Catherine L Yrisarri

This story takes us seven miles off the coast of North America’s northernmost settlement and out onto the arctic ice shelf with a family of whale hunters at the top of the world.

Here, above the Arctic Circle, men paddling sealskin boats hunt a 60-ton animal. Until recently, the bowhead whale they stalked was an utter mystery to modern science. Now, with the help of Inupiat insight, bowhead whales are thriving but the traditional hunt and a 6000-year-old way of life are endangered. Because as the arctic ice disappears, the Inupiats of Barrow face greater peril than ever before.

This is the story of an Eskimo community’s unlikely and amazing collaboration with western scientists in one of the most remote places on earth, and of one family’s struggle to adapt and survive in a land that is literally melting beneath their feet.

PRODUCER: Hoggard Films
CLIENTS: National Geographic Channel
ROLE: Field Producer