The last expedition following in the footsteps of Bengt Berg, brings Natasha Illum Berg and Kire Godal to West Bengal, India to search for his “unicorn” or the one-horned Indian Rhino.
Starting off in Kolkata, Natasha explores this amazing urban beehive of human life.
From Kolkata, the journey to West Bengal’s Torsa River area along the border of Bhutan – where Bengt Berg spent time conducting some of the first Rhino counts in India.
Natasha holds her grandfather’s book “Hunting for the Unicorn”.
After several days of looking for a geographical point on the map, where Natasha and her grandfather could of actually crossed paths physically, we settled for a beautiful spot on the Torsa River, we judged to be a few kilometre’s from where he camped and lived in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.
When he was there, this area was somewhat protected but not yet a zoned national park. Today, the banks of the Torsa are flanked by the Jaldapara National Park, and not far away is the Buxa Tiger Reserve.
When Bengt Berg came to West Bengal, he was the first to photograph Indian Rhino in the wild and do a count of them. Like today, 100 years ago, the rhino populations were under serious threat due to the demand for their horns in China.
After a beautiful, demanding, and powerful experience finding and filming “unicorns” in the wild – Natasha and Kire are now on to putting together two years of Skypaths footage taken around the world; from Sweden, to Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nepal and finally India.
We are currently in the midst of editing the film. We will keep you posted on developments. Stay tuned!
