Last summer, a group of rock climbers from Squamish — James Klemmensen, Amanda Bischke, Shira Biner and UBC grad Noah Besen — embarked on a 42 day trek to climb in the Coronation Glacier on Baffin Island, Nunavut.
The Gnar-Whal’s Odyssey tells the story of that expedition.
Directed by Klemmensen, the short film is playing at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF) on November 18 at the Rio Theatre at 7 p.m.
While people have travelled to the Coronation Glacier before, no one has ever climbed there. Klemmensen and Besen created two new routes (one of which they named the Salami Exchange Commission. I’m not joking) while Bischke and Biner put up one of their own first ascents on the opposite side of the glacier. They all came together for a group climb, involving a Tyrolean traverse to cross a deep blue moat, leading up to an outlook of the Penny Ice Cap, a remnant of the last ice age.
The crew faced setbacks over their expedition, from flight delays to not finding scalable routes and “being attacked by sea ice” in their kayaks as they battled colder-than-usual temperatures. But it was all taken in stride, everyone smiling and chuckling the entire time.
The film was also bookmarked by the group acknowledging their visitation to the land — a feature I found particularly powerful considering the outdoor recreation industry’s ties with colonialism. For Klemmensen, who was aware of his positionality as someone with colonial lineage, acknowledging the Indigenous land stewards and community members was the least he could do.
“I feel like it actually was a big part of our experience on the trip, and maybe even more so than shows up on the film,” he said in an interview with The Ubyssey.
The relationships that deepened was also an obvious theme of the film. For Klemmensen, that’s just the nature of the sport.
“I think climbing is a shortcut to deep friendship and vulnerability,” he said.
Klemmensen said for new routes, especially those in the Arctic, who you climb with is imperative. Similar risk tolerances, communications skills, technical skills, trust and previously climbing together are crucial factors to the confidence and success of a trip.
“The big climbing experiences like those ones require a lot of openness and vulnerability in a way that I think non-climbers don't really expect.”
This concept shines through in the film, with docu-style interviews and excerpts highlighting the character of the group members. The fun and joy radiates off the screen, especially from Klemmensen and Biner, and the audience can clearly follow along with the emotional journey that the expedition created for each climber.
The interviews are broken up by more cinematic montages, highlighting the natural beauty of the Arctic. Even when filming was notably second to personal safety, the perspective of being on a cliff face or in a kayak felt like a true invite into the trip.
Klemmensen hopes the film will inspire other climbers, reiterating they aren’t professional athletes.
“This isn't some elite expedition,” he said. “We're not the climbing one per cent. There's a lot of people out there who have very similar skill sets to us who could do this kind of thing as well.”
The film, in that sense, is more relatable than Free Solo or Meru. The light-hearted ambiance also contrasts most professional climbing movies, but not in a bad way. It shows that having fun and goofing around is a kind of story too.
“It's really cool and kind of surprising in a way to be screening at VIMFF,” said Klemmensen. “I didn't really expect the film to get this far — in the same way that we're not professional climbers, we're also not professional filmmakers.”
Although made by amateurs, The Gnar-Whal’s Odyssey successfully showcased the ups and downs of climbing in a remote location with your friends and the emotional change that being immersed in nature can bring.
“I’m just really, really proud and excited to have this out there,” said Klemmensen. “This is such a passion project for us, for all of us ... All of us put a lot of effort into making the film happen.”
Tickets are still available for tonight’s showing of The Gnar-Whal’s Odyssey. They are $26 for students and you can use the discount code ‘summit15’ for 15 per cent off. The Gnar-Whal’s Odyssey is also available for virtual streaming until December 8; tickets are $18 for 9 films.
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