Surviving the icy unknown 🥶❄️🇬🇱🐻‍❄️

Against The Ice is based on the events of Ejnar Mikkelsen's 1909 expedition to Northern Greenland. Ejnar's role is filled by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who you may remember as Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones. Ejnar and his crew are on a mission for Denmark called the Alabama Expedition. Their goal is to disprove the United States' claim to North-Eastern Greenland, a claim that stems from the idea that Greenland was broken up by a channel into two separate pieces of land.

In order to accomplish their goal, this group of men is forced to split up. Ejnar and one other willing man will travel hundreds of miles by dog sled to an unexplored area on a vague map. There doesn't seem to be much hope, so volunteers are few, but luckily one person decides to go. Iver Iverson is the man who accepts the task. Iver's face seemed familiar too and upon further investigation, I found out that he was the main character in Black Mirror's season 4, episode 4 "Hang the DJ". You may have also seen him in Peaky Blinders.

Ejnar Iver and their trusty sled dogs become the main characters in this gripping film. It is pretty crazy how inhabitable this part of Greenland is. You will really get to see just how amazing a pack of sled dogs can be because the fact that they thrive in this environment is pretty insane. Temperatures are far below 0° and there isn't much life around. They are forced to rely on the food and other supplies on their sled and any mistake could result in catastrophic damage to their chances of survival and mission success.

I have never seen a film quite like this one. These two men are isolated in one of the coldest parts of the world. Their dogs are looked at more as equipment rather than living creatures. Ejnar and Iver struggle to get along sometimes, but they both need each other and know it. There is even a hungry polar bear that stalks them, which reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio's battle against a grizzly bear in the movie The Revenant. It is a long and often slow journey, but the in-betweens make it all worth experiencing.

We are used to most of the world is mapped out and explored here in 2022, but that wasn't always the case. We often forget about the pioneers of exploration who were willing to do things that no other man had ever done. The story of Ejnar Mikkelsen is something that the world deserves to know. I think that Netflix did a wonderful job bringing this freezing cold story of survival and courage to live. I can firmly recommend this one, as long as you consider yourself a person of patience.

Check out the trailer below and give this one a shot sometime.