How many times did the 67-year-old "Uncle Northeast" set foot in the North Pole?

At the age of 67, many people have retired and enjoyed their old age at home, but for photographer Wang Jiannan, his expedition to the Arctic continues. Since 2005, he and his wife went deep into the North Pole 22 times during the period of 12, and showed the world a real North Pole with photos and words, which was called "the first person to photograph the North Pole".

The details are as follows: Due to his long-term concern for the human settlement environment in the Arctic, he was also invited to give a speech at United Nations Headquarters and hold a personal photo exhibition in new york. "As long as I can walk, I will keep walking." Wang Jiannan used his legendary experience to explain what it means to be "dissatisfied with old age".

Wang Jiannan, 1950, from Harbin, Northeast China. He started as a photojournalist and later served as the president of a newspaper. In 200 1 year, Wang Jiannan resigned as the president and became the chairman of a Chinese TV station in Canada. In the summer of 2005, Wang Jiannan read an article on the Internet, in which a Canadian Chinese explored the Arctic Circle on foot and presented the scenery of the Arctic region in an illustrated way. "There are Inuit flying in the snow in sledges, catching seals on the ice in fur hats, and bloody photos of large whaling ships whaling in the Arctic." This made Wang Jiannan somewhat tempted. Because he has been a "tossing" person since he was a child, he has a strong interest in all new things.

Exploring the North Pole is full of risks.

Among all the 22 Arctic expeditions, the third Arctic expedition in cooperation with National Geographic magazine touched Wang Jiannan greatly. He decided to put people first, record the living conditions of Arctic people, and show the real North Pole to the world through the lens. "In the past, there were many documentaries about the Arctic ecological environment and Arctic animals. I mainly investigated the living environment. "

Because of Wang Jiannan's long-term concern for human ecology in the Arctic, he became the first China person to hold a personal photo exhibition in new york. In the eyes of ordinary people, Arctic exploration is fun and exciting. However, Wang Jiannan said that traveling in the Arctic is actually very risky.

The biggest risk is falling into the ice crack. When you reach the North Pole on foot, you will often encounter ice cracks along the way. At MINUS 40 degrees Celsius, carrying 20 kilograms of equipment will consume a lot of physical strength every time you walk 1 km. Ice cracks range from a few meters to several kilometers. When you meet an ice crack, you can only walk around. Sometimes, in order to bypass the ice cracks, you have to walk more than ten kilometers. Before exploring the Arctic, we should first carry out cold tolerance and physical reserve training.

Without training, in extremely cold areas, hands and feet will freeze and crack first, and hands will swell like steamed bread, so you can't eat with bowls and chopsticks at all. At the same time, we must adapt to the cold and humid weather in the Arctic. Near the North Pole, the air is very humid. Sometimes I walk on ice floes for five days and my clothes get wet. When you have a rest, the first thing to do is to make a fire to bake your clothes and boots.

Record the real Arctic Circle with a lens.

What worries Wang Jiannan even more is that under the impact of industrial society, the traditional way of life in the Arctic is becoming fragmented.

With global warming, sea ice is gradually melting, and the feeding grounds of polar bears are shrinking. Some polar bears even run to the shore to catch seabirds and become "rock bears". In some Inuit settlements in Greenland, polar bears often break in. Wang Jiannan even photographed polar bears running to the garbage for food because of hunger.

A hunter told Wang Jiannan that hunting is becoming more and more dangerous as the climate gets warmer. Twenty years ago, the local ice thickness reached 4 meters, but now, the sea ice has become thin and brittle, and there have been many incidents in which hunters fell into the sea with sled dogs while hunting. "The old chief worried that if the sea ice melted, their hounds would be useless, and this centuries-old custom would disappear."

In Cambridge Bay, an Arctic town in Canada, local residents complained to him that the modern lifestyle had a great influence on the local lifestyle. In the past, dogs pulled sledges all over the town, but now, cafes, supermarkets and restaurants can be seen everywhere, snowmobiles and cars are also running all over the street, and the tranquility of the town has been completely broken. Many young people are no longer willing to live in an igloo and eat seal meat. They don't even want to learn hunting skills from their parents.

Footprints are all over 160 settlements.

Wang Jiannan's Arctic Blue has made a lot of achievements: 2 1 Arctic expedition, covering 8 countries in the Arctic Circle, 160/more aboriginal settlements, interviewing more than 500 multi-ethnic aborigines, taking more than 40,000 photos and taking more than 2 million words of investigation notes. So far, photography exhibitions with the theme of Arctic cultural investigation have been held in more than ten cities in China.

"I started wearing Arctic blue when I was 55 years old. I am not a rich man. I don't even have the money to buy a particularly high-end camera, but it's not too late. I think I can do these things mainly because I have decided that I must do something. " Wang Jiannan said.

There are more than 200 villages or gathering areas in the Arctic. Wang Jiannan said that his goal is to visit all villages and permanent settlements of indigenous people in the Arctic in the next 10 years.