“The Tales of Jan Mayen” is a documentary that emerged from the Jan Mayen chapter of the Arctic Sense expedition conducted in 2021.

It is the modern interpretation of a 100-year-old expedition to share an untold tale of Arctic exploration through the lens of contemporary research & storytelling

300 years ago, the small Arctic island of Jan Mayen was a prolific whaling station. In just 50 years, the wild population was hunted to near extinction. Left uninhabited, it wasn’t until August 1921 that a British party led by Shackleton’s former geologist, Sir James Mann Wordie, visited the island to undertake its first geological study. Whilst there, Wordie and his team also summited the unconquered peak of the world’s northernmost volcano, Mount Beerenberg.

Exactly 100 years later, Andreas B. Heide and writer Hugh Francis Anderson co-led a modern interpretation of Wordie’s expedition. Sailing over 1,200 nautical miles, they encountered and documented marine life in the polar Atlantic, summited Mount Beerenberg on the centenary of its first ascent, and collected world-first glaciological data.

The documentary was brought to life in collaboration with filmmaker and producer Hugo Petit from Weare8seconds and is currently being presented to film festivals for consideration.