Travels With Palin

Pole To Pole: A Cold Start (3x1)

: 21, 1992

Palin begins at the North Pole, flying there on a small aeroplane fitted with skis. (The North Pole scene had to be filmed earlier than the rest of the journey due to weather issues.) From there, he heads to Greenland, then the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, where the towns of Ny Ålesund and Longyearbyen are located. From there he sails across the Barents Sea on a supply ship to the Norwegian port city of Tromsø, where he visits a statue of Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole. He also meets some avid Norwegian football fans. In the town of Karasjok, he meets up with the Sami people and pans for gold in the Karasjoka River. From there, Palin travels by bus and crosses the border from Norway to Finland, where he visits Santa Claus at the Santa Claus Village on the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi. He takes an overnight Finnish train to Helsinki; he relaxes in a sauna near Helsinki with Neil Hardwick and Lasse Lehtinen. Then Palin catches a ferry to Tallinn, his first stop in the Soviet Union. He visits with Estonians who sing a song, dreaming of the day when Estonia would again be a free nation. Then Palin catches a train headed for Leningrad.