The Top Five Coldest Sessions Ever According to Filmmaker Ben Weiland

It takes certain characteristics for someone to fly around the planet and film piercingly cold surf spots. You need to be savvy enough to hold steady with the wind whipping at your equipment and any exposed skin. And you must be technically skilled enough to produce high-quality footage that will resonate with an audience. The right amount of crazy to get comfortable in the cold doesn’t hurt either.

Ben Weiland possesses all of these qualities in spades. His interest in the cold started in 2009 when he started the Arctic Surf Blog to ponder, research and share mysterious, out-of-the-way waves in places most of us would never imagine suiting up.

“Originally, it was kinda tongue and cheek, like who would want to go surf these places,” Ben said. “It was like a ridiculous proposition. Then I ended up going to many of them. Now a lot of people have surfed in colder and more remote places.”

Then renowned photographer and former SURFER staffer Chris Burkard called. For the next decade was a key lensman in surf films such as Arc of Aleutia, Island X, Cradle of Storms and Under An Arctic Sky— movies that celebrate the pursuit of going off the grid, getting an ice cream headache and (hopefully) finding good waves. He’s hit Alaska, Norway, Iceland, Scandinavia and even the Falkland Islands. He’s found rippable and powerful peaks and frozen his face in all of them.

Ben eventually got so busy filming frigid sessions he shuttered the blog a few years back. He’s now in the process of relaunching an Arctic Surf website and Instagram . It will be more quick hit factoids about interesting places and feature an occasional longer-form newsletter, perhaps on SubStack, Ben said.

Ben’s come a long way since finding Arctic webcams on the internet. He and Brian Davis are making content under Fielder Films, with an emphasis on surf films that avoid the equator at all costs. Their videos reveal a place’s harsh beauty. Or in some cases, just how harsh it is.

His latest project, “The Search for Volcano Island,” is a soon-to-be-screened journey to the far reaches of the Aleutian Islands. Ben joined one leg of a historic, first-of-its-kind surf trip led by the legendary Alaskan surf pioneer Mike McCune. In the summer of 2023, McCune captained his ship and passengers more than 1,000 miles to the end of the island chain and back. It took more than three months. “The Search for Volcano Island” will have premieres in August and September. Stay tuned to Ben’s ‘gram for dates.

“I’ve been out to the Aleutians a good number of times to a few specific islands,” Ben said. “They’re probably the easier ones to reach, and it’s still challenging to get there. But where the Milo was headed was extremely remote. It’s hardly been documented except for scientific research. If you were to Google images of certain islands, nothing will pop up. For some islands, the water around them is actually uncharted. So I knew no matter what we were getting into, the imagery would be super rare and unique.

“And the thought of surfing anywhere out there was crazy,” he continued. “I got offered a spot on the boat and I could not pass it up. What they did logistically is such a crazy endeavor. Who knows when that will happen again? I have no idea.”

Related: When Scoring Waves Involves Trying Not to Freeze to Death

In a way, the potential once-in-a-lifetime trip aboard Mike’s boat crystalized everything Ben strives for and was “a sort of pinnacle moment.” Surfing is just the prism to soak in the vast untouched landscapes and the odd abandoned secret military base .

“Basically, I’m just really interested in searching for surf in obscure, cold and remote coastlines around the world. And bring light to a place you’d never think would have good waves and maybe few people have even been to. You have these beautiful scenic places around the world and the idea you can surf there is crazy. When I first started doing this in 2009, I didn’t realize how inexhaustible the planet is with mysteries like this. I’ve definitely had some thoughts like, these five have covered it, but there’s so much more out there.”