New for December: Gates of the Arctic

Mon, November 23, 2009
Posted in Program Highlights, Schedule Updates

Alaska’s vast Brooks Range, a landscape of breathtaking vistas and habitats teeming with wildlife and fauna, inspired a national wilderness-protection movement. GATES OF THE ARCTIC visits this seldom-seen natural treasure, one of the wildest and most remote places in North America, and explores the region’s inhabitants, culture and history.

Stunning photography captures unexpected encounters with the region’s diverse animals: arctic terns, caribou, brown bears, songbirds and grebes, among many others. The filmmakers also introduce a compelling cast of local characters, including rural subsistence advocate Jack Reakoff, who mixes fur-trapping and moose-hunting with his day job as a tour guide.

GATES OF THE ARCTIC also explores the importance of unspoiled public lands to civic democracy. Three intertwined journeys of wilderness travelers and former inhabitants of the Brooks Range provide insightful commentary on this topic.

Tuesday, December 1. 9:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.

Film Preview.

Mountaineer, forester, socialist and writer Bob Marshall traveled in 1929 to what he called “the last blank space on the map” — the tiny village of Wiseman, Alaska. Upon his return to Washington, D.C., Marshall founded the Wilderness Society, a national campaign devoted to wilderness preservation. Richard Nelson, a modern-day anthropologist and nature writer, traces Marshall’s steps in the hopes of collecting experiences and stories for his radio diaries. Throughout the film, Nelson shares his thoughts on the value of wild and public lands to American democracy.

For generations, the Nunamiut Eskimo roamed the hills of the Brooks Range, hunting seasonal migrations of caribou and wintering in tents in temperatures 50 or 60 degrees below zero.

The film follows several Nunamiut elders in their 70s and 80s as they accompany Park Service archaeologists to their old campsites on the Killik River. The archaeologists value this opportunity to learn first-hand about traditional lifestyles of the last nomadic people in the United States. However, revisiting a former home and a bygone lifestyle proves an intensely emotional experience for the elders.