[giggles]
Whoa!
[woman laughs]
[giggles]
[tranquil music]
♪ ♪
[giggling]
Murphy: Do you remember
the first time you saw snow?
♪ ♪
[car horn honks]
[children shouting playfully]
The gift outside your door...
♪ ♪
The sugar softness in your hands...
♪ ♪
Inviting you on a journey...
♪ ♪
Into a wonderous world.
[dog barking]
♪ ♪
[wind whooshing softly]
♪ ♪
It begins with the birth
of a single snowflake in a cloud...
♪ ♪
Water vapor freezing around a tiny particle of dust...
♪ ♪
[crystals crackling softly]
The magic of an ice crystal growing and branching.
[crystals crackling softly]
♪ ♪
Still half formed,
it joins a million billion snowflakes
which tumble from their cloud nurseries
every second across our planet.
♪ ♪
[crystals crackling softly]
And so it begins,
an epic voyage through the atmosphere.
♪ ♪
[crystals crackling softly]
♪ ♪
Shaped by the air's temperature and humidity
as it falls,
each snowflake is a letter from the sky...
♪ ♪
[crystals crackling softly]
The story of its journey
inscribed in the beauty of its structure...
♪ ♪
Before it comes to rest on the earth.
♪ ♪
[wind whooshing softly]
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.
[gentle music]
♪ ♪
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.
[wind whooshing softly]
[birds chirping faintly]
[skis scraping in slow motion]
[uplifting music]
♪ ♪
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.
♪ ♪
[flurry whooshes softly]
[ethereal music]
♪ ♪
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.
Murphy: This little boy is from Nunavik in Canada.
Snow is his birthright.
[dog barking]
His mother's grandfather was a hunter,
the last in his family to sled dogs to survive.
[dog barking]
♪ ♪
The family still travels by sled,
only now it's to feel alive.
[dogs yapping]
♪ ♪
[man calls out to dogs]
♪ ♪
The hiss of the sled whispers to the boy,
"Come with me.
Let's explore."
♪ ♪
[dogs howling]
♪ ♪
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.
♪ ♪
Aputi:
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.
♪ ♪
[birds cawing]
Snow calls to us across generations...
Across countries and landscapes.
[water trickling softly]
It promises wonder, wildness,
and adventure.
[motor revving]
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.
[majestic music]
♪ ♪
[bear grunts]
♪ ♪
Inuit people call them nanuq.
[bear grunts]
♪ ♪
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.
[bear grunts]
♪ ♪
Their fur isn't really white
but translucent...
♪ ♪
Reflecting the sun,
just like snow.
♪ ♪
[bear grunts]
♪ ♪
Here they roam,
rulers of their icy kingdom.
[snow crunching]
♪ ♪
Imagine the world through the snow bear's eyes...
♪ ♪
And some of the wisdom can be yours.
♪ ♪
[boat horn blowing]
[birds cawing]
[bell ringing]
[peaceful music]
♪ ♪
[snow crunching]
[wind whooshing softly]
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.
♪ ♪
[wind whooshing softly]
[whooshing continues]
[tree branches creaking]
[wind whooshing softly]
[whooshing continues]