Alaska: The Great Land

“With a billion tons of 20% iron untouched, Alaska is a promise”. And with BP heavily involved in funding the production of this short documentary, it’s not really a very subtle way of pointing out that this untainted wilderness with thousands of miles of pristine rivers, lakes, mountains and forests there is still an opportunity for industry to capitalise on this massive depository of oil and other essential minerals on the doorstep of the USA and Canada. Of course, the thrust of what we are presented with here showcases the beauty of the landscape and of it’s inhabitants with some intimate photography as the insects buzz, the birds flutter and the animals gambol around coupled with some grand scale aerial imagery of mountains untouched since their creation aeons ago - so there is no hint of the impact any exploration might have on the ecology. The narration is informative, if a little prone to statistics and superlative, but all in all this really does bring home how this largely inaccessible land has survived and thrived without the intervention of mankind or it’s destructive tools, and perhaps it ought to just be left that way.