Climate change and animal activists threaten an Indigenous Alaskan community

In the remote Alaskan village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, students are allowed 10 excused absences a year for subsistence activities, primarily hunting. “If you don’t do subsistence activities, you die,” says the school principal in the documentary “One with the Whale,” airing this week on public television as part of Independent Lens.

Directed by Peter Chelkowski (whose credits include the NatGeo series “Life Below Zero: First Alaskans”) and environmental journalist Jim Wickens, the film is about many things at once: Climate change; poverty; parents worrying about their teenagers; trying to maintain traditions amid diminishing resources; and online bullying from activists when 16-year-old Chris Apassingok successfully hunts his first whale.

“One with the Whale” mainly follows the Apassingok family, but it also captures a broader context of life in Gambell, where the population is primarily Yup’ik Indigenous and numbers less than 700. Everything has to be flown in, which is expensive. When Mom goes shopping for groceries at the Gambell Native Store, she says they spend $300 to $500 a week on food. She holds up a box of Minute instant rice: $11.29. A six-pack of toilet paper is $13. Fresh produce is in short supply. As a result, more than 80% of their diet comes from subsistence hunting. A whale can feed the entire village for months.

Despite the prevalence of snow everywhere (there are no cars in sight, only four-wheelers and snowmobiles), out on the water Chris’s father is concerned about the lack of ice. “The walrus and the seal migrate with the ice. Without that ice, there’s no game and there’s no food.”

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