‘One with the Whale’ review: 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.

“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.

“Chris is just doing something his ancestors have done for thousands of years,” says the school principal. “It’s not like they’re going out and pulling hundreds of whales out of the ocean, not like Japan. They’re allowed two whales per year, according to the whaling commission, and this feeds the community.” Without that meat in the freezer, he adds, the village could die off.

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