ARCTIC ALCHEMY

About the Directors

Colin Arisman – Colin is a homesteader, harvester, and documentary director, who lives with his wife and creative partner Elsa in Alaska. His visual storytelling documents human connections to the natural world, with a focus on outdoor recreation, ecology, and conservation. Colin’s films have received accolades including “Best Short Film” at Banff Mountain Film Festival and numerous Vimeo Staff Picks. He is the founder of Wild Confluence Media, a documentary production company that amplifies grassroots activism through impact storytelling.

Zeppelin Zeerip – Film director. Conservationist. Geodesic dome off-grid livin’ but don’t dare call him a hippie. Zeppelin would prefer to be in the mountains riding his snowboard or chasing elk, and though he prides himself on a Midwest work ethic, he spends more time behind a computer than with a shovel in his hand. He’ll tell you nothing scares him but walk backwards up the stairs if the lights are turned off in the basement. Zeppelin makes films in an effort to contribute something to the conversation. His films have screened on five continents and earned him three Vimeo Staff Picks while working for clients including The North Face, Red Bull, and The Olympic Channel along the way.

About Roman Dial (Subject of “Arctic Alchemy”)

Roman Dial, Ph.D. is a mathematician, biologist and adventurer. Over the last 45 years, Roman has spent over 550 days in the Brooks Range travelling more than 7000 miles by foot and packraft. Dial has written two books, Packrafting! An Introduction and How-to Guide and The Adventurer’s Son. He and his wife Peggy have an adult daughter Jazz. All three live in Anchorage, Alaska where he retired as a professor after a 32-year career at Alaska Pacific University.

Dr. Roman Dial is a groundbreaking biologist, National Geographic Explorer, and wilderness adventurer whose life’s work has shaped our understanding of climate change and ecology in the planet’s most remote frontiers. For over 40 years, Roman has trekked, paddled, skied, and biked across Alaska’s Arctic, not as a conqueror, but as a witness, documenting the rapidly warming North.

His journey began in the early 1980s when he synergized math, biology, and adventure into his unique style of field science. A professor of mathematics at Alaska Pacific University, Roman research subjects spanned from glacier worms to the advancement of treeline in the Arctic.

But Roman’s story is larger than just scientific discovery. After the tragic loss of his son Cody on an expedition in Costa Rica, Roman’s pursuit of knowledge deepened into something more personal: a quest to understand both the resilience of nature and the fragility of life. His memoir, “The Adventurer’s Son”, is a powerful account of love, loss, and the landscapes that shape us.

Today, Roman continues to teach, write, and advocate for Alaska’s threatened wilds.