Each summer, millions of adult sockeye salmon return to the freshwater tributaries of Bristol Bay, AK, to spawn and die. These salmon sustain an entire ecosystem, feeding the wildlife and fishing communities nearby when they’re alive and the surrounding rivers and trees after they die.

For the past two decades, Bristol Bay residents and environmentalists have been fighting to protect these salmon from a proposed mine in the region—the Pebble Mine—as any mining waste spill could devastate their habitat and the ecosystem they sustain. This David and Goliath-esque fight between ordinary people worried about losing their livelihoods and a rich and powerful mining company is chronicled in the 2024 documentary, UNEARTH.

Since the mid-2000s, the Pebble Limited Partnership—owned by the Northern Dynasty Minerals mining company—has sought approval to mine land near Bristol Bay. Northern Dynasty has the same leadership as the Vancouver-based Hunter Dickinson mining group, which is associated with several mining operations both in and outside of Canada, such as the Kemess South Mine in northern BC and the Campo Morado Mine in Guerrero Mexico.

The proposed Pebble Mine, contrary to its diminutive name, could be the largest open-pit gold and copper mine in North America, measuring 3–5 km wide and approximately 1.6 km deep—large enough to fit four Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other.

Filmmaker John “Hunter” Nolan’s feature directorial debut, UNEARTH—not to be confused with the 2020 American horror film of the same name whose plot explores the ill-effects of fracking—illustrates the experience of fighting the proposed Pebble Mine through the eyes of two pairs of siblings living in the region: Christina and AlexAnna Salmon, Indigenous community activists who consider the salmon part of their people’s lifeblood, and local salmon fishermen, Dunedin “Dune” and Auberin “Aube” Strickland.

The documentary was the brainchild of the Strickland brothers, who were born and raised in Bristol Bay, come from a family of fishermen, and had studied film in university. 

“By the time we got out of college, we were surprised that the fighting against Pebble was still going on,” Dune Strickland told Asparagus over video call, “We tried to find a way that we could fit in… What we thought is that a film might be the tool that…would help amplify the message of everyone that was already working against Pebble.” 

The proposed Pebble Mine, contrary to its diminutive name, could be large enough to fit four Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other.

The brothers came across Nolan while reaching out to people they knew in the film industry. He was an alumnus of the film and media studies program at Middlebury College in Vermont where Aube had studied and had worked as a cinematographer on several environment-focused documentaries.

The two met Nolan in May 2019 and began filming in Alaska soon after. They had already known the Salmon sisters for years, as they pass by their village of Igiugig every time they fish in Bristol Bay. The Salmons have led the fight against Pebble: Christina worked for the mining company for a year and a half before quitting and using all her knowledge to fight them, leading a state-wide ballot measure against the mine, while AlexAnna served on Pebble’s public advisory board to get to know the players behind the project.  

As women of Yup’ik and Aleut descent whose peoples’ way of life has depended on Bristol Bay for thousands of years, they were driven by teachings of living “connected to their community and in balance with their environment,” says AlexAnna Salmon.

“We’re the salmon people of Alaska. We’re also the last salmon cultures left in the world. This is our gift that our ancestors have given us and with that comes this huge responsibility,” Salmon continues. “A lot of times we talk about this for our kids and our village and our future generations and our nation but actually it’s for the world. It’s a planetary scale.” 

The film follows the Salmon sisters as they lead efforts on the ground and connect with regulatory bodies such the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to block the project. Meanwhile, the Strickland brothers—who co-directed the film with Nolan and also served as producers alongside the Salmon sisters—embark on a road trip to both active and defunct mines across the western US and Canada to verify whether the Pebble Limited Partnership’s claims of the Pebble Mine posing no threat to the local ecosystem are true. Spoiler alert: they’re not. 

The brothers visit the Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City, UT, where mining operations have contaminated the air with dust and heavy metals; the Silver Valley mining district in Idaho and the Berkeley Pit Mine in Butte, MT, where mining has contaminated the land and water with lead and arsenic; and the Mount Polley mine in BC, where a 2014 tailings pond breach released 25 billion litres of toxic waste, devastating local salmon habitats. While community members were happy to talk to the brothers about the adverse effects of mining, people associated with the mining industry were less forthcoming. 

This meant that the brothers sometimes had to conceal their identities as fishermen from Alaska, wearing hidden cameras and mics to get answers. What they found was that the mining industry is poorly regulated, able to lobby government officials for favourable policies and rulings, and seldom held accountable for its actions. This enables industry to disregard long-term environmental harm in favour of short-term financial gains—especially as the transition to “clean” energy powered by batteries made from mined minerals has led to increased demand. 

“When you read shareholder letters or various public statements from companies, it’s talking about how much ore is coming out of the ground and different technical difficulties and permitting machinations,” Strickland says. “The human and environmental cost wasn’t something that people talked about at all, or if they did it was as an expense or a line item in a budget.”

“Right now, the stories of what mining does on the ground, I don’t think are making it to those people in the positions of power,” he continues. “Or if they are, they’re choosing not to listen to them.”

The human and environmental cost wasn’t something that people talked about at all, or if they did it was as an expense or a line item in a budget.

UNEARTH attempts to change this by interspersing the Salmon sisters’ and Strickland brothers’ experiences with news clips of mining disasters and conversations with members of communities affected by them.

In January 2023, the EPA exercised its authority under the Clean Water Act to effectively veto the Pebble Mine, stating that discharge of dredged or fill material from the mine “would have unacceptable adverse effects” on Bristol Bay’s salmon fishery. While the EPA’s protections are durable, Strickland still worries that they might be withdrawn in the future—especially given how ubiquitous mined minerals are to our everyday lives. 

Strickland pointed out that mined metals power both the laptops and the digital platform we were using for our call and also make up the wires carrying our internet and electricity. This, Strickland acknowledges, makes it difficult for individuals to cut down on their metals footprint, but he thinks that consuming less and pushing for systemic changes can make a difference.

“We also need to make sure that the mining that happens while we reduce our reliance on mined materials happens better than it’s happened,” he says. “Until our values change as a society and we really learn to value healthy communities and intact ecosystems, I don’t think that Bristol Bay will ever be safe.”

“I’m hopeful that this movie and others like it and people fighting for Indigenous sovereignty and human rights [will help us] get there,” he adds. “But I think we’ve still got ways to go.”

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Vancouver’s DOXA Documentary Film Festival runs from May 1–11, 2025. UNEARTH (94 min) screens on May 9 at 7:15 pm at the SFU cinema and will be followed by a discussion. Tickets are available on the DOXA website.

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