Where Life Begins: Documenting the Arctic as Home

Where Life Begins: Documenting the Arctic as Home

Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann

Recent Arctic environmental documentaries such as James Balog’s Academy Award nominated Chasing Ice (2012) and geologist Simon Lamb’s Thin Ice  (2013) show audiences the Arctic as a blank space important primarily because its changing ice serves as evidence of climate change. Although these films may provide compelling images, for us, documentaries counteracting this Arctic mythology by highlighting Arctic indigenous cultures provide much more effective assertions against policies that destroy the environment. Being Caribou (2005), Vanishing Point (2012), and The Sacred Place Where Life Begins: Gwich’in Women Speak (2013) argue powerfully and convincingly against environmental exploitation by bringing indigenous viewpoints and voices to the fore.

Directed by and starring two white Canadians, Being Caribou seems to merely frame its arguments against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with indigenous voices. In Being Caribou, Leanne Allison films her and husband Karsten Heuer’s journey behind a herd of 120,000 caribou to and from the Refuge in Alaska. The conclusion of the film, however, inserts the voices and perspectives of the Gwich’in whose lives depend on the caribou. After a disappointing response from Congress when they share the film, Heuer searches for ways to “make the story of these caribou resonate” and concludes “maybe the answer is to work from the bottom up and not just from the top down.” Shots of Gwich’in Indians protesting the Refuge oil drilling illustrate what this change might mean, and their Gwich’in host Randall Tetlichi’s voice ends the film: respect all life, “plant life, animal life,

bird life,” and, most importantly, the caribou.

Narrated by Greenland Polar Eskimo Navarana K'Avigak, Vanishing Point contrasts the worlds of Greenland Arctic indigenous populations from those of her ancestor Shaman’s Canadian Inuits on Baffin Island. In Vanishing Point, the Arctic is alive with both nonhuman and human life, but Navarana’s way of life is threatened by innovations from the “South” and human-caused climate change causing “the world [to] melt under our feet.” In Greenland, “the ice is different from how it used to be,” but the methods of survival exclude gasoline-powered snowmobiles and boats, choosing instead to use sled dogs and kayaks. Canada’s Inuit, on the other hand, eat “Southern” sugar and drive gasoline-powered vehicles. Ultimately, Navarana chooses her Greenlander way, not because “it’s tradition or looks pretty” but because it just makes sense. It conserves the lives they know and love.

The Sacred Place Where Life Begins gives Gwich’in women activists a space in which to condemn oil drilling in the Refuge and advocate for the caribou. As multiple Gwich’in women explain, they have been caribou people for thousands of years, and their lives and culture depend on the caribou. Oil drilling will disturb the caribou life cycle and disrupt their migration. To amplify this point, the film draws on a history of oil spills and species annihilation. All three of these films make powerful arguments for environmental conservation because they give voice to Arctic peoples. The Arctic is not a desolate end of the world but a home.