1 00:00:12,500 --> 00:00:13,540 What a place. 2 00:00:15,180 --> 00:00:16,980 This is completely epic. 3 00:00:19,820 --> 00:00:23,300 I'm in Alaska and I'm starting a huge journey, 4 00:00:23,300 --> 00:00:26,780 the biggest I've ever done through the two continents 5 00:00:26,780 --> 00:00:28,940 that, together, form more than a quarter 6 00:00:28,940 --> 00:00:30,740 of Earth's land surface. 7 00:00:33,660 --> 00:00:36,700 I am travelling the length of the Americas. 8 00:00:41,900 --> 00:00:43,180 Starting at the top, 9 00:00:43,180 --> 00:00:44,780 heading to the toe. 10 00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:53,540 I'm beginning my Americas journey in this series 11 00:00:53,540 --> 00:00:56,980 by travelling down through North and Central America. 12 00:00:58,900 --> 00:01:01,260 It's a journey of 5,000 miles, 13 00:01:01,260 --> 00:01:03,660 through some of the biggest landscapes on Earth. 14 00:01:06,020 --> 00:01:08,980 It'll take me to places of myth and wonder... 15 00:01:10,620 --> 00:01:14,380 It was like stumbling upon a secret kingdom. 16 00:01:14,380 --> 00:01:16,580 THEY SPEAK SPANISH 17 00:01:18,500 --> 00:01:21,940 ..through regions torn apart by gangs and violence... 18 00:01:21,940 --> 00:01:24,180 Gangs have lookouts everywhere. 19 00:01:24,180 --> 00:01:25,380 MAN SPEAKS SPANISH 20 00:01:27,460 --> 00:01:29,300 ..and our changing climate. 21 00:01:29,300 --> 00:01:33,380 The speed at which the flames can move is astonishing. 22 00:01:33,380 --> 00:01:36,820 I'm travelling to some of the world's great cities. 23 00:01:36,820 --> 00:01:39,020 Oh, this is completely breathtaking. 24 00:01:40,180 --> 00:01:43,580 Then on into the beautiful and blighted tropics... 25 00:01:43,580 --> 00:01:45,740 We're with armed conservationists. 26 00:01:46,860 --> 00:01:49,460 ..to the heart of the battle to save the planet. 27 00:01:49,460 --> 00:01:50,900 GUNSHOT RINGS OUT 28 00:01:53,220 --> 00:01:54,540 GUNSHOTS 29 00:02:07,980 --> 00:02:09,300 Mind your head. 30 00:02:09,300 --> 00:02:11,740 Very... Very good idea! 31 00:02:15,580 --> 00:02:17,860 And it needs to be in a sleeping bag? Yeah. 32 00:02:17,860 --> 00:02:20,660 You don't want any chunks of ice on the propellor. 33 00:02:20,660 --> 00:02:23,420 Shall I unhook them? I mean... You can take the whole thing off. 34 00:02:23,420 --> 00:02:24,980 That would help me greatly. 35 00:02:24,980 --> 00:02:29,140 I was beginning my epic journey in the beautiful heart of Alaska. 36 00:02:29,140 --> 00:02:31,420 OK. Thank you for that. 37 00:02:31,420 --> 00:02:33,100 Wow! 38 00:02:33,100 --> 00:02:35,740 There she is! Leighan Falley's an elite pilot 39 00:02:35,740 --> 00:02:39,380 able to take me into a remote corner of America's largest state 40 00:02:39,380 --> 00:02:42,220 with the help of a rather special old plane. 41 00:02:42,220 --> 00:02:44,140 What's that noise inside? 42 00:02:44,140 --> 00:02:46,220 That's the hair dryers, our hi tech of heating 43 00:02:46,220 --> 00:02:47,660 the avionics in the airplane. 44 00:02:47,660 --> 00:02:51,020 No, you haven't! Yeah. That's just perfectly normal, is it? 45 00:02:51,020 --> 00:02:53,940 It's a tried and true method of heating the airplane. 46 00:03:01,020 --> 00:03:04,740 It's a 1954 de Havilland, if you're wondering. 47 00:03:08,660 --> 00:03:12,460 We are just about to cross the boundary into Denali National Park. 48 00:03:14,940 --> 00:03:17,340 That is Mt Denali right ahead of us, I think. 49 00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:20,020 It is, yeah. The tallest, most obvious one. 50 00:03:20,020 --> 00:03:22,620 The biggest peak in the whole of North America? 51 00:03:22,620 --> 00:03:25,260 Yes. 20,310 feet. 52 00:03:25,260 --> 00:03:27,900 SIMON CHUCKLES 53 00:03:31,780 --> 00:03:32,820 Isn't this amazing? 54 00:03:33,940 --> 00:03:36,140 It's complete breathtaking. 55 00:03:36,140 --> 00:03:39,860 A landscape like you see in few places on this planet. 56 00:03:43,820 --> 00:03:46,340 It's definitely a world treasure. 57 00:03:46,340 --> 00:03:48,260 Do you still feel that every time you fly? 58 00:03:48,260 --> 00:03:51,060 Are you kidding me? Do you even have to ask that question? 59 00:03:51,060 --> 00:03:51,980 LAUGHS: Yes! 60 00:03:51,980 --> 00:03:53,100 SHE LAUGHS 61 00:03:54,540 --> 00:03:59,420 Denali National Park is known as the roof of the continent. 62 00:03:59,420 --> 00:04:03,260 It's six million acres of wilderness, largely without trails 63 00:04:03,260 --> 00:04:05,260 let alone roads. 64 00:04:05,260 --> 00:04:06,940 As well as the highest mountain, 65 00:04:06,940 --> 00:04:09,380 it's home to wolves, moose, grizzly bears 66 00:04:09,380 --> 00:04:13,020 and hundreds and hundreds of glaciers. 67 00:04:13,020 --> 00:04:16,100 So we're over the glacier now? We are. 68 00:04:18,540 --> 00:04:20,700 This is the vast Ruth Glacier. 69 00:04:22,700 --> 00:04:27,220 The Ruth Glacier is about 35 miles long and about two miles wide. 70 00:04:30,260 --> 00:04:31,620 I'm close to tears here. 71 00:04:31,620 --> 00:04:33,460 This is... SHE CHUCKLES 72 00:04:33,460 --> 00:04:35,300 ..breathtakingly beautiful. 73 00:04:41,780 --> 00:04:44,260 I started flying here 15 years ago 74 00:04:44,260 --> 00:04:46,540 and I've seen a lot of change. 75 00:04:46,540 --> 00:04:49,580 That glacier this is really taking a beating right now. 76 00:04:49,580 --> 00:04:50,980 But it looks untouchable. 77 00:04:50,980 --> 00:04:52,380 And things are changing. 78 00:04:52,380 --> 00:04:55,060 For instance, we're coming up on a lake. 79 00:04:55,060 --> 00:04:57,940 This lake did not exist about three years ago. 80 00:04:57,940 --> 00:04:59,940 It's because the glacier's melted. 81 00:04:59,940 --> 00:05:02,180 This is all water that has melted off the glacier? 82 00:05:02,180 --> 00:05:03,220 Exactly, yeah. 83 00:05:07,420 --> 00:05:09,900 These three big holes in the glacier in front of us 84 00:05:09,900 --> 00:05:11,820 did not exist 15 years ago. 85 00:05:11,820 --> 00:05:15,380 The glacier has peeled back, revealing all this bedrock below it. 86 00:05:15,380 --> 00:05:18,220 My God! Three clear scars there, aren't they? 87 00:05:23,380 --> 00:05:27,140 It's overwhelmingly beautiful but it's like looking at 88 00:05:27,140 --> 00:05:29,380 an injured wild animal, really. 89 00:05:30,820 --> 00:05:34,180 The north of our planet is heating almost twice as fast 90 00:05:34,180 --> 00:05:36,500 as the rest of the world. 91 00:05:36,500 --> 00:05:39,820 Temperatures at the North Pole have surged above freezing 92 00:05:39,820 --> 00:05:43,020 in the dead of winter, stunning scientists. 93 00:05:43,020 --> 00:05:48,620 Ice that's thousands of years old is dripping and pouring away. 94 00:05:48,620 --> 00:05:52,580 Globally, glaciers have lost nine trillion tonnes of ice 95 00:05:52,580 --> 00:05:53,980 in half a century. 96 00:05:55,220 --> 00:05:57,620 I think of the United States as being a major cause 97 00:05:57,620 --> 00:05:59,060 of climate change. 98 00:05:59,060 --> 00:06:03,060 Here, I was starting to see it's also experiencing the consequences. 99 00:06:05,020 --> 00:06:09,660 It feels like you're perhaps witnessing, more than most of us do, 100 00:06:09,660 --> 00:06:11,940 a time of extraordinary change. 101 00:06:11,940 --> 00:06:16,100 I can't believe that people don't see that things are warming up. 102 00:06:16,100 --> 00:06:17,740 Every year I see recession. 103 00:06:17,740 --> 00:06:20,980 And, to me, when people say that climate change isn't real, 104 00:06:20,980 --> 00:06:23,780 I don't know what they can be thinking. 105 00:06:27,060 --> 00:06:29,660 SHE RELAYS INSTRUCTIONS OVER RADIO 106 00:06:29,660 --> 00:06:32,260 So we're, we're going to attempt something... 107 00:06:32,260 --> 00:06:34,140 ..pretty tricky. 108 00:06:34,140 --> 00:06:37,060 We're going to try and land on the glacier here. 109 00:06:37,060 --> 00:06:38,620 Seat belts on for landing. 110 00:06:40,700 --> 00:06:43,740 More people have been to the International Space Station 111 00:06:43,740 --> 00:06:46,260 than have licenses to land a plane on a glacier. 112 00:06:46,260 --> 00:06:47,500 No more talking. 113 00:06:49,700 --> 00:06:51,020 All right, here goes. 114 00:07:12,180 --> 00:07:13,940 All right. Welcome! 115 00:07:13,940 --> 00:07:16,260 Leighan, that was... that was extraordinary. 116 00:07:16,260 --> 00:07:18,860 That was a very, very smooth landing. 117 00:07:23,740 --> 00:07:24,780 Oh, my God! 118 00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:32,900 Welcome to Alaska. 119 00:07:32,900 --> 00:07:35,940 You're going to leave us here in the middle of bloody nowhere. 120 00:07:35,940 --> 00:07:37,460 I love it. Thank you! You're welcome. 121 00:07:37,460 --> 00:07:39,660 Thank you for leaving us in the middle of nowhere. 122 00:07:39,660 --> 00:07:41,500 All right, good luck. We'll wave you off. OK. 123 00:07:48,180 --> 00:07:49,940 Bye! Bye-bye, Leighan! 124 00:08:09,700 --> 00:08:11,380 This is just astonishing. 125 00:08:16,180 --> 00:08:19,020 It looks as though humans couldn't possibly affect it, 126 00:08:19,020 --> 00:08:20,020 but... 127 00:08:21,220 --> 00:08:22,940 HE SIGHS HEAVILY 128 00:08:22,940 --> 00:08:24,620 ..evidence is all around. 129 00:08:25,740 --> 00:08:30,580 It's really frightening to hear a pilot who flies here all the time 130 00:08:30,580 --> 00:08:34,060 but has only been doing it for less than a couple of decades 131 00:08:34,060 --> 00:08:38,700 say, "I can see clearly the changes." 132 00:08:44,180 --> 00:08:45,980 Somewhere up there... 133 00:08:45,980 --> 00:08:47,500 ..is somewhere to stay. 134 00:08:57,220 --> 00:08:59,020 Bloody hope we're going the right way! 135 00:09:07,300 --> 00:09:10,300 All right. Now, THAT is properly bonkers. 136 00:09:19,940 --> 00:09:21,300 Hello. 137 00:09:21,300 --> 00:09:23,980 I really, really hope you're expecting us. 138 00:09:23,980 --> 00:09:25,220 I think I am. Are you Simon? 139 00:09:25,220 --> 00:09:27,300 Yeah. Nice to meet you. 140 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:28,940 Nice to meet you, too. Welcome! 141 00:09:30,580 --> 00:09:33,860 If you're doing something a little bit bonkers and magnificent 142 00:09:33,860 --> 00:09:36,300 like travelling the length of the Americas, 143 00:09:36,300 --> 00:09:37,820 then Sheldon Chalet's 144 00:09:37,820 --> 00:09:40,780 an appropriately epic place to overnight. 145 00:09:40,780 --> 00:09:45,580 This must surely be one of the most remote lodges on this planet. 146 00:09:45,580 --> 00:09:49,580 It is. We are the northernmost latitude 147 00:09:49,580 --> 00:09:52,460 at this elevation of anywhere 148 00:09:52,460 --> 00:09:55,020 you can stay on the planet, and you know those two things 149 00:09:55,020 --> 00:09:58,900 together make us the best place to see the aurora, too. 150 00:10:08,860 --> 00:10:10,940 WHISPERS: It's astonishing. 151 00:10:10,940 --> 00:10:13,340 The light comes dancing across the sky. 152 00:10:14,980 --> 00:10:16,780 It's like we're up in the heavens. 153 00:10:18,420 --> 00:10:20,140 It's completely magical. 154 00:10:33,660 --> 00:10:34,740 Oh! 155 00:10:36,540 --> 00:10:37,580 Bloody hell! 156 00:10:49,500 --> 00:10:51,100 So, look at this. 157 00:10:51,100 --> 00:10:53,780 In the 1950s, 158 00:10:53,780 --> 00:10:57,060 the glacier here came up almost to the level 159 00:10:57,060 --> 00:11:00,500 of the small mountain hut just over there. 160 00:11:00,500 --> 00:11:05,140 And now it has shrunk and melted away 161 00:11:05,140 --> 00:11:07,980 so the glacier is now, 162 00:11:07,980 --> 00:11:10,100 what, 300 maybe, feet lower? 163 00:11:11,260 --> 00:11:13,100 It's an astonishing change. 164 00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:19,180 That is millions of tonnes of water that has melted away. 165 00:11:19,180 --> 00:11:24,020 It is an indicator of profound environmental change. 166 00:11:27,660 --> 00:11:30,340 Bodes badly for the rest of us. 167 00:11:30,340 --> 00:11:31,940 The whole planet. 168 00:11:41,540 --> 00:11:43,940 The journey ahead of me down through the Americas 169 00:11:43,940 --> 00:11:45,540 felt huge and daunting. 170 00:11:47,060 --> 00:11:49,460 If all goes to plan, over the next two years 171 00:11:49,460 --> 00:11:52,540 I'll spend six months on the road. 172 00:11:52,540 --> 00:11:55,940 Like so many of us, I'll often be relying on vehicles 173 00:11:55,940 --> 00:11:57,220 and fossil fuels, 174 00:11:57,220 --> 00:11:59,020 especially here in Alaska 175 00:11:59,020 --> 00:12:02,660 still known as America's Last Frontier. 176 00:12:02,660 --> 00:12:05,900 We've just seen a sign that says "pipeline viewpoint". 177 00:12:05,900 --> 00:12:07,900 Think we better take a look. 178 00:12:09,060 --> 00:12:12,620 So, this is the Alaska Pipeline. 179 00:12:12,620 --> 00:12:17,660 This is taking millions of barrels of oil from oil fields 180 00:12:17,660 --> 00:12:21,500 off the northern coast of Alaska, across Alaska to... 181 00:12:21,500 --> 00:12:24,580 Well, there's a helpful map here. 182 00:12:24,580 --> 00:12:26,140 So, from Prudhoe Bay... 183 00:12:27,220 --> 00:12:30,020 ..Northern Alaska, all the way down 184 00:12:30,020 --> 00:12:34,460 to a, well, the Valdez Marine Terminal, where it doesn't freeze, 185 00:12:34,460 --> 00:12:37,540 so the oil can be shipped out of here to the rest 186 00:12:37,540 --> 00:12:40,580 of the United States and around the world. 187 00:12:43,060 --> 00:12:47,540 For more than 40 years, a veritable sea of oil has been flushed down 188 00:12:47,540 --> 00:12:49,220 this 800-mile pipeline, 189 00:12:49,220 --> 00:12:51,860 fuelling America and the world. 190 00:12:53,260 --> 00:12:55,860 "Please don't climb on the pipeline!" 191 00:13:00,540 --> 00:13:02,540 There wass huge controversy, of course, 192 00:13:02,540 --> 00:13:04,060 when this pipeline was built 193 00:13:04,060 --> 00:13:07,100 because it was being pushed through pristine wilderness... 194 00:13:08,180 --> 00:13:10,060 ..and it's pumping out dirty oil. 195 00:13:11,300 --> 00:13:14,340 And now there are plans to drill for more. 196 00:13:21,020 --> 00:13:22,380 Hello, Miles. Hi. 197 00:13:22,380 --> 00:13:26,340 Permission to come aboard. Sure! Thank you. 198 00:13:26,340 --> 00:13:29,380 My travels were taking me to the frozen and isolated 199 00:13:29,380 --> 00:13:31,020 north coast of Alaska... 200 00:13:33,460 --> 00:13:35,460 ..and to one of the largest areas of wilderness 201 00:13:35,460 --> 00:13:37,540 in the whole of the United States. 202 00:13:38,980 --> 00:13:43,580 I'm now flying over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 203 00:13:43,580 --> 00:13:44,780 known as ANWR. 204 00:13:47,660 --> 00:13:50,700 ANWR is the size of Scotland. 205 00:13:50,700 --> 00:13:52,940 No roads lead into the refuge. 206 00:13:52,940 --> 00:13:55,780 It's a critical habitat for an abundance of wildlife, 207 00:13:55,780 --> 00:13:58,260 including polar bears. 208 00:13:58,260 --> 00:14:01,220 Conservationists want to protect it and many other Americans 209 00:14:01,220 --> 00:14:05,020 just love the idea of keeping it as a wilderness, with its promise 210 00:14:05,020 --> 00:14:08,780 and lure of adventure - a reminder perhaps of the frontier spirit 211 00:14:08,780 --> 00:14:10,940 of their ancestors. 212 00:14:10,940 --> 00:14:14,060 But ANWR's at the centre of a battle. 213 00:14:14,060 --> 00:14:16,460 I headed inside the Arctic Circle. 214 00:14:17,540 --> 00:14:20,020 The US Government is talking about opening a portion 215 00:14:20,020 --> 00:14:23,100 of this for oil and gas development. 216 00:14:23,100 --> 00:14:30,020 Many activists regard the refuge as an environmentally sacred site. 217 00:14:30,020 --> 00:14:33,780 If this holiest of holies is open for development, 218 00:14:33,780 --> 00:14:35,420 so the argument goes, 219 00:14:35,420 --> 00:14:38,340 then no protected site anywhere is safe. 220 00:14:40,500 --> 00:14:43,420 Supporters claim drilling could create tens of thousands 221 00:14:43,420 --> 00:14:47,420 of jobs and generate billions of dollars in government revenue. 222 00:14:47,420 --> 00:14:50,860 Estimates suggest there could be ten billion barrels of oil 223 00:14:50,860 --> 00:14:52,940 in the refuge but nobody knows for sure. 224 00:14:54,100 --> 00:14:59,340 The small coastal town of Kaktovik is the only settlement within ANWR. 225 00:15:01,220 --> 00:15:04,300 One of the most remote communities on the continent, 226 00:15:04,300 --> 00:15:07,660 Kaktovik is home to the indigenous Inupiat people. 227 00:15:15,620 --> 00:15:18,860 I was met by community leader Matthew Rexford. 228 00:15:21,140 --> 00:15:24,820 Matthew, thank you so much for taking us on a tour. 229 00:15:24,820 --> 00:15:26,740 Oh, yes. How many people live here? 230 00:15:26,740 --> 00:15:28,060 Approximately 300. 231 00:15:29,380 --> 00:15:31,620 You can see a lot of these dogs. 232 00:15:31,620 --> 00:15:34,500 They alert the community when there's bears around. 233 00:15:34,500 --> 00:15:38,700 The dogs help to keep polar bears out of the community. Mm-hm. 234 00:15:38,700 --> 00:15:39,780 Oh, my goodness! 235 00:15:43,020 --> 00:15:45,140 What is that ahead of us? 236 00:15:45,140 --> 00:15:48,420 There's a lot of flat, open ground out there. 237 00:15:48,420 --> 00:15:51,140 Yeah, that's the Arctic Ocean. 238 00:15:51,140 --> 00:15:52,980 That is the sea? Yes. 239 00:15:52,980 --> 00:15:55,220 For sustenance, we are allowed 240 00:15:55,220 --> 00:15:57,540 a quota of three whales annually. 241 00:15:57,540 --> 00:15:59,900 So... Three whales per year? 242 00:15:59,900 --> 00:16:02,380 Three bowhead whales a year, and that can sustain 243 00:16:02,380 --> 00:16:05,180 the entire community for the whole year. 244 00:16:08,220 --> 00:16:09,860 Look, an Arctic fox. 245 00:16:09,860 --> 00:16:11,500 HE GASPS 246 00:16:11,500 --> 00:16:13,100 There's an Arctic fox! 247 00:16:18,940 --> 00:16:22,460 So, Thursday night is bingo night in Kaktovik... 248 00:16:24,300 --> 00:16:26,900 ..and we're just on our way to play bingo. Mm-hm. 249 00:16:29,780 --> 00:16:31,700 O-75. 250 00:16:33,660 --> 00:16:35,260 G-48. 251 00:16:36,900 --> 00:16:40,540 You need to cover all four corners of one of your blocks 252 00:16:40,540 --> 00:16:42,340 and have a block of nine. 253 00:16:44,780 --> 00:16:46,820 B-15. 254 00:16:48,660 --> 00:16:50,460 G-15. G-15. 255 00:16:50,460 --> 00:16:52,700 G-15... B-15. 256 00:16:52,700 --> 00:16:55,220 B-15? Yes. Thank you. That's extremely helpful. 257 00:16:55,220 --> 00:16:57,180 I-19. 258 00:16:57,180 --> 00:16:59,620 Gosh! I'm getting behind already. 259 00:16:59,620 --> 00:17:01,660 Yeah. I-16. 260 00:17:03,140 --> 00:17:04,220 You missed it. 261 00:17:06,100 --> 00:17:08,740 She's doing three at once! 262 00:17:08,740 --> 00:17:11,620 Marie? Can you give a bit of advice? 263 00:17:11,620 --> 00:17:14,020 Keep up with the caller. 264 00:17:14,020 --> 00:17:15,340 That is the advice. 265 00:17:16,900 --> 00:17:19,300 N-37. Is he speeding up? 266 00:17:20,300 --> 00:17:21,740 Bingo! Bingo. 267 00:17:25,220 --> 00:17:28,260 So, you don't have a bar or a pub here, do you? Oh, no. 268 00:17:28,260 --> 00:17:30,900 This is a dry community, no alcohol? 269 00:17:30,900 --> 00:17:32,500 Yes. Alcohol is prohibited. 270 00:17:33,540 --> 00:17:37,180 Without a bar to coalesce around, this community centre 271 00:17:37,180 --> 00:17:39,660 then becomes absolutely vital. 272 00:17:39,660 --> 00:17:44,140 Oh, yes. And each community, rural community on the North Slope 273 00:17:44,140 --> 00:17:47,340 does have a community centre. So, yeah. 274 00:17:47,340 --> 00:17:48,940 Very similar. 275 00:17:48,940 --> 00:17:52,020 And as a result, bingo is big. Yes. 276 00:17:54,700 --> 00:17:58,140 Many indigenous communities in Alaska have had a turbulent, 277 00:17:58,140 --> 00:18:00,940 often difficult time in recent decades. 278 00:18:01,980 --> 00:18:04,700 Some have banned alcohol after long periods 279 00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:06,860 when it was abused and misused. 280 00:18:11,940 --> 00:18:15,220 Keeping out alcohol is one way the Kaktovik community has tried 281 00:18:15,220 --> 00:18:17,220 to turn things around. 282 00:18:17,220 --> 00:18:20,020 They've also taken advantage of revenue from the existing 283 00:18:20,020 --> 00:18:22,100 Arctic oil industry. 284 00:18:22,100 --> 00:18:26,540 For years, there's been drilling just along the coast at Prudhoe Bay. 285 00:18:26,540 --> 00:18:28,580 All the infrastructure has come 286 00:18:28,580 --> 00:18:30,580 from taxation of oil development 287 00:18:30,580 --> 00:18:31,820 in Prudhoe Bay. 288 00:18:33,020 --> 00:18:35,260 Gravel roads, modern houses, 289 00:18:35,260 --> 00:18:36,900 power generation, 290 00:18:36,900 --> 00:18:38,540 water and sewer treatment 291 00:18:38,540 --> 00:18:41,420 which was built around the year 2000. 292 00:18:41,420 --> 00:18:45,940 So, prior to that we didn't have any running water services 293 00:18:45,940 --> 00:18:48,500 for the whole community. No flush toilets at all. 294 00:18:48,500 --> 00:18:51,780 So, water had to be hauled into each house, 295 00:18:51,780 --> 00:18:53,780 into a tank for each home. 296 00:18:53,780 --> 00:18:56,220 Did you do a bit of that when you were a kid? Oh, yes. 297 00:18:56,220 --> 00:18:57,220 I grew up with that. 298 00:19:01,620 --> 00:19:03,100 And where are we going now? 299 00:19:03,100 --> 00:19:06,460 Now we're going to the new community ice cellar. 300 00:19:13,100 --> 00:19:14,580 Oh, my goodness me! 301 00:19:14,580 --> 00:19:17,740 What we're seeing here is the cavern which is dug down 302 00:19:17,740 --> 00:19:21,660 and it goes down 18 to 20 feet into the permafrost. 303 00:19:21,660 --> 00:19:26,460 So it's a huge, not just walk-in but climb-in freezer... 304 00:19:26,460 --> 00:19:29,060 Yes. ..to store whale meat... 305 00:19:29,060 --> 00:19:31,340 Yes. ..from the three whales that you're allowed 306 00:19:31,340 --> 00:19:34,220 to catch per year, is that right? Yes. 307 00:19:34,220 --> 00:19:38,900 We built this with assistance and funding from the ExxonMobil 308 00:19:38,900 --> 00:19:41,540 because they provided funding to our community foundation 309 00:19:41,540 --> 00:19:44,580 and we identified this as a priority to the community. 310 00:19:44,580 --> 00:19:49,020 So this community cellar was funded by the oil industry? 311 00:19:49,020 --> 00:19:50,820 Yes. 312 00:19:50,820 --> 00:19:52,300 Right. 313 00:19:52,300 --> 00:19:55,340 Most families here used to have their own ice cellars 314 00:19:55,340 --> 00:19:58,940 in the permanently frozen ground under their homes. 315 00:19:58,940 --> 00:20:01,660 But almost all have now melted because of the warming climate 316 00:20:01,660 --> 00:20:03,300 in the Arctic. 317 00:20:03,300 --> 00:20:05,900 The new freezer's become a lifeline for the community 318 00:20:05,900 --> 00:20:09,220 with the added irony that it was provided by an oil industry giant. 319 00:20:10,580 --> 00:20:13,820 Many Kaktovik residents now support opening ANWR, 320 00:20:13,820 --> 00:20:17,300 the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for drilling. 321 00:20:17,300 --> 00:20:19,900 The refuge is 19 million acres 322 00:20:19,900 --> 00:20:23,780 and if it's going to be 2,000 acres 323 00:20:23,780 --> 00:20:26,220 for any development that would occur, 324 00:20:26,220 --> 00:20:31,980 we see that that can work and can coexist with the wildlife. 325 00:20:31,980 --> 00:20:36,740 Oil generates the funding to grow our communities. 326 00:20:36,740 --> 00:20:40,220 Prior to development of Prudhoe Bay... 327 00:20:40,220 --> 00:20:43,860 ..the life expectancy of the Inupiat people were ten years shorter 328 00:20:43,860 --> 00:20:45,140 than it is today. 329 00:20:46,460 --> 00:20:48,540 Really? Yes. 330 00:20:48,540 --> 00:20:50,140 That's... 331 00:20:50,140 --> 00:20:52,020 That's pretty frightening. Mm-hm. 332 00:20:53,140 --> 00:20:54,620 I feel torn. 333 00:20:54,620 --> 00:20:56,540 My instinct is definitely... 334 00:20:58,700 --> 00:21:00,940 ..wild areas should be left wild. 335 00:21:02,180 --> 00:21:06,220 But I start to see that your community needs development. 336 00:21:07,380 --> 00:21:09,660 It's such a complicated... 337 00:21:09,660 --> 00:21:11,100 ..situation, isn't it? 338 00:21:11,100 --> 00:21:13,700 We're just here trying to survive and... 339 00:21:15,020 --> 00:21:19,260 ..we have a lot of bad experiences with folks coming in and telling us 340 00:21:19,260 --> 00:21:21,020 what we can and can't do. 341 00:21:24,020 --> 00:21:27,540 Yet the plans to drill in the Arctic Refuge could have consequences 342 00:21:27,540 --> 00:21:29,500 well beyond this community. 343 00:21:30,740 --> 00:21:33,460 Evidence of the climate emergency we're all facing 344 00:21:33,460 --> 00:21:35,660 had been all around me on my journey. 345 00:21:36,860 --> 00:21:38,500 A powerful argument, surely, 346 00:21:38,500 --> 00:21:40,300 for leaving the oil in the ground. 347 00:21:45,500 --> 00:21:48,060 The weather's not looking great up there. 348 00:21:48,060 --> 00:21:51,300 They're trying to find a way through the mountain pass 349 00:21:51,300 --> 00:21:52,500 in a helicopter. 350 00:21:53,980 --> 00:21:58,180 Researchers still depend on fossil fuels to monitor the remote areas 351 00:21:58,180 --> 00:22:00,460 of North America. 352 00:22:00,460 --> 00:22:03,900 Campaigners argue opening the Arctic Refuge for oil drilling 353 00:22:03,900 --> 00:22:07,340 could send shock waves through a delicate ecosystem. 354 00:22:07,340 --> 00:22:08,540 Wolves! 355 00:22:11,140 --> 00:22:13,700 Well, if the wolves are here, the caribou are here. 356 00:22:15,100 --> 00:22:19,740 At the centre of the ecosystem is the caribou, or reindeer. 357 00:22:19,740 --> 00:22:21,420 Yes, look! Just below. 358 00:22:21,420 --> 00:22:24,460 Many of them depend on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 359 00:22:24,460 --> 00:22:26,740 as a critical part of their habitat. 360 00:22:26,740 --> 00:22:29,180 Oh, it's wonderful to see them. 361 00:22:29,180 --> 00:22:33,980 We flew across the starkly beautiful far north of the Americas. 362 00:22:33,980 --> 00:22:38,060 Below, an enormous 200,000-strong herd of caribou 363 00:22:38,060 --> 00:22:42,220 were undertaking the longest land migration on the planet. 364 00:22:42,220 --> 00:22:44,740 They cover a distance of 3,000 miles, 365 00:22:44,740 --> 00:22:47,940 cutting across a huge swathe of Canada and Alaska 366 00:22:47,940 --> 00:22:49,820 to get to the Arctic Refuge 367 00:22:49,820 --> 00:22:53,060 where they give birth each year right in the land 368 00:22:53,060 --> 00:22:55,260 designated for oil drilling. 369 00:22:55,260 --> 00:22:59,140 They migrate such an astonishing distance. 370 00:22:59,140 --> 00:23:00,340 Look at them! 371 00:23:01,580 --> 00:23:03,780 They withstand temperatures 372 00:23:03,780 --> 00:23:06,860 of as low as minus 60 degrees. 373 00:23:08,540 --> 00:23:12,340 The caribou is a completely incredible creature. 374 00:23:14,900 --> 00:23:17,060 And up here, it's not just the wolves who depend 375 00:23:17,060 --> 00:23:18,820 on the caribou to survive. 376 00:23:25,140 --> 00:23:27,260 Ah! Careful, crazy dog. 377 00:23:27,260 --> 00:23:28,860 DOG BARKS 378 00:23:28,860 --> 00:23:31,860 Brennan, I think that dog really likes you. 379 00:23:32,940 --> 00:23:34,900 150 miles south from Kaktovik, 380 00:23:34,900 --> 00:23:38,140 at the southern edge of the wildlife refuge 381 00:23:38,140 --> 00:23:39,180 is Arctic Village. 382 00:23:41,020 --> 00:23:44,860 So we're just coming into Arctic Village school. 383 00:23:44,860 --> 00:23:48,340 It's a remote community. This is where we're going to be staying. 384 00:23:48,340 --> 00:23:51,420 A primary school isn't where I'd usually bed down, 385 00:23:51,420 --> 00:23:54,380 but at least I had time for geography revision. 386 00:23:54,380 --> 00:23:56,100 We're right up here in Alaska. 387 00:23:57,500 --> 00:23:59,100 Look at it... 388 00:23:59,100 --> 00:24:01,900 Ah, this looks completely mad, this journey, 389 00:24:01,900 --> 00:24:03,580 when I look at it like this. 390 00:24:03,580 --> 00:24:05,780 Am I really going to make it? 391 00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:13,020 Arctic Village is a home to the Gwich'in people - 392 00:24:13,020 --> 00:24:15,500 another of Alaska's ancient indigenous groups. 393 00:24:16,740 --> 00:24:18,700 They live off the caribou, 394 00:24:18,700 --> 00:24:21,900 and many here fear the drilling in the Arctic Refuge will disturb 395 00:24:21,900 --> 00:24:24,260 the herd and threaten their way of life. 396 00:24:26,900 --> 00:24:30,380 So we're heading out with a group of hunters from the village. 397 00:24:33,780 --> 00:24:36,100 They're going out to hunt caribou. 398 00:24:36,100 --> 00:24:39,100 Charlie. Good morning. Good morning. 399 00:24:39,100 --> 00:24:41,340 Thank you very much for taking us with you. 400 00:24:41,340 --> 00:24:45,820 You know, you get a chance to see what we do to put meat on our table. 401 00:24:45,820 --> 00:24:47,420 Over the years, things have changed - 402 00:24:47,420 --> 00:24:49,060 the internet, stuff like that - 403 00:24:49,060 --> 00:24:51,540 but one part of life that's never changed for us here 404 00:24:51,540 --> 00:24:53,100 is the way we live off the land. 405 00:24:53,100 --> 00:24:54,740 That's never changed. 406 00:24:57,780 --> 00:24:58,900 All right. Yeah. 407 00:25:04,820 --> 00:25:07,940 So, where are we heading to, Charlie? 408 00:25:07,940 --> 00:25:09,740 The mountain over there? 409 00:25:09,740 --> 00:25:10,860 OK, wow. 410 00:25:17,820 --> 00:25:19,100 No? Yeah. 411 00:25:19,100 --> 00:25:21,100 Well, you're looking good for it. 412 00:25:34,300 --> 00:25:36,460 That's a wolf track. 413 00:25:36,460 --> 00:25:39,220 So you're saying a wolf has just come through here? 414 00:25:39,220 --> 00:25:41,740 Yeah. When the caribou show up, they're everywhere. 415 00:25:41,740 --> 00:25:43,260 So there are caribou nearby? 416 00:25:43,260 --> 00:25:44,660 Yep, they're around. 417 00:26:03,540 --> 00:26:06,260 You can see their tracks. Caribou tracks just going across 418 00:26:06,260 --> 00:26:09,060 down here, in fact. Mm-hm. We're close. 419 00:26:09,060 --> 00:26:10,660 We're very close. 420 00:26:10,660 --> 00:26:12,420 They're just ahead. Yeah. 421 00:26:12,420 --> 00:26:13,740 Are you going to go on foot? 422 00:26:13,740 --> 00:26:14,940 No, no, no. 423 00:26:14,940 --> 00:26:16,780 We go on the other side over there. 424 00:26:33,060 --> 00:26:34,460 GUNSHOT RINGS OUT 425 00:26:34,460 --> 00:26:35,740 Gah! Yo. 426 00:26:53,140 --> 00:26:55,820 SHOTS CONTINUE TO RING OUT 427 00:27:02,700 --> 00:27:04,420 It's a hell of a thing to see. 428 00:27:09,660 --> 00:27:11,340 What's the plan now, Charlie? 429 00:27:11,340 --> 00:27:13,860 We're going to skin 'em, gut 'em, cut 'em up. 430 00:27:23,020 --> 00:27:24,260 How old do you think you were 431 00:27:24,260 --> 00:27:26,060 when you butchered your first caribou? 432 00:27:26,060 --> 00:27:27,060 About eight years old. 433 00:27:27,060 --> 00:27:28,580 That's how I was raised. 434 00:27:28,580 --> 00:27:30,500 This is how we live. 435 00:27:30,500 --> 00:27:33,380 This is how we live. Yeah. 436 00:27:33,380 --> 00:27:36,420 And do you worry about the future for the caribou? 437 00:27:36,420 --> 00:27:39,500 You know, if they opened up ANWR to drilling up there 438 00:27:39,500 --> 00:27:43,700 and it turned out where they...they have their young, 439 00:27:43,700 --> 00:27:45,740 I know they're going to go somewhere else. 440 00:27:45,740 --> 00:27:46,780 They're sensitive. 441 00:27:46,780 --> 00:27:48,220 They don't want that sound 442 00:27:48,220 --> 00:27:50,540 when they're giving birth to their young. 443 00:27:50,540 --> 00:27:53,260 And what would that mean for you and the community? 444 00:27:53,260 --> 00:27:55,700 We won't see them no more. 445 00:27:55,700 --> 00:27:56,940 Who knows? 446 00:27:56,940 --> 00:27:59,140 There are experts who say oil drilling in ANWR 447 00:27:59,140 --> 00:28:00,700 won't harm the herd. 448 00:28:00,700 --> 00:28:03,940 But the Gwich'in aren't alone in fearing the future. 449 00:28:03,940 --> 00:28:05,660 There are scientists who say drilling 450 00:28:05,660 --> 00:28:07,580 could have profound effects on the caribou. 451 00:28:07,580 --> 00:28:09,180 Could you survive without them? 452 00:28:09,180 --> 00:28:12,780 It's virtually impossible right now, living in Arctic Village. 453 00:28:12,780 --> 00:28:14,380 You've got to eat. 454 00:28:16,060 --> 00:28:18,020 No matter what, you got to eat. 455 00:28:19,220 --> 00:28:21,500 So this is what we eat. Yeah. 456 00:28:28,100 --> 00:28:29,820 It's tough to see. 457 00:28:29,820 --> 00:28:32,180 They're majestic creatures 458 00:28:32,180 --> 00:28:35,300 and their lives ended pretty quickly. 459 00:28:36,780 --> 00:28:40,420 But this is...this is life up here in the Arctic. 460 00:28:42,860 --> 00:28:45,420 Hunting makes living out here viable. 461 00:28:56,300 --> 00:28:58,660 It's time for me to leave Alaska 462 00:28:58,660 --> 00:29:00,700 and head on east to Canada. 463 00:29:06,620 --> 00:29:08,180 I headed to the Yukon, 464 00:29:08,180 --> 00:29:10,060 a vast Canadian province 465 00:29:10,060 --> 00:29:14,100 twice the size of the UK but with a population of just 35,000. 466 00:29:15,340 --> 00:29:17,380 That's less than Merthyr Tydfil! 467 00:29:18,380 --> 00:29:20,620 First stop - Dawson City. 468 00:29:22,380 --> 00:29:24,100 A remote frontier town that was 469 00:29:24,100 --> 00:29:27,300 at the heart of the 19th century Klondike gold rush. 470 00:29:28,380 --> 00:29:32,500 Now it's become something of a draw for Canadians quitting the rat race 471 00:29:32,500 --> 00:29:34,860 and choosing a more off-grid way of life. 472 00:29:36,980 --> 00:29:38,740 What is it to be Canadian? 473 00:29:38,740 --> 00:29:42,060 I think of Canadians as being outdoorsy types, 474 00:29:42,060 --> 00:29:45,780 very environmentally friendly and politically correct 475 00:29:45,780 --> 00:29:47,700 and generally very nice. 476 00:29:49,540 --> 00:29:50,860 Bill? 477 00:29:52,740 --> 00:29:55,820 Bill Donaldson lives just across the river from Dawson... 478 00:29:55,820 --> 00:29:57,860 Bill? Yes. Good to meet you. 479 00:29:57,860 --> 00:30:00,420 ..in a cave, which might just be why he's known 480 00:30:00,420 --> 00:30:02,100 as Caveman Bill. 481 00:30:02,100 --> 00:30:04,340 So you've put a building on the front of the cave? Yeah. 482 00:30:08,340 --> 00:30:10,260 Cos it does get very cold. 483 00:30:10,260 --> 00:30:11,820 It does get a little bit chilly. 484 00:30:11,820 --> 00:30:15,060 And the coldest I've seen it is around 56 below Celsius. 485 00:30:15,060 --> 00:30:18,140 Yeah. I mean you're heading towards Antarctic temperatures there. 486 00:30:18,140 --> 00:30:22,300 Oh, yeah. There has been instances of people leaving parties in town 487 00:30:22,300 --> 00:30:24,540 a little bit drunk... And not making it home. 488 00:30:24,540 --> 00:30:27,220 ..and not making it home, yeah. My goodness. 489 00:30:27,220 --> 00:30:28,500 You've got sandals on. 490 00:30:28,500 --> 00:30:32,140 Well, yeah. It's only 14, 15 below right now, which is pretty warm 491 00:30:32,140 --> 00:30:33,620 for Dawson standard. 492 00:30:36,020 --> 00:30:39,260 Bill's life as a troglodyte started 20 years ago 493 00:30:39,260 --> 00:30:43,060 when he swapped daily grind in the city of Vancouver 494 00:30:43,060 --> 00:30:45,340 for the hippier lifestyle of Dawson. 495 00:30:45,340 --> 00:30:47,380 Tell us about this place. 496 00:30:47,380 --> 00:30:50,140 The cave was dug, I believe, by a guy who came here in 1902 497 00:30:50,140 --> 00:30:55,300 looking for gold, and the only gold they found is right up here. Yeah. 498 00:30:55,300 --> 00:30:59,540 Unfortunately, that gold is of the fool's variety. 499 00:30:59,540 --> 00:31:01,820 Fool's gold. Fool's gold. 500 00:31:01,820 --> 00:31:04,060 Have you ever been tempted to chip away? 501 00:31:04,060 --> 00:31:05,820 I'm not... 502 00:31:05,820 --> 00:31:07,340 ..really... 503 00:31:07,340 --> 00:31:08,980 ..money oriented. 504 00:31:08,980 --> 00:31:11,300 You know, as humans, we always 505 00:31:11,300 --> 00:31:14,780 have our schedules and calendars, 506 00:31:14,780 --> 00:31:19,700 and everything fits into these artificial conceptual constructs. 507 00:31:21,020 --> 00:31:25,860 Well, the environment here says, "To hell with your construct. 508 00:31:25,860 --> 00:31:28,700 "The river is going to break and the river is going to freeze 509 00:31:28,700 --> 00:31:30,660 "when it damn well feels like it." 510 00:31:30,660 --> 00:31:35,220 It's not going to do it on a schedule, and I really like that. 511 00:31:35,220 --> 00:31:37,540 That's what you're here fighting against. 512 00:31:37,540 --> 00:31:40,620 It's conventionality, 513 00:31:40,620 --> 00:31:43,980 and the hamster wheel of life, really. Yeah. Yeah. 514 00:31:47,020 --> 00:31:48,540 So, over here... Yeah. 515 00:31:48,540 --> 00:31:51,140 ..we've got some of the projects I've been working on this winter. 516 00:31:51,140 --> 00:31:53,580 Oh, Bill. This is a beehive here. 517 00:31:53,580 --> 00:31:56,420 Yeah. And you've made these over here as well? 518 00:31:56,420 --> 00:31:58,740 Look at the work! The stuff I make, 519 00:31:58,740 --> 00:32:01,820 you know, it's kind of a repudiation of that view of life 520 00:32:01,820 --> 00:32:05,180 where you just buy an entire set of furniture 521 00:32:05,180 --> 00:32:08,900 and then five years later it's all fallen apart. 522 00:32:08,900 --> 00:32:13,260 Bill, you've been described as the ultimate Canadian man. 523 00:32:13,260 --> 00:32:15,300 BILL LAUGHS 524 00:32:15,300 --> 00:32:17,980 I remember that article, it's kind of funny. 525 00:32:17,980 --> 00:32:19,980 It is a good bragging point! 526 00:32:22,860 --> 00:32:24,260 All right, this way. 527 00:32:24,260 --> 00:32:25,460 Head across the river. 528 00:32:29,260 --> 00:32:33,220 So, we're walking on the mighty Yukon River now. Yeah. 529 00:32:33,220 --> 00:32:36,700 Is there never just one little bit that's melted through? 530 00:32:36,700 --> 00:32:39,140 Um, well, there are spots. 531 00:32:39,140 --> 00:32:41,980 The river has killed a fair number of people. 532 00:32:41,980 --> 00:32:46,220 I know at least five or six people personally that have... 533 00:32:47,740 --> 00:32:49,660 ..disappeared into the river. 534 00:32:49,660 --> 00:32:52,260 I'm glad you told us that after we crossed it. 535 00:32:54,940 --> 00:32:57,980 Life in Dawson was starting to sound a trifle risky 536 00:32:57,980 --> 00:33:00,540 but at least they have a few good bars. 537 00:33:01,660 --> 00:33:05,700 Hello. Bill said I had to come and have a Sourtoe Cocktail. 538 00:33:05,700 --> 00:33:08,540 Oh, yeah. There's the toe right there! 539 00:33:08,540 --> 00:33:11,540 No! That is a sour toe. 540 00:33:11,540 --> 00:33:13,500 There's the toenail. No! 541 00:33:13,500 --> 00:33:16,260 SIMON EXCLAIMS IN DISGUST 542 00:33:16,260 --> 00:33:17,900 This is a real human toe?! 543 00:33:17,900 --> 00:33:20,300 Real human toe, yeah. Where has this come from? 544 00:33:20,300 --> 00:33:22,060 A foot. Yeah. 545 00:33:22,060 --> 00:33:23,180 THEY LAUGH 546 00:33:24,220 --> 00:33:28,860 So somebody has donated their toe and you sick puppies here 547 00:33:28,860 --> 00:33:33,020 have decided to turn this into the world's weirdest cocktail. 548 00:33:34,380 --> 00:33:35,980 God, you've got to be a different 549 00:33:35,980 --> 00:33:37,980 sort of type of person up here, haven't you? 550 00:33:37,980 --> 00:33:39,620 You're all completely psycho. 551 00:33:39,620 --> 00:33:41,460 THEY LAUGH 552 00:33:45,340 --> 00:33:47,300 How did I get into a situation like this? 553 00:33:47,300 --> 00:33:49,540 How do we get OUT of a situation like this?! 554 00:33:49,540 --> 00:33:51,740 Only one way - bottoms up. 555 00:33:51,740 --> 00:33:52,860 Bottoms up. 556 00:33:52,860 --> 00:33:56,060 Don't open your mouth too wide. Don't open too wide. OK. OK. 557 00:33:58,500 --> 00:33:59,500 Oh, yeah! 558 00:34:00,980 --> 00:34:03,340 HE GROANS Definite lip contact. 559 00:34:06,500 --> 00:34:07,820 Well done, Simon. 560 00:34:07,820 --> 00:34:09,860 Now one more for good luck. 561 00:34:12,340 --> 00:34:14,780 I can't believe I let you do that. Why did I let you do that? 562 00:34:14,780 --> 00:34:18,140 Well done. Took it like a champ. Congratulations. 563 00:34:23,940 --> 00:34:27,540 Canada is the second biggest country in the world... 564 00:34:28,780 --> 00:34:31,420 ..home to a quarter of the Earth's wetlands, 565 00:34:31,420 --> 00:34:33,020 thousands of rivers, 566 00:34:33,020 --> 00:34:35,700 more than two million lakes. 567 00:34:35,700 --> 00:34:38,500 Much of it is unpopulated and untouched. 568 00:34:40,140 --> 00:34:41,980 This is the boreal forest. 569 00:34:41,980 --> 00:34:45,860 Canada's boreal forest is enormous. 570 00:34:45,860 --> 00:34:49,140 Hundreds of millions of acres inside. 571 00:34:49,140 --> 00:34:50,940 The boreal forest, or taiga, 572 00:34:50,940 --> 00:34:53,180 stretches around the north of the globe, 573 00:34:53,180 --> 00:34:56,380 through Russia, northern Europe as well as North America. 574 00:34:56,380 --> 00:34:58,620 It's a crucial regulator of the world's climate 575 00:34:58,620 --> 00:35:00,300 and a vast store of carbon. 576 00:35:01,420 --> 00:35:03,460 Look at this! Looks like something's on fire. 577 00:35:08,820 --> 00:35:12,860 Canada has this reputation for being clean, green 578 00:35:12,860 --> 00:35:15,100 and very, very nice. 579 00:35:16,340 --> 00:35:19,500 Canada also has a very dirty little secret. 580 00:35:23,180 --> 00:35:24,940 Not so little, actually. 581 00:35:31,340 --> 00:35:33,940 This is the Alberta oil sands complex. 582 00:35:38,420 --> 00:35:42,340 A large area of the boreal forest is being cleared to allow excavators 583 00:35:42,340 --> 00:35:45,100 to get at the world's third biggest oil deposits. 584 00:35:46,540 --> 00:35:47,740 My God. 585 00:35:48,820 --> 00:35:50,580 It's a vast mining area, 586 00:35:50,580 --> 00:35:52,860 hundreds of square miles in size. 587 00:35:56,700 --> 00:35:58,100 Let's have a look. 588 00:36:00,340 --> 00:36:01,780 Bloody hell! 589 00:36:01,780 --> 00:36:02,980 Look at that. 590 00:36:05,980 --> 00:36:07,020 All of this... 591 00:36:08,340 --> 00:36:15,180 ..is to claw and mine out from the ground, a bitumen tar 592 00:36:15,180 --> 00:36:18,060 that can be turned into oil 593 00:36:18,060 --> 00:36:21,100 and then can be turned into petrol and fuel. 594 00:36:25,580 --> 00:36:29,020 Separating the oil from the sandy ground requires huge amounts 595 00:36:29,020 --> 00:36:30,420 of energy and water. 596 00:36:33,300 --> 00:36:35,700 The result is enormous carbon emissions 597 00:36:35,700 --> 00:36:39,180 and huge lakes of toxic sludge known as tailings ponds. 598 00:36:40,420 --> 00:36:42,660 Some activists have levelled a horrific charge 599 00:36:42,660 --> 00:36:43,820 against the project. 600 00:36:45,140 --> 00:36:49,180 The tar sands or oil sands area is said to be 601 00:36:49,180 --> 00:36:54,660 the largest and most destructive industrial project in human history. 602 00:36:56,660 --> 00:37:01,540 The Canadian parliament has declared a national climate emergency. 603 00:37:01,540 --> 00:37:04,740 Then the very next day, the government approved a new pipeline 604 00:37:04,740 --> 00:37:06,540 for Alberta's dirty oil, 605 00:37:06,540 --> 00:37:09,460 allowing production here to nearly triple. 606 00:37:09,460 --> 00:37:13,740 It's claimed the revenue will power Canada's transition to clean energy. 607 00:37:13,740 --> 00:37:16,540 A tricky compromise or outright hypocrisy? 608 00:37:20,180 --> 00:37:22,460 Quite a few expensive places here. 609 00:37:23,620 --> 00:37:25,300 So this is Fort McMurray. 610 00:37:26,940 --> 00:37:32,380 A lot of money has been made here in recent years, recent decades. 611 00:37:32,380 --> 00:37:34,180 Fortunes have been made. 612 00:37:35,260 --> 00:37:38,500 The State of Alberta's oil is a cash cow for Canada. 613 00:37:39,980 --> 00:37:42,780 In the next decade it's been estimated it could contribute 614 00:37:42,780 --> 00:37:46,620 an eye-watering trillion pounds to the Canadian economy. 615 00:37:46,620 --> 00:37:49,420 Peter? Simon. How are you? 616 00:37:49,420 --> 00:37:52,940 Peter Fortner is a social activist worried about the oil sands 617 00:37:52,940 --> 00:37:55,540 especially the industry's toxic waste. 618 00:37:56,740 --> 00:38:00,620 I think the environmental impacts from the oil sands are staggering 619 00:38:00,620 --> 00:38:04,020 whether it's the liability from the tailings ponds 620 00:38:04,020 --> 00:38:07,620 that are sitting there and are a giant science experiment, 621 00:38:07,620 --> 00:38:09,180 to the social impact. 622 00:38:09,180 --> 00:38:12,260 What do you mean by a giant science experiment? 623 00:38:12,260 --> 00:38:15,140 There's these huge settling ponds where they're hoping 624 00:38:15,140 --> 00:38:17,460 that the by-product settles out, 625 00:38:17,460 --> 00:38:20,780 and some people think it'll be, you know, 20, 30 years, 626 00:38:20,780 --> 00:38:24,260 other people estimate it'll be 300 years and nobody's quite clear 627 00:38:24,260 --> 00:38:27,820 on what toxic legacy my children and my grandchildren 628 00:38:27,820 --> 00:38:30,460 might someday have to deal with. 629 00:38:36,820 --> 00:38:40,860 You've described the province of Alberta as a petro-state. 630 00:38:40,860 --> 00:38:45,140 Yeah. Alberta has grown dependent on its revenue that it derives 631 00:38:45,140 --> 00:38:47,580 from...from the oil sands. 632 00:38:47,580 --> 00:38:52,620 And as a result, decisions get made based on that and there becomes 633 00:38:52,620 --> 00:38:54,620 an increasing dependence on it. 634 00:38:54,620 --> 00:38:58,820 Of course, companies would say, I'm sure, that the benefits include 635 00:38:58,820 --> 00:39:03,780 employment for lots of Canadians, lots of taxes being paid. 636 00:39:03,780 --> 00:39:06,940 I would argue not enough of those benefits are coming back 637 00:39:06,940 --> 00:39:09,300 to those communities. 638 00:39:09,300 --> 00:39:12,580 Thousands of Canadians have found employment here. 639 00:39:12,580 --> 00:39:14,300 Some of Alberta's indigenous groups 640 00:39:14,300 --> 00:39:16,420 have done well out of the oil industry, 641 00:39:16,420 --> 00:39:19,140 including through land compensation schemes. 642 00:39:19,140 --> 00:39:23,620 But Peter believes some communities have been left out or left behind. 643 00:39:23,620 --> 00:39:27,340 So we're just coming into the little community of Conklin. 644 00:39:27,340 --> 00:39:31,380 It's primarily indigenous Metis community. 645 00:39:31,380 --> 00:39:33,940 Some of the houses I can see have got trailers 646 00:39:33,940 --> 00:39:37,540 or RVs, I think you call them in North America, wouldn't you? 647 00:39:37,540 --> 00:39:42,220 Those units are more often than not used to live in year round. 648 00:39:42,220 --> 00:39:45,860 Because of all the industrial development in or around Conklin, 649 00:39:45,860 --> 00:39:48,380 local people can't afford to buy land. 650 00:39:48,380 --> 00:39:52,060 So as a result, more and more people have to build temporary structures 651 00:39:52,060 --> 00:39:53,580 and that's how people live. 652 00:39:54,820 --> 00:39:57,900 Some people in the village are living in freezing flimsy homes 653 00:39:57,900 --> 00:40:00,660 lacking water, electricity even heating. 654 00:40:00,660 --> 00:40:02,500 Hello. Hi. Grace? 655 00:40:03,740 --> 00:40:08,220 Peter took me to meet 55-year-old grandmother Grace Richards. 656 00:40:08,220 --> 00:40:09,860 Come on in. Thank you very much indeed. 657 00:40:09,860 --> 00:40:12,020 Shall we take our boots off? No. No. 658 00:40:12,020 --> 00:40:14,260 This is my home. This is a trailer. 659 00:40:14,260 --> 00:40:16,540 It was a camper trailer. Right. 660 00:40:16,540 --> 00:40:20,140 The home belongs to me but the property I'm sitting on is not mine. 661 00:40:22,620 --> 00:40:24,260 This is the bathroom area. 662 00:40:24,260 --> 00:40:26,580 If you'd like to come and check out the bathroom. 663 00:40:26,580 --> 00:40:28,380 This is what I use. 664 00:40:28,380 --> 00:40:30,180 I don't have running water, 665 00:40:30,180 --> 00:40:32,340 so this is what I use. 666 00:40:32,340 --> 00:40:34,340 I wash here. 667 00:40:34,340 --> 00:40:37,060 As you can see, I put some insulation 668 00:40:37,060 --> 00:40:39,820 on the inside of my camper as well 669 00:40:39,820 --> 00:40:41,540 just to help with the... 670 00:40:41,540 --> 00:40:44,540 ..with the cold, keeping the cold out. 671 00:40:44,540 --> 00:40:49,020 The curtains, I will close this to make sure that there's... 672 00:40:50,220 --> 00:40:51,740 ..less cold coming in. 673 00:40:51,740 --> 00:40:53,980 And I sleep on the couch. 674 00:41:00,980 --> 00:41:03,300 This is what I use for heat. 675 00:41:03,300 --> 00:41:05,700 That's it? Yep. In a part of the world 676 00:41:05,700 --> 00:41:08,220 where it can get to, how cold? 677 00:41:08,220 --> 00:41:12,780 This winter, it's got down to minus 40, I believe, 678 00:41:12,780 --> 00:41:14,860 minus 48 with the wind-chill. 679 00:41:16,260 --> 00:41:20,060 Grace, this is a... this is a tricky situation to see. 680 00:41:20,060 --> 00:41:21,540 How long have you been in here? 681 00:41:21,540 --> 00:41:24,620 I've been living in this now for five years. 682 00:41:25,820 --> 00:41:28,020 You've been here five years? Yes. Goodness. 683 00:41:28,020 --> 00:41:29,060 Yeah. 684 00:41:38,300 --> 00:41:40,060 What work did you do? 685 00:41:40,060 --> 00:41:43,380 I was a heavy equipment operator but unfortunately right now 686 00:41:43,380 --> 00:41:45,740 there is not as much work here any more. 687 00:41:45,740 --> 00:41:48,620 They're not forced to hire people from the community. 688 00:41:48,620 --> 00:41:51,620 It's quite shocking for me to hear all this. 689 00:41:51,620 --> 00:41:54,420 Out of the 300 people roughly in the community, 690 00:41:54,420 --> 00:41:57,700 we found there's at least 92 691 00:41:57,700 --> 00:42:00,340 that are living in substandard housing. 692 00:42:00,340 --> 00:42:03,460 A third of the people in this community are living 693 00:42:03,460 --> 00:42:05,020 in substandard accommodation? 694 00:42:05,020 --> 00:42:06,580 And that's putting it mildly. 695 00:42:06,580 --> 00:42:09,300 Something's wrong, something's wrong with the system. 696 00:42:09,300 --> 00:42:13,700 We're surrounded by billions of dollars of industry 697 00:42:13,700 --> 00:42:16,980 using money that comes from this region. 698 00:42:16,980 --> 00:42:19,260 That money isn't coming to Conklin. 699 00:42:19,260 --> 00:42:22,460 You know, that's not right. That's not my Canada. 700 00:42:22,460 --> 00:42:27,740 That's not a community, that's not a country that I want to live in. 701 00:42:36,860 --> 00:42:39,660 Flipping heck. Grace, you're a sturdy one to be putting up 702 00:42:39,660 --> 00:42:41,380 with this, you really are. I try. 703 00:42:41,380 --> 00:42:45,220 And some days I feel like throwing in the towel but something just 704 00:42:45,220 --> 00:42:49,180 keeps...keeps getting me to keep... keep pushing and keep pushing. 705 00:42:49,180 --> 00:42:51,940 You know? Give us a bit of a hug, can you? 706 00:42:51,940 --> 00:42:53,940 Oh, jeez. Yes. 707 00:42:53,940 --> 00:42:55,620 Oh, so nice to have you here. 708 00:42:55,620 --> 00:42:58,220 Good luck, Grace. Yes. Thank you very much. 709 00:43:09,820 --> 00:43:13,380 I left the indigenous community in Conklin. 710 00:43:13,380 --> 00:43:15,060 Nationally and for many decades 711 00:43:15,060 --> 00:43:18,500 Canada's treatment of its indigenous people has often been shameful. 712 00:43:19,780 --> 00:43:24,140 There's been a catalogue of scandals, racism, poverty. 713 00:43:24,140 --> 00:43:27,900 Hundreds of thousands of indigenous children removed from their families 714 00:43:27,900 --> 00:43:31,020 and placed into abusive residential schools. 715 00:43:32,140 --> 00:43:35,180 Still today, indigenous Canadians are some of the poorest 716 00:43:35,180 --> 00:43:37,060 people in society. 717 00:43:37,060 --> 00:43:40,340 Women in particular are often the most vulnerable. 718 00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:46,940 In recent years, hundreds and hundreds of women in Canada, 719 00:43:46,940 --> 00:43:51,380 mainly indigenous women, have gone missing and are presumed 720 00:43:51,380 --> 00:43:53,780 to have been murdered. 721 00:43:53,780 --> 00:43:57,860 It's a shocking tragedy but it's also a scandal 722 00:43:57,860 --> 00:44:01,660 because for a long time many feel the authorities didn't take 723 00:44:01,660 --> 00:44:03,420 the situation seriously. 724 00:44:07,100 --> 00:44:09,820 We're on our way now to a community to meet the family 725 00:44:09,820 --> 00:44:11,540 of a lady who is missing. 726 00:44:13,180 --> 00:44:15,420 In the province of Alberta alone 727 00:44:15,420 --> 00:44:18,060 dozens of women have simply vanished. 728 00:44:19,300 --> 00:44:22,180 Betty Ann Deltess was one of the most recent. 729 00:44:22,180 --> 00:44:24,580 She went missing just under a year ago. 730 00:44:24,580 --> 00:44:27,820 Her 19-year-old son, Ian, bravely agreed to meet me. 731 00:44:27,820 --> 00:44:31,580 Do you know where she was last seen last seen? Last seen, for me, 732 00:44:31,580 --> 00:44:34,100 would be right here, at the end of the road. 733 00:44:34,100 --> 00:44:35,700 Just randomly disappeared. 734 00:44:36,940 --> 00:44:39,580 Just...random. 735 00:44:39,580 --> 00:44:42,220 Knowing my mother, she wouldn't have left us like this. 736 00:44:42,220 --> 00:44:43,700 She wouldn't have not contacted us 737 00:44:43,700 --> 00:44:47,100 to let us know she's OK. 738 00:44:49,100 --> 00:44:51,140 What did the police say? 739 00:44:51,140 --> 00:44:52,580 I wouldn't even know. 740 00:44:52,580 --> 00:44:54,660 They haven't talked to me personally about it. 741 00:44:54,660 --> 00:44:58,460 Are you saying the police haven't come to talk to you? 742 00:44:58,460 --> 00:45:00,700 No. And it's on my mind daily. 743 00:45:00,700 --> 00:45:02,500 I never forget about my mom. 744 00:45:05,660 --> 00:45:08,500 Can you tell us a bit about her? 745 00:45:08,500 --> 00:45:11,020 My mother's a good woman. 746 00:45:13,940 --> 00:45:16,020 My mother's a good woman... 747 00:45:23,260 --> 00:45:25,900 She's a hard worker. I don't know. 748 00:45:25,900 --> 00:45:27,500 Just... 749 00:45:27,500 --> 00:45:29,420 She's a nice woman. I don't know. 750 00:45:34,780 --> 00:45:36,940 Estimates vary wildly 751 00:45:36,940 --> 00:45:39,500 of the number of indigenous women and girls in Canada 752 00:45:39,500 --> 00:45:41,260 who've gone missing. 753 00:45:41,260 --> 00:45:45,940 Some suggest the figure since the 1970s is as high as 4,000. 754 00:45:47,620 --> 00:45:50,540 An official inquiry has described what's happening to Canada's 755 00:45:50,540 --> 00:45:52,740 indigenous peoples as a genocide. 756 00:45:56,220 --> 00:45:59,860 I hadn't realised, until my mother's disappearance, that women 757 00:45:59,860 --> 00:46:03,500 and children all over the place are going missing daily. 758 00:46:03,500 --> 00:46:07,340 Doesn't seem like much people know why or what for. 759 00:46:07,340 --> 00:46:10,060 People's communities should pay attention to this kind of thing. 760 00:46:10,060 --> 00:46:12,820 I can't get over this fact 761 00:46:12,820 --> 00:46:16,900 that the police haven't talked to you. 762 00:46:16,900 --> 00:46:19,100 No. Sorry, I'm getting really shaky. 763 00:46:20,620 --> 00:46:22,540 Emotion or cold? 764 00:46:22,540 --> 00:46:24,420 No. 765 00:46:24,420 --> 00:46:26,620 Yeah. No, emotionally, when I speak about it... 766 00:46:26,620 --> 00:46:28,260 I don't really speak about it 767 00:46:28,260 --> 00:46:31,940 so my body's kind of like stopping me. Shall we take you home? 768 00:46:31,940 --> 00:46:33,340 Er, yeah. 769 00:46:34,740 --> 00:46:36,140 Come on. 770 00:46:36,140 --> 00:46:39,420 All right. All right. It's OK. 771 00:46:39,420 --> 00:46:41,860 I think you're stronger than you think you are. 772 00:46:41,860 --> 00:46:43,060 I really do. 773 00:46:43,060 --> 00:46:44,900 But you don't have to be. 774 00:46:44,900 --> 00:46:46,780 You've been through hell. 775 00:46:46,780 --> 00:46:50,780 You're still going through hell. Yeah. OK? 776 00:46:50,780 --> 00:46:53,420 Hey. Appreciate it. 777 00:47:02,620 --> 00:47:06,380 Very moving and upsetting, as well, to hear. 778 00:47:06,380 --> 00:47:10,140 I think what's particularly shocking is that although there's been 779 00:47:10,140 --> 00:47:14,460 a government inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, 780 00:47:14,460 --> 00:47:17,500 still, today, there is no real way of telling 781 00:47:17,500 --> 00:47:22,060 how many indigenous women and girls are going missing every year. 782 00:47:31,460 --> 00:47:35,020 I headed on towards the last stop on this leg of my journey. 783 00:47:38,700 --> 00:47:40,780 We're in British Columbia, 784 00:47:40,780 --> 00:47:43,620 flying towards the Pacific Ocean. 785 00:47:43,620 --> 00:47:45,660 What a journey this is. 786 00:47:49,740 --> 00:47:53,660 I was on my way to the largest city on Canada's Pacific Coast. 787 00:47:54,780 --> 00:47:56,220 Vancouver. 788 00:48:00,540 --> 00:48:02,980 Look at that! Can you see the city down there? 789 00:48:08,020 --> 00:48:10,260 The backdrop for Vancouver, 790 00:48:10,260 --> 00:48:15,140 I think, is what instantly makes it very, very special. 791 00:48:15,140 --> 00:48:18,860 I've never seen a landscape quite like this 792 00:48:18,860 --> 00:48:21,340 so close to a major city. 793 00:48:21,340 --> 00:48:23,020 It's... 794 00:48:23,020 --> 00:48:24,660 It's astonishing. 795 00:48:30,740 --> 00:48:33,300 This is completely breathtaking. 796 00:48:35,620 --> 00:48:38,100 We're coming in to land in a sea plane. 797 00:48:49,620 --> 00:48:51,060 Welcome to Vancouver. 798 00:48:51,060 --> 00:48:53,500 Thank you. That was fantastic. 799 00:48:57,740 --> 00:48:59,940 Thank you very much, indeed. 800 00:49:02,620 --> 00:49:04,540 Vancouver regularly tops lists 801 00:49:04,540 --> 00:49:07,700 of the best cities to live in in the world. 802 00:49:08,940 --> 00:49:12,980 Wealthy, cosmopolitan and with water, mountains 803 00:49:12,980 --> 00:49:15,020 and trendiness at every turn. 804 00:49:18,300 --> 00:49:19,700 But not for everyone. 805 00:49:19,700 --> 00:49:21,860 And not so much in Downtown Eastside, 806 00:49:21,860 --> 00:49:24,660 described as the roughest neighbourhood in Canada. 807 00:49:24,660 --> 00:49:26,380 It's not where the tourists go. 808 00:49:26,380 --> 00:49:27,820 But I wasn't here on a holiday. 809 00:49:27,820 --> 00:49:31,100 So we're just a short distance from the fancy shops 810 00:49:31,100 --> 00:49:34,020 and the skyscrapers, but we're coming into an area called 811 00:49:34,020 --> 00:49:36,980 Downtown Eastside, which is known as an area with a huge amount 812 00:49:36,980 --> 00:49:40,660 of social problems and issues with drug abuse and crime. 813 00:49:40,660 --> 00:49:42,820 Hey, what's up girl? 814 00:49:43,900 --> 00:49:47,460 I met up with Trey Helton - a community activist who used 815 00:49:47,460 --> 00:49:49,540 to be an addict himself. 816 00:49:49,540 --> 00:49:51,860 How long were you out here? 817 00:49:51,860 --> 00:49:55,620 I was homeless on this sidewalk here, here, here, 818 00:49:55,620 --> 00:49:57,300 for three and a half years. 819 00:49:57,300 --> 00:49:59,380 And now you're clean? 820 00:49:59,380 --> 00:50:01,020 Yeah. How many years? 821 00:50:01,020 --> 00:50:04,420 Three years, one month and 20 days. 822 00:50:04,420 --> 00:50:06,180 But who's counting, right? 823 00:50:11,500 --> 00:50:13,180 What's going on over here? 824 00:50:13,180 --> 00:50:17,700 So this is your typical, er, morning. 825 00:50:17,700 --> 00:50:20,860 Around 9 in the morning, the police and the city workers 826 00:50:20,860 --> 00:50:24,700 show up and, er... Hey, guys, what's up? Morning. 827 00:50:24,700 --> 00:50:29,780 And they're shovelling up everyone's stuff and putting it in the dump. 828 00:50:29,780 --> 00:50:34,420 And, er, taking all their worldly possessions and throwing it out. 829 00:50:36,300 --> 00:50:38,020 SIRENS BLARE 830 00:50:43,620 --> 00:50:47,140 This is not what I imagined Vancouver to be. 831 00:50:49,060 --> 00:50:51,180 Constant sirens. 832 00:50:51,180 --> 00:50:54,460 Very rarely seen anywhere like this. 833 00:50:54,460 --> 00:50:55,980 Ooh, ooh. 834 00:50:58,660 --> 00:51:00,860 How normal is this? 835 00:51:00,860 --> 00:51:03,900 It's every morning and all day long. 836 00:51:03,900 --> 00:51:08,540 Every morning and all day long. Yeah. 837 00:51:08,540 --> 00:51:10,180 A housing crisis, 838 00:51:10,180 --> 00:51:13,460 historically low funding for mental health projects in Canada, 839 00:51:13,460 --> 00:51:16,500 and a huge, continent-wide problem with addiction 840 00:51:16,500 --> 00:51:19,180 are driving homelessness in Vancouver. 841 00:51:19,180 --> 00:51:23,420 I was stunned to see this in wealthy, healthy, green Canada. 842 00:51:23,420 --> 00:51:26,860 There's needles all along the street here. Yeah, yeah. 843 00:51:26,860 --> 00:51:30,300 Open. Yeah. 844 00:51:31,460 --> 00:51:36,020 Vancouver is facing an unprecedented drugs epidemic 845 00:51:36,020 --> 00:51:39,900 driven largely by an opioid painkiller called fentanyl. 846 00:51:39,900 --> 00:51:41,900 It's a synthetic form of heroin, 847 00:51:41,900 --> 00:51:44,300 but up to 50 times stronger. 848 00:51:46,740 --> 00:51:47,980 Bloody hell. 849 00:51:49,180 --> 00:51:52,500 Oh. Some hardcore using going on here. 850 00:51:52,500 --> 00:51:55,140 Hey guys, we got a camera crew with me. 851 00:51:55,140 --> 00:51:56,900 Just want to give you a heads-up. 852 00:51:56,900 --> 00:51:58,340 I got a camera crew with me. 853 00:51:58,340 --> 00:52:01,060 It's going to be filming the wall here, all right? 854 00:52:01,060 --> 00:52:03,940 If you don't want to be on camera, I'm just warning you right now. 855 00:52:03,940 --> 00:52:05,820 Point down, point down. All right. 856 00:52:05,820 --> 00:52:08,700 So I want to show you the memorial to all the people that we've lost 857 00:52:08,700 --> 00:52:10,140 in the fentanyl crisis. 858 00:52:10,140 --> 00:52:13,460 My God, there's a lot of names on this memorial. 859 00:52:13,460 --> 00:52:16,700 It's kind of cut a swathe through the community, hasn't it? 860 00:52:16,700 --> 00:52:18,020 Yeah. 861 00:52:18,020 --> 00:52:19,660 This is a massacre. 862 00:52:21,460 --> 00:52:24,780 Fentanyl-related fatalities have pushed the annual death toll 863 00:52:24,780 --> 00:52:27,700 from drug overdoses, just in British Columbia, 864 00:52:27,700 --> 00:52:29,540 to more than 1,500. 865 00:52:30,860 --> 00:52:34,020 It's a crisis that's affecting the whole of North America. 866 00:52:34,020 --> 00:52:37,180 In the USA, the annual death toll from drug overdoses 867 00:52:37,180 --> 00:52:40,780 is now much higher than that for car accident deaths, 868 00:52:40,780 --> 00:52:42,860 or even gun deaths. 869 00:52:42,860 --> 00:52:45,860 It's a health emergency, but it's sometimes been left 870 00:52:45,860 --> 00:52:48,500 to volunteers to fight the fire. 871 00:52:49,940 --> 00:52:52,380 Where are we going now? We're going to Ops. 872 00:52:52,380 --> 00:52:55,420 What is Ops? Overdose Prevention Society. 873 00:52:55,420 --> 00:52:58,620 It's a peer-run safe injection site. 874 00:52:58,620 --> 00:53:02,740 Morning. What's up, Robbie? Good to see you, bro. 875 00:53:02,740 --> 00:53:07,660 Trey now works in one of Vancouver's pioneering safe injection sites. 876 00:53:07,660 --> 00:53:12,260 This one was set up by Sarah Blyth after she kept seeing so many people 877 00:53:12,260 --> 00:53:14,340 overdosing in this community. 878 00:53:14,340 --> 00:53:16,340 So we have an injection site in here. 879 00:53:16,340 --> 00:53:18,580 They're injecting drugs and, if there's an overdose, 880 00:53:18,580 --> 00:53:20,420 we can deal with it immediately. 881 00:53:20,420 --> 00:53:24,220 We have people on site monitoring people, making sure 882 00:53:24,220 --> 00:53:27,300 that if they are having any signs of overdose that they get oxygen. 883 00:53:27,300 --> 00:53:30,580 If it gets any worse, then we can give them the naloxone. 884 00:53:30,580 --> 00:53:33,540 What does naloxone do? This is a life-saver. 885 00:53:33,540 --> 00:53:36,020 You get this... If someone's having an overdose, you get 886 00:53:36,020 --> 00:53:38,060 this in. It blocks the fentanyl, 887 00:53:38,060 --> 00:53:41,100 and for half-an-hour to two hours... 888 00:53:41,100 --> 00:53:43,980 So just that can save a life? Yeah. 889 00:53:43,980 --> 00:53:45,980 How many lives have you saved? 890 00:53:45,980 --> 00:53:47,620 Over 1,000 lives here. 891 00:53:47,620 --> 00:53:51,620 You've...you've saved 1,000 lives here? 892 00:53:51,620 --> 00:53:54,700 Yeah, we've saved... Yeah, we've saved a lot of lives here. 893 00:53:58,500 --> 00:54:01,860 You know, I'm supposed to look for the other side, 894 00:54:01,860 --> 00:54:06,580 the other point of view in so many situations like this and give some 895 00:54:06,580 --> 00:54:10,780 sense of balance to a situation, but I really struggle here. 896 00:54:10,780 --> 00:54:13,820 I mean, you're doing something that some people see as controversial, 897 00:54:13,820 --> 00:54:16,940 but, basically, you're in the middle of a wildfire 898 00:54:16,940 --> 00:54:19,340 and you had access to water. Yeah. 899 00:54:19,340 --> 00:54:22,420 I'm not going to watch someone die in front of me. 900 00:54:22,420 --> 00:54:24,220 Places like this need to be here, 901 00:54:24,220 --> 00:54:26,620 so that we can help people get into housing. 902 00:54:26,620 --> 00:54:28,660 We're the first part of recovery. 903 00:54:28,660 --> 00:54:32,300 You can't do any kind of rehab to a dead person. 904 00:54:36,540 --> 00:54:38,820 OK, er... 905 00:54:38,820 --> 00:54:42,020 Should we stay over this side rather than...? Yeah. 906 00:54:42,020 --> 00:54:44,260 Are you OK? 907 00:54:44,260 --> 00:54:46,220 Just give him some oxygen. 908 00:54:50,380 --> 00:54:52,060 Yeah, he's OK. 909 00:54:55,020 --> 00:54:58,620 I think it's really easy to imagine, or believe, 910 00:54:58,620 --> 00:55:02,420 that people on the other side of the divide there are... 911 00:55:02,420 --> 00:55:04,420 Fine, it's fine. 912 00:55:04,420 --> 00:55:09,980 ..are the other, that you could never be on the other side 913 00:55:09,980 --> 00:55:12,300 of that red screen, but... 914 00:55:12,300 --> 00:55:16,060 ..it's not that hard to take the wrong turn in life. 915 00:55:16,060 --> 00:55:20,020 And it's not that hard to end up there, 916 00:55:20,020 --> 00:55:21,940 quite frankly. And... 917 00:55:24,260 --> 00:55:28,340 ..personally, I feel like it wouldn't have been 918 00:55:28,340 --> 00:55:31,620 impossible, personally, for me to have been there. 919 00:55:44,420 --> 00:55:49,300 So this is Trey's mug shots from the beginning of 920 00:55:49,300 --> 00:55:52,780 a spiral down - is that fair to say? 19 onward. 921 00:55:54,380 --> 00:55:59,820 I mean, you can see your face bears the pockmarks and the scars. 922 00:55:59,820 --> 00:56:01,260 Don't do drugs. 923 00:56:02,620 --> 00:56:06,940 I'm just so grateful that I was kept alive long enough to change, right? 924 00:56:06,940 --> 00:56:08,700 So, there's hope. 925 00:56:12,060 --> 00:56:15,260 It's emotional hearing that from you. Oh, mate! 926 00:56:19,180 --> 00:56:21,380 Well done. 927 00:56:21,380 --> 00:56:23,140 Thanks, Simon. 928 00:56:23,140 --> 00:56:25,020 Well done. Thanks, man. 929 00:56:26,580 --> 00:56:28,100 Cities across North America 930 00:56:28,100 --> 00:56:31,180 are struggling to cope with this opioid crisis. 931 00:56:31,180 --> 00:56:34,420 When poisoned drugs are on the streets, keeping people alive 932 00:56:34,420 --> 00:56:37,060 has to be the first priority. 933 00:56:37,060 --> 00:56:40,900 The work being done in Vancouver by Trey, Sarah and others 934 00:56:40,900 --> 00:56:45,340 to save and then turn around lives was humbling and inspiring. 935 00:56:46,460 --> 00:56:49,020 As Trey said, there is hope. 936 00:56:50,660 --> 00:56:54,100 I'm nearly at the end of this first leg of my journey. 937 00:56:54,100 --> 00:56:57,140 We're heading south towards the United States. 938 00:56:59,580 --> 00:57:01,820 Should just be up ahead. 939 00:57:01,820 --> 00:57:03,820 It's just here! 940 00:57:03,820 --> 00:57:05,660 The border's just here. 941 00:57:05,660 --> 00:57:07,860 That's astonishing. 942 00:57:10,140 --> 00:57:13,340 This ditch must, basically, be the border 943 00:57:13,340 --> 00:57:16,500 between the United States and Canada. 944 00:57:16,500 --> 00:57:21,940 And it was devised as the friendliest border in the world. 945 00:57:21,940 --> 00:57:23,140 Or so we're told. 946 00:57:23,140 --> 00:57:25,820 It's the police keeping an eye. 947 00:57:25,820 --> 00:57:28,020 How are you doing? Good, how are you? 948 00:57:28,020 --> 00:57:30,980 Are we still in Canada here. You're still in Canada, my friend. 949 00:57:30,980 --> 00:57:33,300 If we cross the ditch? You'll get in trouble. 950 00:57:33,300 --> 00:57:35,860 I wouldn't do that. With you or with them? With them. 951 00:57:35,860 --> 00:57:38,540 OK. In all seriousness, the camera's right there 952 00:57:38,540 --> 00:57:41,020 and US Border Patrol will attend. 953 00:57:41,020 --> 00:57:44,020 We won't go further than this. Promise. OK. Take care, my friend. 954 00:57:44,020 --> 00:57:46,140 Thank you very much, indeed. 955 00:57:50,900 --> 00:57:52,420 Hello. Hello. 956 00:57:52,420 --> 00:57:55,140 You're in the United States? I am. 957 00:57:55,140 --> 00:57:57,340 You can't come across here? 958 00:57:57,340 --> 00:58:00,100 No. No, I'm not allowed to. 959 00:58:00,100 --> 00:58:01,820 Where do you get to mow your grass to? 960 00:58:01,820 --> 00:58:04,860 Have you ever accidentally mowed a bit of Canada? 961 00:58:04,860 --> 00:58:07,260 Well, I'll come down there with the weed eater. 962 00:58:07,260 --> 00:58:10,700 I'll call the Border Patrol first and tell them I'm coming down. 963 00:58:10,700 --> 00:58:14,340 You have to tell Border Patrol when you're going to cut the grass? 964 00:58:14,340 --> 00:58:17,820 Well, down there. I'm going to go and go through the legal border, 965 00:58:17,820 --> 00:58:20,300 I think! I think that'd be a good idea. I think you're right. 966 00:58:20,300 --> 00:58:23,220 Cheers! You're welcome. Good luck, guys. 967 00:58:24,900 --> 00:58:28,340 I think this is the perfect place, actually, 968 00:58:28,340 --> 00:58:31,580 to end this first leg of my journey 969 00:58:31,580 --> 00:58:33,020 down through the Americas. 970 00:58:34,620 --> 00:58:36,540 Next time, in Montana, 971 00:58:36,540 --> 00:58:38,980 I find an extraordinary project 972 00:58:38,980 --> 00:58:42,340 to re-wild a vast area of the prairie. 973 00:58:42,340 --> 00:58:45,020 There's a golden eagle. 974 00:58:45,020 --> 00:58:47,380 A golden eagle!