Alaska into the Wilderness

Imagine living hundreds of miles from your nearest neighbour or grocery store and having mail delivered by airplane a few times each year, and battling the long, harsh winters with temperatures that plummet to -51 degrees Celsius. Such are the living conditions chosen by the hearty few who inhabit America's last frontier: the Alaskan bush—a spectacular land of rivers and mountains so remote that you'll enter the lives of four families who have turned their backs on civilization to fulfill their dreams of living off the land. Join the modern day pioneers as they face the daily challenges of survival—hunting for food, staying warm, and fending off grizzlies. You'll experience America's pioneering spirit through these remarkable people who are Braving Alaska!

The majestic Alaskan brown bear is the largest predator in south-eastern Alaska, but everywhere, its ancient haunts are under siege. As the modern world closes in, the great bear's world is shrinking and encounters between humans and bears are on the rise. Join researcher LaVern Beier as he uses cutting edge technology to protect this extraordinary species. To observe them on their turf, without risking life and limb, LaVern attempts to deploy National Geographic's crittercam. Until now, crittercam has been used almost exclusively on marine animals. Vern and his colleagues are on the cusp of a revolution in terrestrial field science...the opportunity to vicariously walk with bears into the deepest corners of their habitats, where even great hunters barely dare venture.

Follow the largest carnivore that walks the earth, the great Kodiak bear, down ancient feeding trails, up salmon-rich rivers - even into a den where a mother nurses her newborn cubs. You'll watch cubs learning to fish, bears gorging in berry-laden fields, and a remarkable scene of bears consuming a beached whale carcass. The setting is Alaska's Kodiak Island, where 4,000-foot mountains rise from hundreds of miles of jagged coastline. Today about 2,700 of these larger cousins of the well-known grizzly bear still thrive there. But change looms on the horizon. Portions of the island are open to development. Dramatic home videos of dangerous tourist/bear encounters capture the uneasy clashes of Kodiak's modern and natural worlds. Enjoy this rare look into the lives of the Giant Bears of Kodiak Island, produced and photographed by renowned wildlife filmmaker Wolfgang Bayer.

The world is addicted to oil. But now the easy pockets of oil are gone and the race is on to find new sources. Nowhere is the battle more intense than in Alaska - source of nearly 15% of America's domestic production, and home to the nation's largest wildlife preserve, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where companies are pushing to drill. National Geographic travels back millions of years to see how oil was created, and looks to the future to ask how far we'll go to find every last barrel and at what cost.