Kamchatka.
Far away on the edge of the earth,
to the far east of Siberia.
Nature's wildest wilderness.
A spectacle of raw and sometimes brutal nature.
300 volcanoes, 30 currently active,
belching out torrents of lava.
Streams of fire amidst rivers of ice.
A lost land far from man,
far from everything.
One people rule this immense land.
They're out of sight.
But in fact, they're everywhere.
There, at the bottom of the valleys,
in the mountains,
in the heart of the forest,
15,000 to 20,000 bears are still hidden
under a blanket of snow.
They are waiting
for a never-ending winter to come to a close.
Eight months. Eight long months.
In their dens, life has slowed down for the bears.
Only the newborn cubs are moving around - clumsily.
Bears don't live in groups or with a mate.
They live all alone in their own dens.
Along with their mother,
who will take care of them for three years.
The cubs are still unaware of the natural environment
just outside the den -
the snow,
the mountains,
the freezing wind.
They'll have to wait until the spring,
when their mother decides it's time to leave,
to discover the world.
For now, the weather is too brutal.
And yet, in the bitter cold,
one young, inexperienced bear is already out of his den.
He's four years old -
old enough to spend his first winter alone,
away from his mother,
away from the twin sister he grew up with.
He probably didn't eat enough before the first snow
and hunger has brought him out of his den too early.
He has to find food.
His life depends on it.
But how can he do it now that his mother
is no longer at his side to guide him?
What could he find in this vast, frozen land?
Beyond the cols and the volcanoes,
hidden in the heart of the mountains,
there is a place like no other.
If bears could talk, they would certainly recount the legend -
the legend of the Valley of Geysers.
The legend of a fire brewing under the earth,
of hot water gushing from the depths of the earth,
of dozens of steam vents dancing in the wind,
warming everything around it.
Here, it's already spring.
A haven of greenery and warmth appears out of nowhere
in the dead of winter,
and all around it, cold and snow.
The young bear knows the valley.
His mother used to take him there every spring.
So he tries to find the trails he trekked down following her.
And little by little, as he continues to search,
he remembers.
He's getting close.
He feels it.
He was right. The first buds are already out.
He has found the trail leading to the valley.
He can finally eat, graze, and graze again.
He's not eaten for months.
His body has to get used to it again with plants and fibre.
That's all he can digest for now.
But is the young bear really alone in the valley?
No. He senses something.
Like all bears, he's near-sighted
but has a highly developed sense of smell,
and that's how he knew another bear was near,
even before seeing it behind the thick steam
in the heat of the geysers.
He approaches carefully.
It's been months since he's seen another bear
and he doesn't know how this one will react.
This odour, he knows well.
It's the sister he left behind 10 months ago,
before winter began.
The sister he lived with for three years
before they were separated.
The sister he used to play so many games with.
For them, sniffing is like a hug or a kiss.
They're happy to see each other again.
They grab each other, hold on to each other,
hit each other,
displaying both their affection and their strength.
The young bear's sister is with him again.
Now he can fully take advantage
of what the valley has to offer.
Time goes by. It's slowly getting warmer.
And other bears have also found their way to the valley.
A family - a mother and her cubs.
They don't have to worry about anything.
They're still nursing.
The mother bear is very attentive,
constantly on the alert,
and keeps her cubs away from older cubs that are too rough.
All of the other mothers behave the same way,
keeping an eye on the other bears -
the young ones in particular,
whose playful games can turn violent.
And indeed, for the young bear and his sister,
as the days pass,
competition, conflict and brutality
eventually overshadow their affection.
They can't live together anymore.
It's the law of their species.
Inevitably, they separate.
They must accept their destiny -
to live alone, away from the other bears,
away from their family.
Not far away, at the top of the mountains,
a huge 600-kilogram male is also awake.
He's 12 years old and very experienced.
He ate a lot before winter came
and waited for the right moment to leave his den.
He is not in a rush.
He is calm.
His survival does not depend on him finding food.
So he strolls along
and dawdles about.
He enjoys being in Contact with nature again.
The water.
The soil.
The snow.
The trees.
As if he were seeing old friends again
after spending months in his den.
When we see how gracefully he moves,
it's hard to believe that bears have long been considered
as wild, ferocious beasts.
No. Bears are a combination of power and gentleness.
The big bear is calm
and enjoying his solitude, his tranquillity.
In the valley, the young bear seems to be bored.
At his age, it's not so easy to find something to do
when you're by yourself.
He'll have to grow up and learn how to make it on his own.
The young bear passes by the mother and her cubs
one last time.
Maybe he's thinking about his own family...
...and the joyful life the three of them had.
One that he'll never experience again.
He takes one last look at the valley
he spent the latter part of the winter in.
The one that probably saved his life.
He passes through the cols
and goes beyond the valleys and the snow-capped mountains
to roam the enormous Kamchatka territory
and live out his bear destiny.
In the valley,
the big bear knows that it's not time to leave yet.
However, he's unaware of the fact
that his future, and the future of the other bears,
is being determined at that very moment
thousands of kilometres away from Kamchatka.
There, in the depths of the ocean,
the salmon of the Pacific are waiting for a signal.
500 million salmon,
many of which were born in the rivers of Kamchatka.
They've made it to the ocean
and have been growing for four years,
feeding off of the abundant food.
They have reached maturity.
They are now ready for the long, 4,000-kilometre journey
to lay their eggs in the rivers
at the same place where they were born.
How they find their way in the huge ocean
remains a mystery.
But the survival of all the bears from Kamchatka
depends upon that mystery.
The bears have suffered through winter.
They have spent six to eight months in their dens
without eating.
They have had only herbs and roots to eat
for the past two months.
And now they have to wait for the salmon
to swim thousands of kilometres to get to the coast.
Another long month is spent
grazing and wandering about Kamchatka.
The wait is long.
So long.
They're all watching the river,
waiting for the salmon,
waiting for the flutter of a fin,
a sliver of silver reflection.
A body slithering through the water.
Waiting for that first fish.
Hunger has made them irritable and less tolerant than usual.
They have to be in the best position
when the salmon arrive...
...at last.
The bears have waited months for this moment-
the first fish of the year,
the promise of better days.
And soon there will be even more.
Millions of salmon are just a few miles from the coast -
not far at all.
They have one last hurdle -
to avoid the jaws of the sea lions.
Most of them do survive and regroup,
ready to begin the last leg of their journey -
the rivers.
In the vast amount of salt water,
they can detect the smallest drop of fresh water
from the river they were born in.
The odour has remained mysteriously in their memory...
...and will lead them to their birthplace.
In small groups, they begin the journey upstream
to go lay eggs and perpetuate the species.
The bears will meet them at their destination.
So, from the mountains and the forests
where they took shelter,
from the valleys where they grazed,
from everywhere,
they head to the best rivers for fishing.
They walk for days,
following the trails left
by generations of bears before them.
The young bear is there, ready to fish.
He mustn't make the same mistake as last year,
when he failed to eat enough fish.
The mother and her cubs are there too.
Then the huge males arrive.
Experience has taught them to be patient
and not run around.
They know how to wait for the right moment
to make sure the salmon don't get away.
The tiny baby fish, born the previous year,
nibble on pieces of fish stuck between the bear's paws.
For once, something small eats something big.
The bears have one objective this summer -
to stuff themselves with salmon, as many as 50 a day,
and stock as much fat as possible in order to survive.
That won't be a problem for the huge males,
but it's not the case for the mothers and the younger bears.
The fish are too agile and the river is too wide.
It's extremely difficult to fish
and keep other bears away at the same time.
The cubs are carefree
and oblivious to the pressure their mothers endure.
But why would they fish for themselves
if they don't have to?
This is what all mothers and cubs experience.
In the morning,
the males search for salmon again at the edge of the river.
They don't have any cubs to look after
and will keep all the fish they catch for themselves.
The mothers must find a better place to fish,
a spot where there are more salmon, easier to catch.
The higher upriver the salmon swim,
the more tired they become,
so the mothers follow them,
moving away from the mouth of the river.
♪ We ride on the snowy hills
♪ Under the moonlight
♪ The cols of the valleys
♪ Fade in the night
♪ Come where the rocky mountain streams
♪ Meet the sky
♪ Where the rivers run so clear
♪ And cold... ♪
Still further upriver,
there's a place with more salmon
than any other place in the world.
Lake Kurile.
Millions of salmon cross this lake every summer.
The bears of Kamchatka know it,
so they arrive at the lake hundreds at a time.
♪ We fight against thunder
♪ Struggle with storms
♪ And dance in the fires
♪ Of willows and thorns
♪ Oh, where the future meets the past
♪ I will ride on
♪ Where the ancient tales are right
♪ I'll Call
♪ Riding, riding
♪ We'll reach the holy fields
♪ So far away, so far away
♪ Riding, riding... ♪
The young bear is at the lake too.
He can finally catch his first fish.
But there's still the same problem.
When you find a good spot, you can rarely enjoy it alone,
and as bears don't like close contact,
tension mounts quickly between the mothers.
The tension will become worse
over the course of the next few days,
when the largest group of bears in the world
gather at the lake.
The mothers eventually get into the water...
...where they can fish in peace.
Well, not exactly in peace.
As soon as the mothers manage to catch a fish,
the cubs steal it away from them.
The food isn't shared equally.
The weaker bears often end up without fish.
Half of all bear cubs die before the age of two
due to brother-and-sister rivalry, hunger,
disease and accidents.
A mother bear spends her entire day taking care of her cubs,
and it's only in the evening,
when she's sure that they have eaten enough,
that she can finally fish for herself.
The young bear has found a calm spot
away from the mothers and all the commotion.
But does he really fish like an adult,
or does he still play like a cub?
He's now at the crucial age
where he can spend his first year alone, without his mother,
learning to survive on his own.
He's young,
so any female his age that comes near him
is a distraction from the task at hand.
It's likely the first time he's felt the urge to mate.
He still has a lot to learn about that, too.
But when he does,
he will no longer just ensure his own survival.
He will also contribute to the perpetuation of his species.
A mother bear arrives.
She is young,
and, as usual with the first litter, she only has one cub.
She'll pamper, feed and protect him
until he reaches the age where he can venture out alone.
Then he will leave her.
It's the last summer he'll spend with his mother.
So he enjoys it.
He plays and runs around in the waves and the wind,
carefree, savouring every moment.
Summer is almost over.
Seasons change quickly in Kamchatka - except for winter.
That lasts for months.
The bears have to begin preparing for it now.
The salmon continue their journey.
Thousands of them swim upriver,
driven by an irrepressible instinct
to get to their birthplace and spawn.
Once they're in fresh water, they stop eating and drinking.
Their bodies change mysteriously,
becoming deformed and reddened,
and then they rot.
The river where life begins
is now the river that causes their death.
Some are so exhausted...
...they just give up.
Others continue the fight,
swimming against all the odds.
Those who still have the energy to swim
will lay millions of eggs
that will become millions of salmon,
and they will come back to the same place in five years -
a never-ending cycle of life.
For the bears,
the red salmon are a sign that the end is near -
the end of summer, the end of salmon season.
Now they know that they have to eat as fast as they can,
stuff themselves, and feed their cubs.
They must get ready for the coming winter.
So all around the lake,
they fish relentlessly, pressed for time.
Downstream, all the salmon are gone from the big river.
The bears head for the lake.
The aggressive yearlings arrive,
ready to fight and start trouble.
But there's not many fish left here either.
So all the bears gather where there are still a few salmon.
The young male, the mothers and the cubs
are lost amongst the teenage bears
and the hordes of other bears.
Soon the bears will have to go beyond the trees,
further upstream into the smaller branches of the river
to find the last remaining salmon.
There are so many bears...
...so few fish.
Bears are solitary most of the year.
They're not used to close contact.
Here, they're crowded together.
But the only real solidarity
is between the mothers and their cubs.
In the middle of irritated and aggressive bears
trying to feed one last time,
the mother has to fish and keep an eye on her cubs
at the same time.
And, as if that wasn't enough,
two orphans with scraggly fur arrive.
They don't have a mother to fish for them.
The only way they get food
is by stealing it from younger cubs.
Unlike the males, the mother not only has to fight for fish,
but must defend and protect her cubs.
It is this instinct alone that makes her even stronger.
The young bear feels lost
in the middle of all this aggression.
But he seems more interested in the young female
than in finding food.
The bears that couldn't - or didn't want to -
fight until the very end
feed off of rotten fish along the river.
Unlike the young bear, survival is their number one priority.
The salmon's arduous journey has come to an end.
One generation dies so that another may live.
Other salmon will come back
and other bears will feed on them.
As long as the salmon continue to make their long journey,
the bears will fiercely rule this wild land
still untouched by man.
That's the life of a bear, with all its sublime absurdity,
because, actually, all they do is spend their lives
trying to survive winter,
recover from winter,
prepare for winter,
and doing it all over again.
But what could be more beautiful than these creatures,
their serenity?
And the strength, tenacity, persistence and determination
they employ to survive?
A few days later, the rivers are completely empty.
The young bear is looking for salmon, but they're all gone.
There is nothing left to fish for.
Did he eat enough?
Will he live through another winter?
Maybe he now realises that all of his time and energy
should have been devoted to one thing -
survival.
The fog hangs over the lake.
One by one, the last bears leave to go upland
and prepare their dens for the winter.
The young bear hesitates,
but he knows he has to leave too.
Only the young mother and her cub remain.
They'll spend another winter together.
Then they'll have to separate.
The cub will leave.
He will have to learn how to survive on his own,
like the young bear.
It's the law of the species.
So he enjoys the tenderness and affection
that one day soon will disappear,
along with his mother.
♪ Walking in your dreams
♪ In the sky
♪ I'll be there when you rise
♪ Wake you up with roses
♪ Little star
♪ Now you are safe in my arms
♪ Walk on the sound
♪ On the light
♪ Up above the world so high
♪ But night shall break
♪ And we'll be fine
♪ I'll be there when you rise. ♪
A few weeks later, it's winter again in Kamchatka.
Beneath the thick blanket of snow,
tucked away in their dens,
20,000 bears are patiently waiting
to go back to the lakes,
to the mountains,
to the rivers,
to their land -
the land of the bears.