



When the polar bear finally smashed the door in, Iver was able to shoot the bear in the chest and it fell to the ground and died. Ejnar, whose rifle was frozen, grabbed an axe until Iver could get to his rifle, which was still working. In Ejnar Mikkelsen's book, he tells the story of a polar bear trying to break down the door of their hut as Iver tries to hold it shut. The sled and dogs ended up careening towards the crew.Ĭoster-Waldau said that despite wishing he could have slept out in the elements while filming in Iceland, the actors and crew stayed in hotels. Coster-Waldau also recalled losing control of a sled and its dogs while shooting a scene that required him to navigate the sled over some rocks. During an interview with Deadline, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau said that the 50-60 person crew ended up stranded on a glacier in Iceland during a snowstorm and had to huddle together in a hut as hurricane-force winds swept across the landscape. Director Peter Flinth avoided using green screens whenever possible so that the actual landscape could be featured.
MOVIE EXPLORER SHOWING WRONG MOVIE MOVIE
While the movie was shot in both Iceland and Greenland, exploring Against the Ice's historical accuracy reveals it was mainly filmed in the more-forgiving Iceland. In the movie, Neergaard stresses the importance of recovering the records from the ill-fated Denmark Expedition and supports Mikkelsen's efforts to do so. The title of Council Presidium is the predecessor to the modern Prime Minister's Office, which was established in 1914.ĭance's character also seems to be a composite of some of the other officials who supported Ejnar Mikkelsen's efforts in real life, including those on the Committee of the Denmark Expedition, as well as government officials in Parliament. In exploring how true is Against the Ice, we discovered that Charles Dance's character is based on Niels Neergaard, who served as the Council President of Denmark between 19.

Is Charles Dance's character, Denmark government minister Neergaard, based on a real person? Bottom: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Joe Cole as Mikkelsen and Iversen in the movie. Top: The real Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen in Greenland in 1910. It's true that Mikkelsen used the maps during his expedition with Iver Iversen to locate the cairn. However, their bodies were never discovered and likely drifted out to sea when the ice thawed. Part of Mikkelsen's mission was to also recover the bodies of Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, the leader of the ill-fated Denmark Expedition, and cartographer Niels Peter Høeg Hagen. The real Ejnar Mikkelsen did later come across Brønlund's body, and he and his men gave it a proper burial. The maps had been drawn by Niels Peter Høeg Hagen, who had perished prior to Brønlund. Danish explorer Johan Peter Koch, second-in-command on the Denmark Expedition, discovered Jørgen Brønlund's body and the sketch maps in the spring of 1908 in Lamberts Land. In real life, it wasn't Ejnar Mikkelsen who discovered the maps on the body of Greenlander Jørgen Brønlund. He discovers one of their bodies in Lamberts Land, which contains a diary and a hand-drawn map to the location of the cairn that contains the vital records the previous group had gathered. Early in Netflix's Against the Ice, experienced Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) returns from an attempt to find the members of Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen's expedition that didn't make it back. Høeg Hagen's map was found on Jørgen Brønlund's body.ĭid Ejnar Mikkelsen find a map on the body of a member of a previous expedition? The three men of the 1906 Denmark Expedition who perished: leader Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, cartographer Niels Peter Høeg Hagen, and explorer Jørgen Brønlund.
