In the northeast Pacific, along the coastal waters of Alaska and British Columbia, the arrival of the summer sun triggers an explosion of plant life greater in scale than even the Amazon rainforest. The feast draws in huge amounts of wildlife - including billions of herring, Steller's sea lions, who race against time to make the most of the abundant fish before the harsh winter closes in, and humpback whales that migrate all the way from Hawaii. Remarkably, the basis of all this life is something so small that it's hardly visible to the naked eye.
The sun sparks the growth of this phytoplankton - the microscopic floating plants that are the basis of all life here. And both whales and sea lions have to overcome many obstacles before they can take advantage of the feast. The humpback whales face a voyage of three months from Hawaii and will lose a third of their bodyweight before they can feed again.
And, despite being the largest in the world, the Steller's sea lions are threatened by predators and ferocious seas. The mothers are land-bound as they have their pups and so cannot feed. Nature's Most Amazing Events films a heart-rending scene where a mother loses her pup in a violent summer storm. A struggle for life between a killer whale and a one ton sea lion male is also filmed for the first time above and below water.
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