ben
page
-filmmaker-
I’m in a place I have no experience and I've never been, I don’t really know where I am.
When I read the description of Ben Page’s account of his solo cycling adventure into the Canadian Arctic (as part of a larger 3-year worldwide 55,000 km – five continents cycling trip), my first response was that it sounded like hell to me, only colder.
The hardships he endured in temperatures as low as –40 Fahrenheit must have been insurmountable.
A True Boyhood Dream
Page always had a boyhood dream to explore wild places like the frozen Artic Sea, but never envisaged that he would end up in Northern Canada on a bike, rationing his food supplies and fighting frostbite.
Compelled by Jack London’s assertion, that "any man who is a man can travel alone," Page, only 22 years old at the time of his adventure in 2014, "sought an adventure of perfect solitude." He traveled the world on a $10,000 budget of saved student loans.
Ben Page maintains a blog of his films. Picture courtesy of Ben Page.
At some point, he was trapped in deep snow, some 40 miles from the nearest village in Canada’s Yukon Territory.
A hungry pack of wolves was awaiting him in the forest. An unexpected early arrival of a snowstorm made cycling on his Fatback Bike impossible and left him no other choice than to push the bike through dense snow for three exhausting days.
This short 24-minute powerful documentary is “an honest reflection on (his, eds,) solo trip; of the wonder, terror and frustration I experienced when riding through the unforgiving emptiness of one of the world's 'last great wildernesses.”
It is a great tale of human instinct and survival, driven by a desire to find oneself.
The documentary is testimony to the quality of small, handheld cameras as the videography is stunning of the vast openness and beautiful nature. It is remarkable that Page had the energy to document his ordeal while testing the limits of his mental and physical capabilities.
The Frozen Road's World Premiere was held at the 20th Raindance Film Festival in London on Sept 28th 2012.
The documentary is available on Amazon Prime, and for free on YouTube and Vimeo. See this article of CNN Travel for more stunning photos of Page's journey through around the world.
Official selections include: DC Adventure Film Festival 2017 and Sheffield Adventure Film Festival 2018.
New York Wild Film Festival
best adventure film 2018
Bilbao Mendi Film Festival
best director 2017
5Point, Adventure Film Festival
winner Spirit of Adventure 2017
