“ARCTIC AIR” the film
A documentary to explore the British Arctic Air Route Expedition (BAARE) and the life of Gino Watkins, leader of the expedition and recipient of the Polar Medal from King George V.
Before his untimely death, Gino Watkins was a famed explorer who received international accolades from his expeditions, most notably the BAARE. This was a year-long venture to survey the hostile coastline of East Greenland and its icecap to locate potential landing & fuel stops for a proposed trans-Atlantic commercial air route.
Arctic Air Expedition 2024 is an expedition to obtain present day footage in the region of Greenland where BAARE took place from 1930. This material will complete a documentary series including archive material from the original expedition.
Multiple books have been written about Gino Watkins, and BAARE over the decades but no documentary currently exists.
All the written narratives from this extraordinary expedition (BAARE) and the descriptions of the very unique individuals that made up the team, are inspirational in a way that can teach modern day adventurers much about approach, commitment and dedication to goals against the odds. It is to further illuminate this inspiration, to bring to life a rather forgotten era and to recognise the accomplishments of Gino Watkins and his incredible team of explorers, that we embark on our own journey of discovery in 2024.
Arctic Air Expedition 2024 expedition outline.
Our own expedition will take place between June & September 2024.
We will travel with our team, our kayaks, two portable sailing catamarans and a 1927 de Havilland DH.60 Moth aircraft to East Greenland, initially basing in the small settlement of Kulusuk.
From Kulusuk, we will initially locate a second camp at the site of the original BAARE hut, from there, undertaking a journey onto the Ice Cap where Augustine Courtauld was trapped over Winter. We will also shoot within the local small settlements, conducting interviews with current day hunters in the region and several people closely connected with BAARE.
Our flying operation will be conducted out of the airstrip in Kulusuk. We plan several overflights of routes that would have been flown in 1930 by the original DH Moths. These two aircraft carried the identification numbers G-AAUR and G-AAZR (you will see these numbers also carried on the sails of our two support boats). This will be the first time a de Havilland Moth will have been heard in the skies above the ice since 1930!
Our film “Arctic Air” will base the narrative on the original BAARE journal written by F. Spencer Chapman - “Northern Lights”. This is an incredible book that documents the whole expedition and every journey they made, each page brimming with inspiration for any adventurer!
”Northern Lights” documents several small boat journeys that expedition members made up and down this rugged, ice-filled coastline. To film this chapter, we will also undertake several long small-boat journeys, this time using two state of the art and specially-designed expedition catamarans. If the descriptions within “Northern Lights” are anything to go by, our own voyages will be equally harrowing!
Our final goal is to move our entire base camp 200km North to the base of Gino Watkins’ last expedition . From here we will explore and film by boat and kayak the region and glacier fjord where Gino Watkins disappeared in his kayak, whilst hunting for seals.
We will then attempt to sail back to Kulusuk, filming and re-tracing a route that Watkins and others made several times, both by boat and dog team.
In addition to telling the story of Gino Watkins and the BAARE, we plan to capture visual comparisons of many geographical locations that are prominent in the public archive material as a means of illustrating changes in climate and glaciation in this region since 1930. Our interviews with local people seek to discover what has changed in this region and how these climatic changes have altered ways of life since 1930.
Arctic Air Expedition 2024 will also be making a series of livestream content and updates from our expedition, freely available to participating schools and educational establishments.
The main aims of the BAARE were to chart the height of the coastal mountains of East Greenland, take meteorological observations from the almost completely unknown centre of the Ice Cap and to test flying conditions.
Whilst flying the DH Moths, the expedition discovered the highest mountains in Greenland, ranges that now bear the names of many expedition members including Watkins, a range named by the Danish Government after Watkins’ death in recognition of his accomplishments.
The BAARE faced constant encounters with near death at the hands of the weather, polar bears, the cold and the sheer remoteness they existed in, yet the mood of the expedition always remained positive and cheerful .
The significance of the BAARE and subsequent exploits by surviving expedition members, reaches far beyond the Polar regions. This was the birth of transatlantic flight as well as Europeans kayaking. Thanks to the skills acquired in Greenland, two members went on to make significant and decorated contributions in WW2, with Quintin Riley accompanying Ian Fleming on many secret missions that would eventually become James Bond books and films!
Gino Watkins is credited by many at the Royal Geographical Society (of which he was the youngest member in history) and Scott Polar Research Institute as being revolutionary for his time in Polar exploration. He and his BAARE team were open to listening to and learning from the Inuit, utilising their methods of travel and survival to undertake their work and journeys. In that era, such methods were often frowned upon by their social and exploration peers.
The BAARE was an expedition full of depth and involved flight, boats, kayaks, mountaineering, skiing, dog mushing and so much more.
We as a small team in 2024 are so excited to taste a little of what these young men experienced in the 1930s, and to contribute to the legacy of Gino Watkins and the BAARE, being an inspiration to yet another generation of pioneers and adventurers. We hope you will share this journey with us!