King Charles remembers one of his most daring adventures when he was 26 years old.
In an upcoming ITV documentary, the monarch, now 77, recalls his historic 10-day trip to the Arctic in 1975, a trip that shaped his lifelong passion for the environment. Environmentalist Steve Backshall recently retraced the King’s steps and analyzed the impact of climate change 50 years on.
A brief sneak peek shared by the royal family’s official Instagram page showed Her Majesty, accompanied by Backshall at the Palace, watching clips and images from the original 1975 expedition, including the most iconic moment: Charles emerging from a deep dive, inexplicably wearing a bowler hat over his diving suit.
“I thought it would be pretty funny to come back with the hat on,” he told Backshall, adding: “I thought [it was] an opportunity to waste time.”
At another time, Charles, then Prince of Wales, was leaving his tent in his suit that he had inflated with air. “I blew the thing up, to see how far it would go,” he recalled as both Backshall and the King burst out laughing.
Elsewhere in the documentary, the cancer-stricken King makes a heartbreaking comment about his current health. “Thank God I was younger in those days,” he said of his expedition. “I could never have survived now,” he added with a smile.
During the 10-day expedition, Charles interacted and learned from the Inuit (the indigenous people of the Arctic) about local culture, how to coexist with nature, their relationship with their sled dogs, and more.
But the bowler hat moment stood out for its absolute absurdity. Charles’ diving partner was Dr. Joe MacInnis, a Canadian physician, author and diver. According to his 2023 account of the historic dive, MacInnis revealed that he was the one who planted the bowler hat on the sea floor during a previous dive. When he retrieved it and put it on, Charles was amused.
“He loved it and took the bowler hat…and then gracefully walked away, with a trail of bubbles behind him, heading toward the diving hole,” MacInnis wrote.
