Every winter, over half of Asia is transformed.
Snow and ice stretch across the continent.
Here in the north, forests, mountains
and even deserts freeze over.
And in the heart of Siberia lies a sub-zero world unlike any other.
Lake Baikal.
It's the oldest and deepest lake on Earth...
..with depths of over a mile.
For three months of the year, it's locked under a layer of ice
up to two metres thick.
WIND HOWLS
Powerful winds blast its surface...
..carving the ice into strange shapes.
But this beauty is created by a brutal reality.
This is one of the hardest places on Earth
in which to sustain life.
Here, beneath the snow and ice,
lives an animal that is found nowhere else.
SEAL COOS
Baikal seals give birth
to their pups in hidden dens.
SEAL CHITTERS
This pup is alone.
SEAL SNIFFS, CHITTERS
Its mother is away hunting for food.
SEAL SNIFFS, CHITTERS
The world above is no place for a newborn pup.
SEAL CHITTERS
But as the days get longer...
..and the sun rises higher in the sky...
ICE CRACKS
..30 billion tonnes of ice start to melt.
SEAL CHITTERS
WATER SPLASHES
SEAL GROWLS
SEAL WHIMPERS, GROWLS
The pup is stranded alone.
SEAL GROWLS SOFTLY
SEAL WHIMPERS
Its calls travel across the lake.
SEAL GROWLS SOFTLY
Mothers recognise the cries of their young.
WATER SLOSHES
SEAL GROWLS, WHIMPERS
She must help it to swim away from its birthplace...
..to the edge of the ice sheet...
SEAL GROWLS SOFTLY
..and that could be over a mile away.
PUP GROWLS
Adult seals can stay under the ice for half an hour.
But pups can only hold their breath for a matter of minutes.
There is no air-hole in sight.
Now the mother does something remarkable.
She stops swimming...
..and appears to start blowing bubbles...
..which merge to create an air pocket...
..just big enough to allow the pup to take a breath.
This extraordinary behaviour isn't yet fully documented...
..but it may be that it enables the pups, with their tiny lungs,
to swim between air holes...
..and so reach part of the lake that is ice-free.
SEALS GROWL SOFTLY
As far as is known, this astonishing behaviour only occurs here,
in Baikal.
In winter, most of North Asia's lakes
and rivers are almost entirely frozen over.
But 2,000 miles away, on the Japanese island of Hokkaido,
there is a river where ice never forms.
As winter arrives, the air begins to glitter.
Rising steam meets extreme cold
and creates floating particles of ice.
These thermal springs are an important meeting
place for one of Asia's most handsome birds.
BIRD CAWS
Red-crowned cranes.
Here in Japan, they're regarded
as symbols of love and longevity.
THEY CAW
This nine-month-old chick
is on the verge of independence...
THEY CAW
..but still has much to learn.
One of the most important things is how to dance.
Couples, it's believed, pair for life.
THEY CAW
Dancing brings them together
and keeps their relationship alive.
The steps are complex and varied.
Leaps...
..high kicks...
..and bows.
BIRD CAWS
Maybe we don't fully appreciate the finer points.
BIRDS CHIRPING
But for the cranes,
dancing is an essential prelude to establishing a family.
THEY CAW
Juveniles practise the moves by themselves.
They watch the adults closely...
..then repeat them to potential partners.
BIRDS CHIRPING, CAWING
IT CHIRPS
Oh, dear.
IT CAWS
But they still have a few years in which to get things right.
Becoming one of Asia's most graceful dancers
does take time and a lot of practice.
Warm springs like these
remain open throughout the winter.
But to the west, in the heart of Asia,
there are no such havens.
Part of the Tibetan Plateau
is covered by a vast frozen desert.
It's one of the most hostile environments imaginable.
Very few animals can live here, 4,000 metres up.
The air is thin and dry.
And the temperature frequently drops
to well below -30 degrees Celsius.
Some animals stay permanently on the move
in a never-ending search for food.
A lone wolf.
SQUEAKING
He must find and take down prey entirely by himself.
SQUEAKS
And that is not easy.
WOLF PANTS
These are Tibetan antelope
known as chiru.
It's the rutting season.
ANTLERS CLATTER
Fighting is intense and energy-sapping.
A tired chiru will be easier to catch.
ANTELOPES GROWL
But these antelope have large, powerful hearts and lungs.
And when sprinting, they can reach speeds of 50mph.
That is almost 10mph faster than a wolf.
But the wolf's greatest talent is endurance.
And, given time, this one may be able to exhaust a chiru.
After being chased unrelentingly for several hours,
the chiru herd splits.
Now, it's one-on-one.
Himalayan wolves have probably lived at this altitude
for half a million years and, as a consequence,
they have evolved quite extraordinary stamina.
No other predator can match the wolf's endurance
in the extreme conditions of the Tibetan Plateau.
To the north lies an immense expanse of forest.
It encircles the globe, but the majority of it grows in Asia.
And the richest part is where
Russia, China and North Korea meet.
OINKING
There are wild boar here that can grow
to the size of European brown bears
and weigh a quarter of a tonne.
HOGS GRUNT
As prey becomes bigger,
so do the predators that hunt it.
The Amur tiger.
This corner of the forest is their last stronghold.
You could live a lifetime amongst these trees
and never see one...
..let alone two.
They are the undisputed rulers here.
But when night falls, other giants awaken.
HOOTING
OWL SCREECHES
These are the largest owls in the world.
OWL CHIRPS
The mother is keeping her chick warm...
..so the father must provide food.
He knows exactly where to find it.
But to catch it...
..he needs a set of special skills.
This is a Blakiston's fish owl.
He has exceptional night vision.
Even in the gloom,
he can spot the flash of a fin
in the turbulent water.
Parent birds share duties.
One patrols the river...
..while the other waits patiently
for a delivery of food.
It's a relationship built on trust...
..where one partner expects the other to play its part.
OWL SCREECHES
Somebody has waited long enough.
If you want something done,
it's best to do it yourself.
CHICK SCREECHING
SCREECHING CONTINUES
For this chick, dinner is now served.
And it seems that someone is out in the cold
for the rest of the night.
The larger you are, the better you are
at withstanding the cold.
The smaller, the more dangerous it can be.
Sometimes almost three quarters of all small birds
perish during the winter.
Long-tailed tits are amongst the most vulnerable...
..so they are always looking for something edible.
Deer, when really hungry, often nibble bark,
and that helps the birds.
Even the smallest of wounds...
..can release a dribble of sap.
Here, when temperatures drop,
the emerging liquid can freeze...
..and form...
..icicles.
And if the tree is a maple tree...
..then the icicles will be full of sugar.
A real delicacy.
A sapsicle.
It's rich in energy...
..and delicious.
These sweet treats could, in fact,
make the difference between life and death.
But they don't last long.
In only a few short hours...
..the banquet is over.
In the far north-east of Russia, the Kamchatka Peninsula.
It lies on the edge of what is often called the Pacific Ring of Fire...
..a circle of volcanoes.
Kamchatka has one of the greatest concentrations of them
to be found anywhere.
ERUPTION
7,000 years ago,
a series of massive eruptions
created a very special place. WATER SLOSHES
This colossal crater lake
is one of the largest salmon spawning
grounds in the world.
PANTING
But this mother bear is struggling to find enough to feed herself
and her cubs.
BIRD CAWS IN DISTANCE
They must hibernate soon...
..but if they are to survive their winter sleep,
these two cubs need to put on a lot of weight.
She must find food for them urgently.
But she must also keep her cubs safe.
There are males patrolling this area...
..and they don't like to share.
BIRDS CAWING
An adult male could easily kill her cubs.
This male wants these waters for himself.
And it's easy to see why.
A single salmon can contain 4,000 calories.
He needs all that, as fat and protein,
to sustain himself through the winter.
And her cubs do, too.
But it is too dangerous to stay here.
In winter, there is barely anything to eat in these woods.
They will have to find a new place to fish.
And with each passing day,
the weather is getting worse.
Her daughter seems to be coping...
BEARS HUFF
..but her son is becoming increasingly exhausted.
He is struggling...
HE GROWLS
HE WHEEZES
..and losing strength.
HE WHEEZES
THEY GROWL
BIRD CAWING
HE PANTS
Despite her very best efforts,
she simply can't find enough food for all three of them.
HE GROWLS
BIRD CAWING
HE GRUNTS
For her son, it may already be too late.
HE GRUNTS
SHE HUFFS, PANTS
SHE GROWLS
SHE GROANS
She refuses to give up.
GRUNTING
She has done all she can.
SHE GROWLS
Even finding the strength to feed
seems to be an effort for him.
HE GROWLS
THEY GROWL
GROWLING CONTINUES
SHE GROWLS
With winters like this,
only half of the cubs will survive their first year.
But this mother's determination...
..has given both her cubs a chance.
To the west, further inland in central Siberia...
..temperatures can drop well below -60 degrees Celsius.
It's colder than much of Antarctica.
The freezing Siberian winds travel all the way to Japan,
where they combine with moisture from the ocean...
..and there they create drifts
deep enough to bury a house.
This tiny mammal was buried alive five months ago.
It's now entombed in snow.
But, remarkably...
..it's alive.
It is an Ussurian tube-nosed bat...
..which hibernates in the snow,
safe from predators.
They manage to survive by slowing down their hearts
to one beat a minute.
In the spring, the bats awake from their long sleep.
But their body temperature has dropped to near-freezing,
and they can't produce sufficient energy
to fly until they've warmed up.
Intense shivering heats their muscles to 30 degrees Celsius...
..and their pulse rises from one beat a minute...
..to over 300.
Animals that live in places that are snowbound for half the year
need very special survival strategies.
And no part of northern Japan
is safe from the deep freeze of winter.
Even the seas turn to ice.
Red foxes have learned that, despite appearances...
..there is food to be had here.
ENGINE RATTLING
You just need to wait
for the right moment.
ENGINE STARTS
Opportunities like this don't stay secret for long.
BIRDS CAWING
Birds.
THEY CAW
They arrive in great numbers.
Black kites, white-tailed eagles...
BIRDS CHIRP AND CAW
..and most powerful of all...
..Steller's sea eagles.
With a wingspan of over two metres,
they are one of the largest and most formidable
of the world's raptors.
BIRDS CAW AND CHIRP
CAWING AND CHIRPING CONTINUES
A real threat to any fox.
BIRDS CAW
If it is to eat,
this fox will have to ignore their attacks.
BIRD CHIRPS AND CAWS
BIRD CROAKS
BIRDS SCREECH
Collecting a fish is one thing.
Keeping it is quite another.
BIRD SCREECHES
FOX GROWLS
This is impossible.
BIRDS CAWING
The birds are just too aggressive.
But occasionally, their continuous fighting
works to a fox's advantage.
BIRDS CHIRP
FOX GROWLS
For many in the far north of Asia,
sea ice is essential to survival.
Off the coast of Arctic Russia,
an enormous area of the sea
freezes each winter.
It can cover an expanse
twice the size of Australia.
But lately, this has become one
of the most unpredictable of habitats.
POLAR BEAR PANTS
This polar bear is swimming in search of sea ice
from which to hunt.
Polar bears can swim for days at a time
and travel over 100 miles without leaving the water.
Yet recently, the ice has been hard to find...
..and the bears have been forced instead...
WAVES CRASH
..to take to dry land.
Coming ashore here... POLAR BEAR GROWLS
..could be risky.
But there's nowhere else to go.
And there is, in fact,
plenty to explore on this strange island.
It is an abandoned Soviet weather station...
..and a dozen or so other bears have strayed here.
The usually solitary animals are now sharing this village,
here, at the end of the world.
And it seems that newcomers are tolerated.
Slowly starving,
they must wait and hope that conditions will improve.
Strong winds usually blow the sea ice away from these islands.
But occasionally, the opposite happens.
Arctic winds blow ice eastward from Greenland
along the northern coast of Asia.
It gathers around the islands...
ICE SHATTERS
POLAR BEAR GROANS
..and creates a polar bear playground.
POLAR BEAR GROWLS
POLAR BEAR GRUNTS
Favourable winds like these are an unreliable lifeline.
But for now, the bears are in their element.
Despite the lethal extremes,
some animals have found truly extraordinary ways
of surviving
and even triumphing...
WATER SPLASHES
ICE SHATTERS
..here in Asia's frozen north.
When the Frozen crew travelled to the Tibetan Plateau...
..they were met by some ominous weather conditions.
I don't know how the driver can keep driving. I can't see anything.
Wow.
We're coming in and out of, like, these dust storms,
and it's really, really bad.
Not looking forward to going out there, not going to lie!
Jacky's mission over the coming weeks
is to film the elusive chiru antelope.
But he's got his work cut out.
Just getting to the filming location every day means negotiating
this huge, frozen area.
The crew's first strategy is to set up a hide on top of a lake.
Chiru have been known to come here to eat minerals in the soil.
It's a pretty good spot.
Right on the ice.
Pretty good place.
I think today's about -25,
and the hide is actually frozen.
Just beneath my feet and the tripod is just really thick ice,
and I don't think that helps.
I'm just going to try to keep warm as much as I can,
and hopefully chirus will come along sometime soon.
As each day goes by...
..still no luck.
WIND HOWLS Argh. Whoa!
Argh!
Woo. Argh, God.
Just absolutely freezing, like, sitting in the hide all day.
The conditions are taking their toll.
And back at the hotel,
there's little relief from the altitude.
I heard a big explosion in the middle of the night.
We bought some supplies to eat in the tent,
and because of the altitude, it exploded.
HE CHUCKLES
Everything is super pressurised.
Jacky's sleep-tracker shows a disrupted pattern.
Just... Just... You just can't really sleep.
You're lacking oxygen and struggling for breath every morning.
HE GROANS
Oh, I've got a headache.
Maybe being in the great outdoors
will help clear Jacky's head.
We have been sitting in the hide for the last few days,
and we haven't seen any chiru willing to come close.
We might have to change the strategy unfortunately.
If the chiru won't come to the team,
the team must go to the chiru.
But this is easier said than done.
Yeah, it's really difficult.
Every time we get as close as maybe 500 metres to a herd,
they run away,
so we can't really film any action.
We really need to think of a strategy to get close.
Otherwise we're probably not going to bring home anything.
Frustratingly, the only approachable chiru
is a dead one...
..killed by a wolf.
Such a shame. We're, like, a day late.
Such a shame.
So fresh as well.
Two weeks go by
with little more than glimpses.
THEY SPEAK CHINESE
Until one morning...
..an opportunity comes out of the blue.
Look at that guy! Just right there on the window, over there.
It's still walking towards us.
What?!
Most wolves run from humans.
It's very rare to get close to one in the wild.
Perfect.
I don't think we're going to get any lunch by this rate,
because if this individual's not afraid of people, then we'll
probably follow him the whole day.
Let's go. That's awesome. Very exciting indeed.
After four weeks of failure with the chiru,
the wolf is an appealing alternative.
WOLF PANTS
It's just really odd how we get out of the car,
try to film him,
he'll walk away.
But then, about 100 metres,
he'll stop, wait for us.
Literally just looking at us as we approach.
And he just stays there, and then maybe another 100 metres,
he'll wait.
I don't know, it feels like he's trying to tell us
something or lead us somewhere, you know?
I'm hoping that that's the case.
Jacky launches the drone to get closer.
To the team's surprise, the wolf shows no reaction.
Ha-ha!
That is not what we set out to do,
but we did manage to get some awesome shots.
But then, suddenly, the wolf picks up the pace
and starts to hunt.
Right there, we can see the wolf. It's just been crazy.
And he doesn't stop.
He's been chasing forever.
DRONE WHIRS
With the sun about to set...
We changed twice on the battery.
..and the crew on their last drone battery,
they hope it'll keep working long enough to record the entire hunt.
DRONE: Low battery warning. Oh, my days!
I mean, honestly, this is absolutely unbelievable.
I was thinking, "There's no way he's going
"to be able to catch that, no way."
It was just chasing the chiru all over the place,
and then suddenly just caught one.
Crazy! I can't believe it.
We almost gave up. The drone had low battery.
I... It literally...forced landing.
It's something that we dreamt of, but just think, "That's impossible,
"there's no way we can film anything like that. Not a hunt, not here."
But, in fact, just... Ha!
Yeah, words can't even describe how excited I was.
The team's patience and persistence...
..has allowed them to capture something far greater
than they ever hoped.