Overview
- Smith said urgent calls to abort the dive came minutes after submerging beneath thick Arctic ice, where he struck the overhead sheet and accidentally pulled off his mask.
- He was attached to a safety tether that crew members used to pull him back toward the entry hole, a moment he said shifted from terror to a strikingly spiritual scene as sunlight filtered through the ice.
- Pole to Pole is a seven-episode National Geographic documentary that tracks a roughly 100-day journey across all seven continents alongside scientists and local guides, with episodes airing on National Geographic and available on Hulu.
- He also described joining indigenous guides in the Amazon to pursue an anaconda as part of a conservation effort to collect scales for testing tied to suspected illegal dumping.
- Smith recounted the Arctic scare and other hazards, including a South Pole ice-wall climb in a sudden storm at about −37°C, during his Tuesday appearance on The Tonight Show.