Wild Alaska Live has turned one of our boats (the newest and shiniest!) into a floating studio.

SPOILER ALERT: We’ll be featured in the final episode that airs this Sunday. Tune in or stream the second show tonight on PBS.

Yesterday, after a great day of whale watching, the BBC crew settled in on the 49-passenger Atlin boat after retrofitting the boat to become a floating studio. The whales are out and about (some are bubble-net feeding right now) so stay tuned for some great pictures!

In order to transform the Atlin into a floating studio, excitingly, the following modifications on the boat took place.

Firstly, the upper deck railings were cut off with a grinder. This gave rise to the space needed for a crane to be installed, strapped down onto heavy-duty mounting pads in order to accommodate the production crew’s jib camera. (A”jib” is a boom device with a camera on one end, and a counterweight and camera controls on the other. It operates like a see-saw, but with the balance point located close to the counterweight, so that the camera end of the arm can move through an extended arc.)

Inside the cabin meanwhile, six sets of bench seats were detached and removed to create extra capacity for the presenters, film crew and their plethora of equipment. More adaptations are being made, stay tuned for more!

NB: Be sure to tune into Episode 3 on Sunday July 30, as we’ll be hosting the BBC aboard the Atlin to film the finale show of Wild Alaska Live!

See our first post on Behind the BBC scenes at Mendenhall Glacier.