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When CNN correspondent Kaj Larsen had the opportunity to head to the North Pole to report on geopolitical events that are surfacing as global warming, causing the Arctic ice to melt, he looked to his roots to help him tell the story.

“I knew I wanted to partner with production companies that had a talent for telling unknown but important stories,” says the Santa Cruz, California native. So he called The Impact Media Group, a Santa Cruz/San Francisco, California production company, to collaborate with him on the project.

Alongside Impact’s cameraman Toby Thiermann, also born and raised in Santa Cruz, Larsen traveled from California to Anchorage, Alaska, where the duo hopped from ice plane to snowmobile to ice camp. After spending a sleepless night in a hut where they worried about polar bears, they rode a helicopter to the surface of the USS Connecticut, a nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine, which they embarked upon for a voyage to the deep seas of the North Pole. 

What they documented there is a chilling reality, reminiscent of the Cold War era: As the Arctic ice melts due to global warming, one-third of the world’s supply of oil and natural gas will soon be accessible. This has caused silent sparring between nations that border the Arctic region-including Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Greenland and Norway-as each is poised to stake mineral claims beneath the ice, as well as control new shipping routes that will open up as the ice shelf recedes.