Documentary program plants seed of inspiration, lifelong learning

When See Stories brought its documentary filmmaking program to Wrangell two years ago, most of the students who participated hadn't picked up a camera outside of what was on their phones.

Now, Laura Davies, a teacher at Stikine Middle School, is carrying on what she and her students learned by creating Stikine Stories, producing more documentaries and podcasts. One of her former students who participated in the original program even plans to make filmmaking a career.

Alaska-based See Stories, a nonprofit organization focused on building inclusive communities through film and storytelling, began by focusing on youth education in Title I schools (lower-income communities) and Alaska Native communities nearly 10 years ago, said Seth Bader, the youth programs manager.

"Over its 10 years, See Stories and affiliated programming has been probably in upward of 50 rural communities around the state," he said. "Now, we've expanded in the last few years ⎯ and in the last couple years the growth has been exponential ⎯ into trying to support the mission through teachers. In the last couple years, we've probably been around close to 70 teachers that have taken See Stories' teacher professional development program."

Recently, See Stories completed a vetted curriculum with input from "culture bearers and teachers from around the state," Bader said. "The goal there has been to really get them trained on our curriculum so that they can implement programs at their school and through their communities."

That's exactly what has happened in Wrangell.

When the program came to town two years ago, students worked with Bader to create 10-minute documentaries. One focused on the history of an old timber mill, another looked at fishing, and still another, created by student Jackson Pearson, covered the tourism industry.

The foray into filming (more specifically, video recording) inspired Pearson to pursue a career in documentary filmmaking.

Thanks to Davies' fundraising efforts last year, she was able to form Stikine Stories, a club that is modeled after See Stories, and purchase video and editing equipment, giving middle school and high school students the opportunity to continue creating documentaries.

Although this year's club is still coming up with ideas, Pearson, now a sophomore at Wrangell High School, has already been conducting interviews for his project as an intern for See Stories. He was approached by Bader over the summer to see if he'd be interested in participating in the internship program. Bader said he was impressed with Pearson's natural filming abilities and interview skills.

Pearson accepted the internship without hesitation, having been inspired by the first experience.

"We did the workshop when I was in my eighth-grade year," he recalled. "I would say about halfway through, I already decided that that's what I want to do in the future as a full-time job because I love doing it so much."

He said he enjoys hearing the perspectives of other people and then being able to share those stories with others. "Without documentaries and stuff, you wouldn't be able to hear the untold stories of other people."

This year, as an intern, Pearson is working on a project about the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). He's already interviewed former U.S. senator Frank Murkowski and a few other key players in the federal legislation.

See Stories was approached by Deborah Williams, now a lecturer at University of California, Santa Barbara, with a concern over how much students were learning about ANILCA by the time they graduated from high school in Alaska.

Williams, an attorney, lived and worked in Alaska for about 37 years. Along with a myriad of other roles, she was appointed in 1994 as special assistant for Alaska to the Secretary of the Interior. In that role, she advised the Secretary on the management of more than 220 million acres of national lands in the state. It tied in with ANILCA.

"She had noticed that students ⎯ especially students graduating high school ⎯ would graduate with a very rudimentary or sometimes non-existent understanding of ANILCA," Bader said. "I think there are a lot of reasons for that. One, ANILCA is just so complex, honestly."

Pearson and other interns will conduct interviews with officials, leaders and other community members throughout the state to produce a series of videos focused on the many aspects of ANILCA and how it affects the differing communities.

Along with her concerns, Bader said, Williams also brought funding for the project, contributed through the Audubon Society, "to just tell the story of ANILCA."

"The big goal is just being able to create a series of films and then, alongside that, some curriculum, so that teachers can have a freely accessible library of films and curriculum to teach their students about ANILCA," he said.

Pearson's angle on ANILCA will be how the law affects subsistence users.

Though the documentaries being considered by students in Stikine Stories aren't as complex as ANILCA, they will still tell the stories of the people who make Alaska work.

One such story would be produced by Kalee Herman, a junior, about oyster farming. She would focus on her family's operation, Canoe Lagoon Oysters, and how the oysters are grown, how the family travels to the remote site, and how the mollusks are harvested. She said she would probably get a lot of drone shots, along with using one of the club's video cameras.

The equipment makes all the difference in the quality of the documentaries, Davies said, and along with the cameras and laptops they use, she said a grant from the Sealaska Heritage Institute will purchase four iPads with a drawing and animation app called Procreate that will allow the budding filmmakers to add animation and other graphics to their documentaries.

"We have all the equipment ... and so far, nothing has been broken or lost," Davies said. "Except the irresponsible cross-country coach left the yearbook camera in the van. That was me."

Silje Morse, a freshman, isn't quite sure what her next project is going to be after her previous video projects on the timber mill and her grandmother, but the creative process is part of what attracts her to filmmaking.

"It's fun to make raw footage. It's pretty satisfying to go from this raw, unfinished video, and then you can mold it and shape it into this polished film," she said. "It's just pretty fun to do."