turn to breed.
All 200 million of them.
This female is carrying
at least 2,000 eggs.
Returning to the same spot
in which she was born
will give her offspring
the best chance of survival.
But ahead of her
lies a killer assault course.
She must succeed
or die trying.
Prince William Sound, Alaska.
As the tide races out,
countless pink salmon
are waiting.
The scent of their spawning grounds
grows stronger.
Now it's a race to cross the shallows
before the tide cuts them off.
One wrong turn and it's game over.
For gulls,
the banquet has begun.
They can be picky at this stage
only selecting the most tender flesh.
This female has made a serious error
and is now dangerously exposed.
Her determination
seems to confuse her attacker.
This is only the beginning.
Every salmon is now on borrowed time.
From here on out,
they barely eat or rest,
as they forge upstream.
This journey takes a grim toll,
as their bodies
begin to shut down and decay,
some faster than others.
Finally, they arrive
at their spawning grounds,
but it's not over yet.
This female
needs to construct a shallow nest,
known as a "redd."
She flicks away fine sediment
to prevent her eggs
from being smothered.
She will fiercely defend her nest
from other females.
By now, some males look like
the swimming dead.
They're "zombie" salmon,
desperate to mate before they die.
Kind of gross.
After all she's been through,
she's not going to settle
for anything less than perfect.
Males fertilize eggs
in as many redds as possible,
but this will be her only chance.
She will only release her eggs
when she's ready.
It's the moment that will seal her fate.
Spawning and dying on the same
stretch of river as her mother
is a female salmon's destiny.
Though their journey ends here,
these salmon leave
behind millions of eggs
that will become the next generation.
Life,
dictated by the seasons.
In just two months, winter returns.
Some begin the long trek south.
Others surrender
to many months in the den.
But there are those
who are perfectly at home
in this snowbound world.
A place
full of magic.
One thing is certain
here in the Frozen North
nothing stays the same
for long.