I’ll bet you didn’t imagine Alaska grew some absolutely massive vegetables. Strange way to kick off a DVD review, I know, but then, this is a strange DVD. The folks out at the Discovery Channel, backed up by their press agent Gaiam, sent out a copy of Alaska: The Edge Of Life for us to review. And it’s a strange one that has a lot more going for it than you might expect.

Alaska: The Edge of Life takes you up to Alaska, the biggest state in the United States, and one of the most otherworldly. And we’ll be going around all over to see a variety of impressive sights, the kind of which you can literally only find in Alaska. You’ll go from the water to the landscape and everywhere in between, as the folks at Discovery show you things you probably never would have seen had you never reached the far north.

And you will, rest assured, see some thoroughly amazing stuff. You’ll go up Mount McKinley, you’ll watch the Northern Lights, you’ll follow bears and go crab fishing just like the Deadliest Catch guys do. You’ll hit the Bering Sea, and check out bears, and see a host of things. But like I said in the opening paragraph, it won’t just be the biggest and wildest stuff–you’ll also see vegetables of enormous size. See, in Alaska, they’re close to the pole. And what this means is that they get a lot more sunlight during the summer months, and virtually none during the winter months. That in turn yields vegetables of unusual size as they’re constantly getting sunlight. The end result is, as you’ll see, a cabbage weighing nearly ninety pounds.

Like much of Discovery Channel’s fare, it’s going to feature a whole lot of strange things and things you probably didn’t already know. Invariably I end up learning something new from their stuff (this time, for example, I got an excellent explanation of hovercraft physics), and chances are you will too.

Between some absolutely breathtaking visuals, a whole lot of bizarre new information, and plenty of surprises, it’s hard not to enjoy Alaska: The Edge of Life. And it’s going to be amply worth your time to check this out. How amply?

The Screenhead Ten Scale believes it’s sufficiently amply worth your time to check this out that it gives Alaska: The Edge of Life an eight out of ten. A bit on the niche side, admittedly, but still having a lot of great parts to it to make it very much worth your time.