Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for a special free online screening of Love is the Way, the 2020 film documentary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, highlighting the generations of stewardship by Gwich’in and Iñupiaq people.
The event is free but registration is required. Guests who register for the event will receive a viewing link and password to access the film anytime between December 7 and December 14.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a landscape of connections. This place is the heart of generations of protection, lifelong friendships, and iconic wildlife migrations. Love is the Way tells the stories of these connections, and the power of the continuing efforts to keep oil companies out of the Refuge’s sacred coastal plain.
About the filmmakers**
Jeremy Là Zelle is a leading adventurer, expedition photographer and cinematographer. His documentary work has led him to the Arctic, the Himalayas, remote regions of Africa and South America, and beyond. He has won numerous international film festival awards for his documentary work.
Kristin Gates is a filmmaker who uses documentary film to tell stories that pertain to environmental and human rights issues. Kristin has lived in Alaska for the last ten years and has become an expert in expedition travel.
**From the Friday Harbor Film Festival
The land in POST’s working area has been home to many distinct communities of Native people since time immemorial. We work to conserve and care for these lands — the ancestral territory of at least four contemporary Indigenous communities:
Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, Muwekma Ohlone, Ramaytush Ohlone and Tamien Nation.
These groups have survived centuries of oppression and displacement, and are the past, present and future caretakers of this land. Read more.
Please scroll to the bottom of this page for a list of resources to learn about and support Bay Area Tribes and indigenous organizations
This is part of POST’s community event series. These events are open to the general public and POST donors alike, and we hope you will join us! We also curate a separate series of private events for our donor community. Find out more about how you can support POST.
Learn more about Contemporary Tribes and Support Directly
While this documentary focuses on Native people of the far North, please read below for additional resources that can help orient you to contemporary Tribes and indigenous organizations that are local to the Bay Area. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and we encourage participants to reach out to POST with additional resources to include.
- Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and affiliated Amah Mutsun Land Trust – The Amah Mutsun trace their ancestry and heritage through a time when the Spanish occupied their traditional lands and involuntarily held local native people in missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz.
- Muwekma Ohlone Tribe – The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is comprised of all the known surviving lineages indigenous to the San Francisco Bay Region who trace their ancestry through the Missions Dolores, Santa Clara and San Jose, and who are also members of the historic Federally recognized Verona Band of Alameda County.
- Ramaytush Ohlone – The Ramaytush (pronounced rah-my-toosh) are the original peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Ramaytush Ohlone numbered approximately 1500 persons, but by the end the Mission Period only a few families had survived. Today, only one lineage is know to have produced living descendants in the present. Those descendants comprise the membership of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone (ARO) today.
- Tamien Nation – The vision of Tamien Nation is to acquire lands within their aboriginal territory to live our lifeways with dignity, peace, and prosperity.
- Confederation of Ohlone People – The Confederation of Ohlone People is a cooperative made up of the descendants of Ohlone people, as well as community advocates. Their common mission is to increase the visibility and interests of present day Ohlone. Today members of the cooperative are involved in the Land Acknowledgement movement, cultural revitalization, education, leveraging the arts to create visibility and tell the Ohlone story, providing mediation services, and cultural site preservation.
- Indian Canyon – During the 1700s and 1800s Indian Canyon served as a safe haven for local Indigenous peoples who were being abducted/recruited/bribed/transported to the Missions by the Spaniards. The local Ohlone peoples knew the terrain and were able to traverse the territory into the secluded valley of Indian Canyon south of Hollister. Since then, Indian Canyon has remained a safe haven.
- Cafe Ohlone is a place to understand the importance of the revival of Ohlone foodways through memories of elders, where this first Californian cuisine is prepared by Ohlone standards. It is also a place for meaningful, boundary-breaking dialogue, a place where poetry and song in California Indian languages and organized talks from leaders in the Ohlone community share living stories.
- The Sogorea Te Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led community organization that facilitates the return of Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone lands in the San Francisco Bay Area to Indigenous stewardship. Sogorea Te creates opportunities for all people living in Ohlone territory to work together to re-envision the Bay Area community and what it means to live on Ohlone land.
