The Arctic is the circumpolar region of the Earth that surrounds the North Pole, a strange and mystical world of ice, snow, land and water. In order to discover this untamed, primeval wilderness, it is necessary to travel by way of an expeditionary cruise ship which uses small rubber boats, Zodiacs, to access the Arctic’s islands and bays.

We spot the region’s first floating ice mountains in front of a huge glacial wall, fascinating and of incalculable dimensions. At the rear and shrouded in mist, dark mesas with steep scree slopes and fragile rock walls and in front, the glacier gradually breaks up into a sea of ice.

This is the land of the polar bear, the Arctic’s most famous carnivore, a magnificent but merciless predator. A harp seal flees from its ice floe in the Arctic Sea but soon a group of hungry polar bears hunts it down, the cycle of nature.

The cries of the young gulls at feeding time have woken up a hungry Arctic fox who is desperate for something to eat. Stealthily but still half asleep, it creeps along a craggy rock wall, unsuccessfully because the gulls' nests are placed on inaccessible rocks and the fox’s still dark summer fur betrays it.

This freezing cold kingdom is the largest wilderness on Earth, fragile, bizarre and now threatened by a changing climate.