Whoa!
Do you remember
the first time you saw snow?
The gift outside your door...
The sugar softness in your hands...
Inviting you on a journey...
Into a wonderous world.
It begins with the birth
of a single snowflake in a cloud...
Water vapor freezing around a tiny particle of dust...
The magic of an ice crystal growing and branching.
Still half formed,
it joins a million billion snowflakes
which tumble from their cloud nurseries
every second across our planet.
And so it begins,
an epic voyage through the atmosphere.
Shaped by the air's temperature and humidity
as it falls,
each snowflake is a letter from the sky...
The story of its journey
inscribed in the beauty of its structure...
Before it comes to rest on the earth.
After snowfall,
the landscape slows into silence.
Air pockets in the gathered snow
absorb the murmurs and rustles of the trees.
The only sound is the echo of the wind,
distant like an exhalation of breath.
Details emerge...
A track left by an animal...
The tangle of a branch.
The sun's light is scattered
through translucent ice crystals
and reflected back...
Making all around appear white.
Memories of summer sleep
beneath a cold crystal blanket.
At dawn in Canada's northwest,
skiers...
Searching for the fresh, loose ice crystals
they call powder...
A smooth surface that feels like floating.
The descent calls
on every one of their physical and mental skills.
Calm,
focused,
and free...
at one with nature.
Skier, mountain, and snow...
In harmony.
Inuit people sometimes say
that souls live under the snow...
And women only have to wander through it
to find the spirits of children
waiting to be born.
Hey. How's it going?
- Fun. - It's good? Is it fun?
- Yeah. - Great.
This little boy is from Nunavik in Canada.
Snow is his birthright.
His mother's grandfather was a hunter,
the last in his family to sled dogs to survive.
The family still travels by sled,
only now it's to feel alive.
The hiss of the sled whispers to the boy,
"Come with me.
Let's explore."
When he grows up,
the only maps he'll need to guide him
are the ones he's making now
in his mind.
Each type and texture of snow has its own word,
and there are many.
Sitilluqaaq:
a drift of snow after a storm.
the snow that rests on the ground.
He learns to read its windswept patterns,
animal tracks,
and snowdrifts...
The same knowledge that guided his great-grandfather
80 years ago.
Snow calls to us across generations...
Across countries and landscapes.
It promises wonder, wildness,
and adventure.
In the Arctic, one man is on a quest...
To photograph the most spectacular inhabitants
of the snowscape.
He will have to travel great distances
over many days...
Searching for the animals' footprints,
not knowing if he will be successful...
Until at last,
he finds what he's been looking for.
Inuit people call them nanuq.
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution
to produce creatures so attuned to snow
that they seem part of it.
Huge paws serve as snowshoes on land
and paddles when they swim.
Their fur isn't really white
but translucent...
Reflecting the sun,
just like snow.
Here they roam,
rulers of their icy kingdom.
Imagine the world through the snow bear's eyes...
And some of the wisdom can be yours.
This man is an artist...
And the Norwegian snow is his canvas.
His body is his brush.
His medium is time.
As a child, he made tracks in snow.
As a young man, he drew maps.
His designs begin as scaled drawing...
One millimeter a single step.
Hour by hour, the shape emerges...
As if the task of the artist
is to uncover what has always been there.
A love letter...
Unique, delicate, and fleeting...
Like a snowflake.