Nova Zembla

Gerrit de Veer (Robert de Hoog), a young writer on a 16th-century Dutch merchant ship, wants to set down the voyage that will open a trade route to Asia over the top of the world. Reinout Oerlemans follows the crew as the ship locks into the ice off Nova Zembla and the men face a winter of polar bears, hunger and killing cold. Gerrit writes by the little light there is, and the pages he leaves for the people waiting at home are the only thing holding him to them.