Contact bjorn@groundtruthtrekking.org for professional filmmaking services, stock footage, or screenings.
How We Survive Diomede — Trailer
How We Survive Diomede is a documentary film by Bjorn Olson. This is a story about one of North America’s most remote communities, situated in the middle of the Bering Strait, closer to Siberia than to mainland Alaska. The people of Little Diomede have inhabited this resource rich island for many thousands of years, passing on their traditions of hunting, gathering, ingenious technological innovation, artistic expression, music, and community cohesion to the next generation. Now, however, in less than one generation’s time, climate change is forcing the people of this remote community to reconsider their ancient cultural ways of knowing and to rapidly adapt to a new and uncertain world. How We Survive Diomede explores the challenges this unique American community faces when the predictability of sea ice is no longer dependable, when animal migrations change, when the permafrost thaws, when self-reliant, seasonal transportation becomes nearly impossible, when the access to wild food resources become harder to secure, and when the dependance on supply chains becomes more and more normalized and seemingly necessary. Coming 2025
Farming Kelp At Scale: An Alaskan Case Study
Green Anarchy: A Conversation With John Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocates drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication and symbolic thought (such as language, number, art and the concept of time). "If we once and for so long lived in balance with nature and each other, we should be able to do so again. The catastrophe that's overtaking us has deep roots, but our previous state of natural anarchy reaches much further into our shared history.” -- John Zerzan For more information, please visit: johnzerzan.net Listen to John's weekly radio show Anarchy Radio here: https://archive.org/search?query=%22a...
Center For Alaskan Coastal Studies Ecosystems Video Series
Coastal Studies Videos
Each of these films is a dive into a unique ecosystem within the Kachemak Bay watershed. My mission and goal with these videos has been to create an immersive experience, as if a kid or teen was walking through the ecosystem themself, pausing here and there to notice and zoom in on interesting plants and animals and features. Here is video 1 of 5—Stream and River.
To view the entire series, please visit my “conservation” collection on YouTube.
Learn more about Center For Alaskan Coastal Studies and the awesome work they do by hitting this link:https://www.akcoastalstudies.org/
Market Gardening in the Last Frontier
MARKET GARDENING IN THE LAST FRONTIER film: Bjørn Olson, starring Emily Garrity, music: Colin McGovern, additional footage: John Whittier
The path to successful bio-intensive market gardening in the Last Frontier involves an enthusiasm to work in partnership with nature; to steward the soil and the multitude of organisms it contains and supports. As Alaskans contemplate the reality that a staggering 95% of food found in the grocery stores is imported, Emily Garrity and her Twitter Creek Garden operation are chipping away at this food insecurity and providing a roadmap for others to emulate. Aspiring to provide alternatives to the destructive standards of commercial agriculture, life-long Alaskan, Emily Garrity, shares her hard-won secrets in this biopic short film.
Our film is free to watch. If you find it interesting, please donate to our community fund, which helps share the harvest with those in need. https://www.twittercreekgardens.com/s... Please contact us if you would like to host a public screening or to include Market Gardening In The Last Frontier in your film festival.
Libby 76 - Teaser
Libby 76 is a Bristol Bay double ender that fished commercially in the bay until 1951 when motorized fishing was finally allowed. Kachemak Bay resident and wooden boat master, Dave Seaman, has restored her to her original glory. This historic expedition, led by Tim Troll, is sailing this beautifully restored boat back to the bay. A key component to this trip is to raise awareness about Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust who is raising money to protect a huge swath of highly productive salmon habitat in Lake Iliamna from reckless development. For more information, visit: http://bristolbaylandtrust.org/
Nome, Alaska - Video Reel
No Excuses - Teaser
film by Bjørn Olson
music by Fugazi used with permission
This is a teaser from an ongoing biopic film project about legendary Seward resident, George Peck.
Salmon In A Changing Climate
Sue Mauger--science and executive director of Cook Inletkeeper--explains the how a changing climate is affecting Alaska's salmon.
Northern Migration
Hidden in the far north is a range of remote mountains where one can imagine the Aesir, Frost Giants, trolls, and cave bears reign supreme. Ferocious storms, neck-craning tors of marble, herds of herbivores, and stealthy carnivores fill the realm where few humans tread, and even fewer approach with a bicycle.
Alaska Subsistence - Spirit of the Ancestors
Alaska Subsistence - Spirit of the Ancestors is a short film about the enduring connection Alaskans have with salmon and other wild-food resources. The film was produced for Region 10 Tribal Operations Committee for their 2020 Tribal Environmental Leadership Summit.
Per the Terms of Service of YouTube, viewing of this film is limited to personal, non-commercial use. A free screening of this film may be arranged by contacted the Region 10 Tribal Operations Committee at http://region10rtoc.net/home/. Unauthorized public screenings are prohibited. 2020 Tribal Environmental Leaders Summit film Tribal Caucus of the Region 10 Tribal Operations Committee Film by Bjørn Olson, Mjølnir Films
Contact bjorn@groundtruthtrekking.org for professional filmmaking services, stock footage, or screenings.
Seabird Memorial
After witnessing a massive seabird die-off event in Arctic Alaska, Homer artist, Kim McNett, made work of art titled, Seabird Memorial. She painstakingly painted the nearly one thousand dead seabirds which she and the filmmaker observed while on a fat-bike expedition from Kotzebue to Point Hope. Originally, Kim planned to unveil the installation at the 2020 Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, but Covid-19 forced a new plan—a gorilla-art installation at the Homer Small Boat Harbor Deep-Water Dock . Please watch Kim's Artist Statement about the piece.
The Friendly Arctic
In the summer of 2019, Bjørn Olson and Kim McNett completed a fat-bike and packraft route, entirely above the Arctic Circle of Alaska - Kotzebue to Point Hope. Enjoy the trailer for the upcoming film about this human-powered expedition. Read more: https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com/blogs/ultralight/fat-biking-packrafting-alaska
Pebble’s Rigged Permitting Process
Pebble's environmental review process is being rushed to come to a final permit decision before the end of the Trump administration. The Army Corps is now working on the Environmental Impact Statement behind closed doors, and has said it will publish a final version and permit decision in 2020, with no opportunity for public comment. We’re asking Alaska’s senators (Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan) to stop this process. They have acknowledged the flaws in the environmental review process so far, and we need their help to stop the Army Corps effort to force this mine through! Find out how you can help at utbb.org/get-involved
The Fight for Bristol Bay
United Tribes of Bristol Bay is a tribal consortium working to protect the traditional Yup’ik, Dena’ina, and Alutiiq ways of life in Southwest Alaska that depend on the pristine Bristol Bay Watershed and all it sustains. Learn more here: https://www.utbb.org/
Moose Pass: Where the Alaska Pioneering Spirit Lives On
Historical film about the small, Kenai Peninsula community of Moose Pass. Visit Moose Pass Public Library for more information.
Salmon - A Keystone Species with Alan Boraas
The late Alan Boraas, Professor of Anthropology at Kenai Peninsula College, spent his career studying the relationships of Alaska Native communities to salmon and the region. He worked in particular with the Kenaitze Dena'ina. Alan Boraas lived from April 17, 1947 - November 4, 2019. He was a beloved member of the Kenai Peninsula Community and a staunch advocate for wild salmon and Alaska Native peoples who have survived with and stewarded wild salmon in the area for thousands of years.
Iglaak
Alaska’s Seward Peninsula lies just below the Arctic Circle. The protuberant peninsula is the millennia old home to the Inupiat Eskimo, situated in the northwest of Alaska - a land that stirs the adventurer’s spirit and kindles the insatiable. Visions of paleo-Arctic ancestors, sweeping tundra, rugged mountains, winding rivers, compacted beaches, intact ecosystems, and a land before contemporary time excite the Iglaak – the traveler, stranger, and visitor.
This three-minute film is a snapshot of a fat-bike and packraft tour through the Imuruk Basin, the villages of Mary's Igloo, Brevig Mission, Teller, and Nome.
Alaska Thaw
“Alaska Thaw is the 2018 Winner of the the Witnessing Change Video Competition. Filmmaker Bjørn Olson’s short film uses images of the people and landscape of his home state of Alaska to create a haunting film that elicits the connection between history, memory, and landscape, and questions what it means for all of these things when thousands of years of culture and geological history starts to vanish in the space of a human lifetime.” - Colorado Environmental Film Festival
Control Use
Control Use is an ongoing documentary film project about human-powered subsistence hunting in Alaska.
Icy Bay Mega-Tsunami
Oct. 17, 2015, Taan Fjord, Icy Bay, Alaska. The friction that held silt to silt and rock to rock began giving way. Those first rocks shoved more rocks, and then more still. Some 200 million metric tons of rock slid down the mountain in a crash that must have been deafening. It hit the ocean, sending up a wave that peaked at nearly 600 feet high. The wall of water stripped alder thickets from the hillside, tossed boulders up hills and carpeted the land in rubble from the bottom of the ocean. No one noticed. Read more HERE
Contact bjorn@groundtruthtrekking.org for professional filmmaking services, stock footage, or screenings.
The Future, the Past, and Whale Oil
In the midst of Alaska's current, ill-conceived fossil fuel frenzy, Senator Tom Begich (D-Anchorage) delivered a historic speech on the floor of the Alaska Senate re: climate change, and the energy transition from fossil fuels to a low-carbon alternative energy future:
For more information about renewable energy in Alaska visit: Alaskans Know Climate Change
Purple Valley
A short bike-rafting adventure in the Great Land.
A short film about riding the Adventure Trail with a positive mental attitude.
Frost-Bound
An Arctic cycling odyssey from Nome to Kivalina, Alaska.
Hunting for Monsters
Lake Iliamna, Alaska's largest lake, is home to many native communities, the worlds largest sockeye salmon run, potential site of the controversial Pebble Mine and the elusive Lake Monster, Illie. On a hot mid-July Bjørn and Brent were deposited to the far shore of Cook Inlet in a landing craft cargo ship and began their human powered journey through Iliamna country to Bristol Bay, hoping to catch a glimpse of the illusive creature and slice of Alaska where monsters can still roam free.
Read article about the trip HERE
reEvolution
"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds." -Edward Abbey-
Heart of Alaska
Anchorage International Film Festival's Best Made in Alaska winner. Synopsis: Hig, Erin and their two children walk out of their comfortable home on a cold March predawn morning and begin a four-month human powered expedition around Alaska's Cook Inlet. While carrying food, camping gear and other necessities for their survival, the family also carries a question – 'what do you think the future of Alaska will look like in 50 years?'