Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 390 is a conversation with Brady Trautman and Alex Blue, longtime crew of the SV Delos sailing channel, about their documentary 80 Degrees North and the expedition sail that produced it: a voyage to Svalbard in the high Arctic. They describe taking a small sailboat to one of the most remote places on Earth, the daily reality of polar bear country, the culture of Svalbard, and a travel philosophy built on giving back to the places you visit rather than just passing through.
Listen now: Megaphone.
Brady Trautman and Alex Blue are sailors and filmmakers best known as longtime crew of the popular SV Delos YouTube channel, which built a large and devoted following documenting offshore sailing life. They have since taken on their own projects, including the Arctic documentary 80 Degrees North.
80 Degrees North documents an expedition sail to Svalbard, a remote Arctic archipelago, capturing the beauty and harshness of the high Arctic. Alex's guiding idea, as Brady describes it, is to create emotions: to make viewers feel moved by the beauty of the Arctic and feel like they were there on the boat, in the hope it inspires people to travel more thoughtfully.
Svalbard is a remote Arctic archipelago far north of mainland Norway, one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. In the episode the guests describe it as Iceland on crack, with stark landscapes, a narrator who is a Norwegian local who has spent years there, and a history that includes settlements nearly wiped out centuries ago. Even the airport sat around 13 degrees.
Yes. Polar bear country is a constant reality of the trip. They discuss how polar bears are coming into town more as sea ice declines and food gets scarcer, how flare guns and rifles are carried to scare bears away rather than harm them, and a sobering account of a polar bear coming ashore where a larger group had landed. Being in a polar bear's territory, they note, means gambling with your life.
Brady and Alex contrast arriving by small sailboat with the experience of a big cruise ship dumping fifty people onto a remote beach. They saw locals frustrated by cruise visitors who took without giving back, and they argue for traveling in small numbers, taking the extra time to understand where you are going, and framing a trip around how you can give back to the community rather than just take.
They are best known for their years with SV Delos, but this conversation is about what they have been doing since, including their own filmmaking work and the 80 Degrees North documentary. The episode catches up on where they are now and the new direction of their projects.
The SV Delos crew is one of the most popular sets of guests we have ever had, and so many of you wrote in wanting to hear more from Alex specifically. When I learned Brady and Alex had made a documentary about sailing to Svalbard, I had to have them back. I have seen the film, and it is awesome, genuinely different from anything they had done before. I wanted to hear how a small-boat crew pulls off an Arctic expedition and what it taught them about traveling the right way. Press play in the player above.
Getting a sailboat to Svalbard is not a casual trip. Brady and Alex talk through why a proper expedition boat for those waters is built of aluminum, steel, or even cement, how they handled an onboard photographer capturing the voyage, and the logistics of pushing to one of the most remote places a sailboat can reach. It is a world away from the tropical cruising the channel is known for. Listen to how they prepared in the episode.
This is the thread that runs through the whole trip. Brady and Alex describe how polar bears are coming into town more often as the ice and their food disappear, why the flare guns and rifles are about scaring bears off rather than shooting them, and a chilling story of a bear coming ashore near a landed group. Standing in a polar bear's territory, they say, is gambling your life. Hear how they managed that risk in the player above.
Listen to the full conversation: Megaphone.
One of the most thoughtful parts of the conversation is about giving back. They watched cruise ships drop crowds into remote, fragile places and take without contributing, and they heard the frustration of locals running small tourism operations. Their takeaway, which I keep thinking about, is to travel in small numbers and frame every trip around what you can give to a place instead of what you can take. Listen to that section in the episode.
Alex's north star, as Brady tells it, is to create emotions, to make a viewer feel moved by the beauty of the Arctic and feel like they were on the boat for it. They even handed all the footage to an editor who has never picked up a fishing rod or, in their case, sailed, and let him find the magic. It is a window into how they actually make something land with people. Press play to hear how they built 80 Degrees North.
What stayed with me after this one was their idea of framing a trip around giving back instead of taking. It is a simple reframe, and it applies whether you are headed to Svalbard, Key West, or the Bahamas.
Brady and Alex have always been great at making remote places feel reachable, and 80 Degrees North is the boldest version of that yet. Listen to the whole conversation on Megaphone, then go watch the film.
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Brady Trautman & Alex Blue (guests, sailors and filmmakers) · SV Delos (the YouTube sailing channel they crewed for years) · 80 Degrees North (their Arctic expedition documentary) · Svalbard (the remote Arctic archipelago they sailed to) · Norway (gateway to the high Arctic and home of the film's narrator) · Tom Rowland (host)
Brady Trautman and Alex Blue are sailors and filmmakers best known as longtime crew of the SV Delos YouTube channel, which documented offshore sailing life for a large and devoted audience. Since their Delos years they have pursued their own projects, including the documentary 80 Degrees North, which chronicles an expedition sail to Svalbard in the high Arctic and reflects their philosophy of traveling in small numbers and giving back to the remote communities they visit.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.