With Peter Mansbridge
Shot over the summer of 2021, Arctic Blue examines what sovereignty means in Canada's north — both as a matter of national policy and as lived experience for the Inuit communities who call the Arctic coast home. The film is reported by veteran journalist Peter Mansbridge, capping five decades spent covering the changing north.
Aboard HMCS Harry DeWolf, Canada's newest Arctic warship, we meet the crew patrolling the storied Northwest Passage. In the hamlets of Pond Inlet, Arctic Bay and Grise Fjord, we meet residents who have paid a personal cost for the country's efforts to assert its presence on its northernmost islands.
In Iqaluit, Nunavut's leaders weigh the value of the traditional Inuit economy against the industrial opportunities a melting ice cap is opening up. Further afield, along the coasts of Russia and Alaska, that same thaw is reviving old Cold War tensions.
Amid it all, Governor General Mary Simon — whose career has been built on bridging the circumpolar world — offers a vision for a more peaceful future at the top of the globe.