With an aim to take audiences on an adventure to explore unusual caves, an intrepid team of filmmakers from MacGillivray Freeman Films traveled to the northern-most country in the world, loaded three tons of gear into a helicopter, and flew thirty miles on to Greenland's ice sheet. They joined a French expedition of scientists and veteran ice cavers lead by Janot Lamberton. These blue caves, formed from glacial melt water that cuts through faults in the ice, are visually spectacular, but challenging to photograph. They maneuvered camera, crew and cavers hundreds of feet down into treacherous vertical caves, and also filmed in horizontal caves just below the surface. Dangers were ever-present.
Ropes can freeze, trapping cavers and crew below the surface.
Ice screws, holding crew or gear, can pop out from the pressure of the ten thousand foot-thick glacier. In the caves, ice shards can break away, falling like javelins toward cavers and crew. Thin spots on the ice can cause broken ankles, or worse, snow bridges can collapse, crushing anyone on or below them. Precious gear was almost lost when a snowmobile fell through ice. Film characters Nancy Aulenbach and Hazel Barton instinctively jumped into the waist-deep, freezing water to push the machine to safety.