As a polar explorer, guide and environmental educator whose wasn’t sure how to answer a question about warmer climes.
“I love summer. No wait, I can’t say that,” he said one recent evening at his home in Boulder.
“No, say that,” said Maria Hennessey, who was trying to tend to their 3-year-old son, Merritt, as he cruised between the living room (which was a little chilly) and kitchen, and their 8-month-old, Ellie, and a reporter’s questions all at once. Hennessey runs a public relations and marketing firm, , and sees that one of the reasons Larsen’s polar exploits make for great stories is his honesty and authenticity.
One of those stories is about to get a much bigger audience. a film about Larsen and ‘ self-supported expedition to the North Pole in 2014, at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Larsen and Waters (who also lives in Boulder) shot all of the footage for the film themselves. The expedition was unsupported, meaning they carried everything they needed themselves, including photography equipment, from Ellesmere Island to the pole.
Getting the story of that frozen journey to the pole — and the message about the effect climate change is having in the Arctic — into millions of homes across the country via Animal Planet feels like an accomplishment to Larsen.
“I feel like in the adventure world, we have these conversations with ourselves all the time,” he said. “My goal is always to try to get it in as broad a place as possible.”
Hennessey said Larsen has always been good at marketing his expeditions. He laughed. “I knew the role of PR right away, especially with my trips, because they’re boring.”
“Melting,” which was edited by a team at the Denver offices of , is a peek into a journey that is anything but boring. Larsen, who is 44, likes to say polar expeditions — — aren’t as sexy as high-adrenaline sports, because they mostly involve days of slogging through snow. But “Melting” shows plenty of anxiety-inducing moments, like (spoiler alert) suddenly realizing a polar bear is tracking them at close range.
Or when Larsen skis onto thin ice to determine whether it’s safe to cross. The camera captures the ice bowing under his skis and the heavy sled he pulls. He crosses, leaving a wet wake, and looks back.
“I just skied across that,” Larsen says to the camera on the other side. “That is water.”
If it all sounds incredibly hairy, well, for some, the scariest part might be financing the whole thing.
“The North Pole is like a $200,000 trip,” he said. The flight to get picked up there alone is around $80,000, he said.
Larsen did his first major polar expedition in 2006. In 2008, he did another, and in 2009 and 2010, to the “top, bottom and roof of the world,” traveling to both poles and Mount Everest. It cost him.
“I came back from Save the Poles and Everest like 50 grand in debt,” he said. “I was fundraising during one of the worst financial crises our country had had.”
Meanwhile, in addition to coming up with some cash, he was thinking hard about climate change, and how to talk about it in a way that isn’t political.
“I was like, let’s make cold cooler — which is totally cheesy,” he said.
The media landscape was changing during this time. He could promote his expeditions on social media, and promote cold. (He often tweets and solicits snow and ice photos from his 12,000 followers.) Companies were starting to want to buy into stories like his.
“Because I’ve always known polar exploration isn’t that interesting, at least not as interesting as jumping off a cliff, I’ve always been interested in storytelling,” he said. “And now there’s a platform for that.”
Jenn Fields: 303-954-1599, jfields@denverpost.com or @jennfields
