Presenter Ian Wright works his passage north of the Arctic Circle, starting in the Norwegian fishing port of Tromso and joining the trawler Hermes for a five-day run to the cod grounds near Bear Island. With eighteen crew working six-hour shifts around the clock, the boat can hold 450 tons of frozen fish, and Ian pitches in at the onboard fish factory gutting catch in rough seas, cheerfully admitting he is no fisherman. Dropped at Spitsbergen, he switches to the Stockholm, a 1950s-era Arctic cruise ship, for a slower voyage through the world's northernmost inhabited islands in search of polar bears. Stops include Danskoya Island, site of a failed 1897 Swedish balloon expedition to the North Pole, and the launch point Roald Amundsen used in 1926 on his way to becoming the first person to reach both Poles. The ship pushes on to the edge of the pack ice, where polar bears and Arctic wildlife appear against the ice-strengthened hull and open water beyond.