"Suddenly they call me and say:" ""The ship is ready to go."" "And we had to deliver the car and everything." "But now..." " We have 460 kilos of luggage?" "Yes." "That sounds completely crazy." "And then we were finally on our way." "Us brothers were on our way to Bear Island to go surfing." "But getting there, and getting on board this ship to Svalbard, had been hard work." "It's hard to describe how great it feels to be on this ship right now." "We have worked incredibly hard to get this trip together." "We spent a year and a half planning it." " The conclusion for now..." "First of all:" "No departure tonight." "I've packed so much already..." "If I'd known how hard it was to get to Bear Island, I wouldn't have gone." "There's no airport or harbor." "It's simply a place where no one goes." "We all know Alaska is far to the north." "Draw a line from Alaska's northernmost point over to Norway, and you'll only reach North Cape." "Hundreds of miles further north, in the middle of the ocean, you'll find Bear Island." "Lots of mountains in the south." "Completely flat in the north." "People have been killed there by polar bears." "We wanted to explore the waves there and be the first ones to surf on Bear Island." "But a trip like that took an awful lot of preparation." "We had to test our gear and gather food." "A pepper." "We always try to consume as little as possible on most things we do." "One bad and five good ones." "It's crazy how much food is thrown away every day." "It's been thrown in the bin, but it's not trash." "Our goal was to spend no money at all on food." "And a lot of our gear was meant to be thrown away because of imperfections." "It looks awesome." "What's wrong with it?" "These were meant to be destroyed." "Now they're coming on our expedition." "But then we didn't get permission to go by the Governor of Svalbard." "They thought it was too dangerous and that we weren't well enough prepared." "There could be polar bears on the island." "It's a bit silly of us to shoot a drawing of a polar bear." "Shooting one is the last thing we want." "The bear is coming." "Get the bear!" "In addition, nobody wanted to take us out there." "Finally, a cargo ship going to Longyearbyen helped us out." "We would be able to get off the ship half way there." "I will miss my family and my girlfriend." "Right before I left, I found out I'm going to be a dad." "It's huge, and it feels so wrong to leave a growing tummy, but..." "We need to do this." "I feel ready to release some energy now." "I will do that for two months." "Yes, yes." "Confession cam, Håkon's turn." "Bear Island, here we come!" "Bear Island, here we come!" "That's one..." "Håkon!" "Can you take one for Inge?" "Bloody hell, such chaos." "He has landed now." "The island has no residents." "But nine people work at a weather station for six months at a time." "Let the adventure begin!" "Now the adventure begins." "Surfing in new places is something special." "Most surfers probably have the same drive to find their own perfect wave or explore new places and new waves." "All the ice surrounding the island meant we had to wait until April." "We hoped the snow would stay put, so we could pull our pulks and explore the entire island." "We headed to the east coast, where we might be able to surf and also play in the snow and mountains." "It's half past three, quarter to four in the morning." "They look like the mountains of Rondane." "Soft, calm mountains." "But they're cunning, as there are cliffs on the other side." "I'd like to place the lavvo here." "I think it's better here That's in a hole." "Hole?" "It is pretty straight here." "Maybe it's time to introduce ourselves." "Markus is our expert on all things outdoors." "He is trained in using a map and compass." "He takes charge and gets things done, and is multi-talented in anything that gives a kick." "On this trip, he was in charge of food and safety." "Our youngest brother, Håkon, was in charge of our gear." "He loves steep places." "He's been Norwegian champion in downhill long-board." "He is a thinker, and asks the big questions." "I'm thinking about which clothes I planned to bring." "I thought I'd bring a certain number of woolen jumpers and boxers, but..." "If I bring two pairs of boxers, do I wear one of them when we leave?" "Or do I bring two extra?" "And I'm the oldest one." "People know me as a definite optimist, and I usually do too any things at the same time." "I live here with my girlfriend." "It's a bit cramped, but it's nice." "I like the feeling of living on the edge, while knowing that I'm safe." "I've been in charge of making this film." "Dried meat..." "A generous amount." "Dried cauliflower." "If you like to sit in front of the fire on a cold autumn day, you'll love to sit here." "Waiting for dinner." "I've found my good cap." "Good cap..." "Here I have everything at my disposal..." "You need a certain setting to find your inner peace." "But this wind is making waves." "We are going to find those waves." "I say surf, surf big time." "I'm marking the protected area." "The area where we are not allowed because of the nesting birds." "It's just nice to know exactly where those lines go." "There are a few places where it looks like there might be some surf." "I don't think there's surf here either." "Will we get surf at all, with the current swell?" "Well, there is a swell at the moment." " But is it big enough?" "Yes, I think so." "It's around 3 feet." "I think..." "That's something." "We must check the ground conditions." "That's what it's like to be on the search." "Where no man has set foot before." "It still looks like there's rubbish here from 100 school classes." "But maybe no people have ever been here." "It's impossible to get here without a rope." "Yet there's a lot of rubbish here." "But it all comes in from the sea." "There are lots of birds here too, as on the rest of the island." "Birds and plastic." "And dead birds." "Let's go bowling!" "Imagine if we could surf here." "That would be insanely cool!" "We looked for days, but didn't find a good place to surf." "There was still lots of snow on the mountains, which we wanted to make full use of." "We felt a pull in our legs." "Inge might want to fly." "Håkon and I are using split-boards." "We're heading up to Urd, the top of the Misery mountain." "The top of Bear Island." "Free-riding in steep terrain will always carry a certain risk." "What I like, to be honest, is maybe to do things that are objectively dangerous." "But in a very safe way." "So if you see me doing something that looks dangerous, don't assume that I'm brave in any way." "I'm not a brave person." "I don't dare to do things I think might involve much of a risk." "Whether I want to or not." "The top of Bear Island!" "A hell of a long way out on the sea." "You can see the curvature of the Earth." "In all directions." "You have pepper spray and I have a signal pen." "So we don't need weapons down here." "Do we?" "We can use the signal pen to try and scare it off." "If it comes, we'll use the pepper spray." " Then it'll run off." "And I'm the sniper." " Sniper the wrong way around." "Killing both me and Markus." "Bloody hell!" "Bloody hell!" "I could eat this!" "Inge is crazy." "He is going to go speed flying." "Markus and I are a little worried right now." "It looks so scary for the uninitiated." "We had placed double trip wires around our camp." "If the polar bear came while we were asleep, there would be a lot of noise and fireworks." "I wish I could sleep as soundly as Håkon." "The weather is rough, things fall down, and..." "The wind blows in strong gusts..." "Håkon is still sound asleep." "This bloody weather..." "My hands are freezing." "Fucking hell!" "There's a draft." "I can't tell whether I feel clean or not." "Oh, I forgot to have a wash." "I was a bit quick with my armpits." "They're not really clean." "But some water must be good." "Come and have a bath." "You haven't had one yet." "The sun will keep you warm." "Yes, but I need to get in the mood." "You said you would do it one day." "Yes." "So fucking what?" "This trip showed us how different we are." "Håkon seems to have a different pace than us." "There's a small fox lurking about here." ""A Sly fox?" "'Yes!" "." "Inge has a nice photo style!" "How long has it been hanging around?" "15 minutes or so?" " Hello." "What's up?" "I'm getting really cold." "But you can't let a polar fox shuffle around the camp without filming it." "Look!" "It found some food." "No, it was a rope." " What an experience!" "it's crazy!" " You probably heard everything." "Yes." "When we approached the fox, it approached us." "It was maybe 33 feet away." "It was crazy!" "On a trip like this you're likely to experience some friction." "At least between siblings." "The day Håkon wanted to go off on his own, we had to have a discussion." "You're not allowed." "This indicates that I'm on a guided trip with you." "I'm not involved in that many decisions." "That is the case." "When we discuss things, it's as if..." "I kind of feel like I must wait for a quiet moment to throw in a word." "Otherwise I'm ignored when decisions are made." "What do you think we can do to change that feeling?" " Or to change that situation?" "Well, I don't know..." "Am I placed in the role of baby brother, or do I subconsciously go back to it myself?" "I notice that I'm no longer used to it at all." "Maybe because I'm used to being..." "One of the best at what I do in my everyday life." "So I'm used to my opinion carrying a lot of weight." "Well..." "Already when we discussed where to place the tent, I noticed my ideas..." "They were not heard." "They were not discussed, and not even heard.They were treated like air." "And that was kind of the first step in pacifying me." "I agree, but I think..." "For instance on the night when we arrived here..." "When tensions grow, and things..." "We don't have the energy for petty matters then." "There are many angles here." "But let's say you've had little respect for me and Inge." "A job any one of us can do, you do right away because you assume we won't do it." "Right?" "I didn't put up this tent because I thought:" ""Håkon can't do it as well me." "I must do it."" "I don't buy that." "Sorry." "When I fetch water right away, it's not because I think you can't do it." "It's because you haven't done so yet." "It's not about whether I can do it or not, but whether I will do it." " Will he do it?" "Well, I also think:" ""it hasn't been done yet, so I'll just do it."" "That's how I feel." "That you're watching over your baby brother." "And you're scared of being the baby." "You don't want to be that any more." "I'm aware that I maybe..." "Have needed, and still need, some time to find my responsibilities among you guys." "Because I'm not used to being on a trip with you." "It's due to the goals we have for this trip, and how we..." "Are trying to achieve those goals." " And whether we'll achieve them." "Let's hear your goals for the trip." "My goals for the trip..." "It's hard to be concrete, but..." "To find my pace in life." "Simply." "When I've found it, I'll try hard to remember it when I get home." "To find your balance..." "We'd been there for nearly 3 weeks without finding a single wave." "We'd promised the Governor of Svalbard to leave no trace behind." "And we weren't planning to either." "We'd rather remove traces of humans and hope the island would give us some good surf in return." "We know that many birds die from ingesting plastic." "That's the main reason why we're cleaning up here." "We're gathering small pieces of plastic." "We're hoping the coastguard or the crew at the weather station can remove it, and maybe recycle it." "It feels good to be on our way to a new camp." "I think we'll find some surf soon." "I can't wait." "You guys..." "On Greenland they eat raw seal blubber." "And we're going to do that too." "We're not proper polar explorers until we eat raw seal blubber." "We can't wrap it in enough bags." "It's really smelly." "It's the only food we have that's not dried." "Are you ready, boys?" "Ready for a taste?" "It looks like it's ready to be fried." "It's a test of your manhood." "I'll only eat this because I'm really hungry." "People have done many strange things over the years." "It's quite a lot." "It's a big piece." " Okay, Håkon?" "No." "Come on!" "The whole thing." "You won't be able to tear it up." " Shut up." "I'll eat the whole thing." "Whatever." "I'll just hear your first reaction first." "It's like cod liver oil." "Yeah?" "It's healthy." "Really healthy!" "I don't want to eat it after watching you." "You've ruined everything." "It's hanging from his tooth!" "Damn it." "Yuck!" "Markus, this is crap." " You don't like it, do you?" "Someone is trying hard now." "The fox will like what we spat out." "We'll rather have some raisins, nuts, sausage and cocoa." "And he can enjoy the blubber on his own." "It felt good to move on, but we noticed that spring had reached the island." "The snow had really started to melt." "We're in the middle of the ocean." "It doesn't make sense to me that it's so calm here." "It should be bigger than this in the middle of the big ocean." "My girlfriend was almost 3 months pregnant now." "When I got home, she would be 5 months along." "It wasn't that easy to be present here 100 per cent of the time." "I kept thinking about what was happening at home." "We had brought a satellite telephone, and I needed to talk to Tanya soon." "Oh!" "That's not good." "But has it been like that for long?" "It wasn't too surprising that Tanya was having a hard time." "She was pregnant and alone in a caravan." "Instead of taking care of her, I'm on a remote island with my brothers looking for a surf that never gets here." "ls there surf outside?" "Surf, 160 feet from the tent." "I told you." "I think I'll skip breakfast." "It's keeping up!" "It's fantastic being in the water!" "Everything's just fun!" "Surf's up!" "I'm completely..." "My face is all stiff." "My chin is stiff and cold." "My lips..." " Let's change and heat up the lavvo." "We'll make a sauna!" "Håkon hadn't done much surfing before." "He learned to surf on Bear Island." "How cool to say you learned to surf where no one had surfed before." "Cold as an icicle!" "But your surfing was good." "You don't realise how good it feels to be warm until you've been cold." "You might think you understand it, but you don't on an emotional level." "It was fun, though." "And it seems to be getting rougher." "I'm quite geared up for surfing now." "I wish I'd brought gloves." "This will be cold to put on." "We're heading to a bay over here to see if we can find some new waves." "The weather is great.." "This is what everyone dreams about." "If it's blowing as hard down there, I might blow out to sea." "The wind is coming straight from the east." "But the waves come in from another direction." "They come from the south of mainland Norway." "Maybe from Bergen, where people might have a beer at the wharf right now." "Here are the waves!" "Look at that one!" "Yeah, yeah!" "It's completely crazy!" " Nice one!" "Awesome!" "There it comes again." "Yes, we'll go surfing." "I'm sitting here..." "With the camera and the gun." "Keeping an eye out for the polar bear on the snowy hillside." "There's a nice mountain in the background." "I think." "I'd like to jump in too." "Stop blowing!" "Bloody hell!" "It's cold!" "It's coming!" "I can feel the heat coming, slowly but surely." "But it will take some time to defrost this lump of ice." "Its mobility is pretty limited." "We were out there for a long time." "Probably 2 or 3 hours." "Being in the ocean is fantastic." "I'm geared up for more surfing." " Me too." "Let's try to find more places..." "It will only get bigger." "Being on this small island, with ocean as far as we could see, was like being on a boat and on the mountain all at once." "The weather could change suddenly, and we were on our own planet." "The world back home seemed rather distant." "Bear Island is thousands of miles from our home, but so much rubbish arrives here that we recognize from the mainland." "Like a constant stream of plastic flowing north with the Gulf Stream." "Two bottles sold with a deposit." " That'll give you five kroner." "Yes." " I think we're close to 100 kroner." "What shall we do with the money?" "Buy beer?" "Sprite!" " Catch!" "Is it Sprite?" " Sprite!" "That's not allowed!" ""'8 good!" " That's not allowed!" "Sprite on Bear Island." "There you go!" "It will keep it in place." "Hi, this is the Wegge brothers calling from Bear Island." "Hurray, it's your birthday." "We want to congratulate you." "We stand in a ring, and now we march around you." "Bow, nod, curtsy, turn around, dance for you all over the ground." "Wishing you from the heart good celebrations." "Congratulations!" "We sang the birthday song for you, mum!" "It was nice to talk to mum." "She said Tanya was having a hard time." "I felt pulled in every direction." "We'd finally found surf, and as brothers we were finding our place with each other." "But was it all that important compared to becoming a dad?" "It's not very easy being here when Tanya is pregnant and so many things are happening." "Now, for instance, I worried that things had gone wrong." "When I walked up to make the call, I was sure she had lost the baby." "It's really scary..." "When I walked up there, I thought that it had happened." "And that it was kind of my fault." "Yesterday mum decided that she thinks I should go home." "I won't risk my relationship or my child for this trip." "It's hard to get an overall idea of it." "To understand Inge and myself at the same time." "You need to look at one person's view at a time." "If I had a pregnant girlfriend and I was Inge," " I would think it's time to go home." "But then I think:" "We've put this off for so long, and worked so hard." "I want to stay here as long as we can, at least until July if possible." "I don't want to go home earlier at all." "Every day on this island is a reward for all our preparations." "I just want to make the most of it." "We need more time than a short conversation to come up with a decision about this." "I agree" "Straight away I can get the feeling that..." "Well, I felt quite early on..." "As our first weeks here have been so good, and we've done so much of..." "The dreams and things we wanted to do." "That might help, because..." "We can go home earlier and still have..." "Done those things and experienced what we wanted..." "But I feel that when you say it so clearly," " I agree with that too." "For you it's more about doing those things, reaching those peaks, surfing, snowboarding and so on." "For me it's more like..." "Maybe my greatest goal is..." "Not to be on a trip here, but to live here, and get that feeling." "To be here for so long that we get that constant feeling." "So for me it means a lot just to be here." "And to be here for so long that we get bored." "Then we get creative, and start finding things on the beach..." "We've done so many things that we haven't reached that point." "We have so much left ahead of us that I look forward to." "What can I say?" "I feel..." "So torn, right now." "Because I totally agree with..." "You." "Or, I don't agree, I feel the same as how you describe it." "Those are my own feelings that you're describing." "I don't want to leave this place." "But it's very important to me that we don't plan on going home at the start of July, and then we get delayed for 2 weeks because of bad weather." "I need to be home in June." "Some time or other in June." "We had to get home, but it's not that easy to leave Bear Island." "We knew some boats would pass by a month later." "I wanted to get on board one of those." "In the meantime, I wanted to make the most of our time there." "Right now I feel like I'm wandering around in a wonderland." "And then the sun is there, at a place called Bear Island, and the mist comes gliding by." "That gives you a total experience that you can't get on a T-bar lift." "Or at least I can't." "The feeling of mastering snowboarding is similar to when I play ping-pong." "Ping-pong is awesome." "The different factors have their different values." "Come on!" "Climb hard." "We've found a super cool line, but the start is really tough." "It looks like we can ride through there and then swerve." "It's crazy how we've played with the island." "Almost too much." "Bear Island was supposed to be hard core and give us storms, cold and struggles." "We'd made it our playground." "A playpen 68 square miles big, Far north in the Arctic." "OK." "Three, two, one!" "Rock 'n' roll." "Today is a weekday?" "I think it's Thursday." "Or Friday." ""Hi, it's Bjørn at Zahl transport." "I can't answer the phone right now."" "He has to pick up when we call him." "I want to go home." "Shall we paddle home, Håkon?" " Is that how it's looking?" "Yes, he didn't answer." "Lately a lot of snow had melted." "Way too much snow." "We had food for only two more days." "Normally it only takes a day to the north end, where we kept our food." "But that was on snow." "This is the biggest pulk I'm ever going to have." "The way it is right now." "Never bigger." "I had no idea how we'd get north without snow to pull the pulk." "For all I knew, we might spend the rest of our time here carrying all our equipment." "We weren't quite finished with our surfing." "I believed the perfect wave was waiting for us in the north." "Oh, snow!" "So appreciated." "I hope there won't be many streams." "We don't know." "When we've been here before, it's been frozen and snowy." "There might be many like this one." "We were heading from the south of the island to the weather station." "As the crow flies, that's 11 miles." "One day passed." "Two." "I'm usually such an optimist. it can even make other people grumpy." "But this didn't look very good." "I'm craving chips." "Yes, we are tired." "We had to make several trips to carry all our gear." "Every mile turned into seven miles." "Three days." "Soup made of nothing but stock tastes like crap." "It's a dinner that fills your stomach, but not satisfactorily." " You're still hungry?" "Yes." " I just feel that my body needs more." "Still hungry." "Four days." "Rocks, rocks, mud, mist, rocks." "Bear Island is not just a playground." " This is just shit." "What is..." "What's your top five?" "What do you miss the most from back home, right now?" "It's not something I miss because I've experienced it a lot, but..." "I imagine lying on my tummy in a tub adapted to that position of bathing." "In very hot water, so that it almost burns a bit." "And then being washed..." "Nicely and well, and rubbed on my back, especially on those hard to reach places." " Where you need to scratch..." "Yes." "And someone tousling my hair." "We were halfway there, and there was not a strip of snow in front of us." "But then we found the solution." "We found one of the boats from the weather station." "The dear dinghy." "It's not that big, though." "No, I wonder how we'll load it." "I have the gun." "So if anything goes wrong, I'll just have to shoot." " You'll just gun for it, right?" "Yes." "MS Mountain pulk is going on a trip." "Right now we were to put the longest distance for four days behind us." "And it's going to take half an hour." "For the first time my childhood dream has come true and I can call myself captain Wegge." "You're not a captain when you're fishing by the cabin." "But when you have a lot of responsibility on a boat you are." "That sounds good." "Sounds good!" "Now all our gear is going across Haussvatnet." "When we get there," " I'll run ahead to the station and pick up enough food to stuff our faces with all the things we've craved lately." "My stomach, which is growling and making trouble, will be satisfied." "That will be nice." "If I tip over in this damn icy water with all our gear, it'll be a hell of a story for the grandchildren." "Apricots, nuts, waffles, kebab, hamburger..." "That'll be when we get home." "Oil." "A casserole made using oil and butter." "And even more butter." "I want it so badly!" "Ice, baby!" "Damn it!" "When I'm rowing, it's almost impossible to get the oars up again, through the layer of ice." "In the middle of an icy hell." "I can't row through the ice, and can't walk on it either." "...Trying to come up with a solution." "The oar is starting to fall apart." "Great!" "And while I fix it, the waves push me back into the ice." "I'm trapped in a vicious circle." "Damn it!" "Bloody, fucking hell!" "Damn it!" "Waves are pushing me back faster and faster the closer I get to the water." "The worst thing is the oars getting stuck in the ice for every stroke." "The time it takes to get them up is shorter than what the waves use to push me back." "Looks like he's tried to row through the slush." "The slush is getting thicker and thicker, and there's ice at the end." "There might be a problem if Håkon starts doing something stupid." "If he gets very tired, and something happens." "If the boat takes in water, an oar breaks or..." "He gets really cold." "Can you get out of there and further that way?" "Now we are starting to reach some limits." "Maybe that's why we're on this trip, to test those limits." "This is tragicomic." "I can't help but laugh, that's how hungry I am." "Well, now he's out." "That's promising." "I wonder whether if he's very annoyed or..." "I don't know." "He's probably annoyed." "You put up a good fight, Håkon." "Håkon, can you just go and get the food?" " If you're ready." "I am so ready." " I really can't wait." "Go for it." "Get the food!" "Everything is a little wet, or damp." "Our clothes and things." "And the lavvo weighs a ton." "Back in the days, when hungry, they made porridge from the lichen Umbilicaria." " Wow, that's a lot!" "I'm going to make that." "Moss is not really what I crave right now." "I'd much prefer a waffle." "Oh, the poor Wegge brothers." "They have spent a day without food." "Umbilicaria." "That's kind of not... it doesn't sound good either." "It sounds like belly button fluff." " This is delicious." "it's rather sticky." "If I were really hungry, I would have eaten some more." " You are really hungry." "But Håkon will be here soon." "Håkon, you can stay the night over there." "No!" " Tea." "Tea, and..." "When did these expire?" "Håkon is here!" "Håkon!" "Our hero!" "What did you bring us?" "Well, let's see what I have in my rucksack." "Look, he's all red." "He looks like Santa." "He is like Santa!" "Håkon, Håkon!" "What have I got in my sack?" "Prunes." "Yes!" "Food for my Diabetes?" "And some nuts, Santa had to taste some on the way." "I want some too!" "I give me the camera, and you take the nuts?" "Santa needed some crispy fried onion too..." "After Håkon's boat trip, we were almost there." "With one more day of carrying, we finally reached the island's north end." "How idyllic is this?" "Here the possibilities for surfing were endless." "The waves just had to get a little bit bigger." "The Governor of Svalbard said the litter we collected would be picked up." "So while waiting for waves, we cleared our last beach." "But time started running out for our last surf." "Yes." "So you're in Longyearbyen now?" "So you'll reach Bear Island around Friday?" "All right." "Thank you." "All right." "Take care." "I think we're done soon." " With Bear Island?" "No, with the drawing." "It symbolizes..." "Nothing!" "Going home without a last surf on our dream beach felt rather sad." "But then it actually happened." "It's super clean, a little small." "But it's building up." "Bear Island, rock 'n' roll!" " You got a good one there!" "Yeah!" "A wave only comes along once." "When I'm lucky enough to take part in what happens that one moment, and ride along with the power of the sea, time almost stands still." "Dreams does not come true just by themselves." "You have to make them real." "We followed our dream." "And it came true." "149.50 kroner." "Awesome!" "It depends if you think of it as hourly wages."