Customer Reviews

NOVA: Arctic Passage

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Excellent reenactment the doomed Franklin expedtion and subsequent success of Amundson's discovery of the Northwest passage linking the Atlantic with the Pacific.

Finally, the truth, or as much as we shall ever know, about the tragic fate of the crews of the Erebus and the Terror. Even the names (Erebus is Greek for the Gates of Hell) sound like a precursor to doom.
I have read two books on this expedition and the mistakes that Commander Franklin made himself were enough to undermine their voyage. You need only to compare his leadership to that of the great Antarctic explorer, Shackleton, who faced equally dire conditions, to see why he failed.
NOVA, as always, brings the facts and does it in a fair and impartial way. I recommend this to anyone who has any interest in global exploration, particularly the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Lots of information. Well done reenactment. Perhaps there is a lot of ice because it is easier to depict on film -- thereby cheaper?

Some scary images of the dead bodies unearthed by later explorers. Might not be suitable for younger children because of this.

I bought the DVD for the Franklin report, but was pleasantly surprised by the Amundsen expedition reenactment.

This summer (2009) three of us sailed a 42 feet long sailboat through the Northwest Passage. We used the same route pioneered by Roald Amundsen. Before we left to sail in the wake of Amundsen and Sir John Franklin, I viewed this excellent Nova documentary. The one flaw I find in the piece is that it does not accurately show the Canadian High Arctic as it really is in summer. All you see in "Arctic Passage" is ice and snow. In reality, the predominate feature of the ground is gravel and rock. There is very little snow visible during the summer months. Also, the amount of ice depicted as "Gjoa" traversed the Passage is in the range of 90% coverage, an amount rendering forward progress virtually impossible. The photography in the documentary is dramatic, beautiful and a little misleading. I expected more accurate scientific reporting from Nova but enjoyed "Arctic Passage" anyway, finding its narrative informative.