Inside the fight to protect Canada’s most iconic bays
A new documentary from National Geographic Pristine Seas and Oceans North spotlights how Inuit and Cree communities are creating marine protected areas in Canada’s north.
Flocks of geese soar through the sky in iconic V-formations, honking loudly. Wearing a matching camouflage jacket and pants, and a gun slung across his back, Edward Bearskin lifted his hands to his mouth and produced a convincing goose call. “I hunt geese for life. It’s part of my culture,” says Bearskin, vice president of the Cree Outfitting and Tourism Association in Chisasibi, a Cree community in Quebec.
But the nutrient-rich eelgrass that provides the main source of food for geese is disappearing. “Stories I’ve heard was, it was bountiful in geese. And today, with the climate change, that’s changed it. There’s eelgrass that’s disappeared,” Bearskin says in the new National Geographic documentary Tasiujarjuaq & Weeneebeg: Bays of Life, now streaming on YouTube.
Eelgrass grows in the shallow waters of Wiinipaakw, also known as James Bay, in northern Canada. The film follows scientists with the Chisasibi Eeyou Resource and Research Institute who are investigating its decline.
“I want to conduct research—I need research, I need Western science—but it has to be approached through the eyes of what is Cree ecological knowledge,” says George Lameboy, president of the Chisasibi Eeyou Resource and Research Institute, in the film. “You cannot take away the eelgrass and say there is no impact on the environment. And you cannot say ‘the eelgrass disappeared and there’s no impact on the Cree.’”
This vital research is helping the Cree Nation with its goal of creating a marine protected area: the Wiinipaakw Indigenous Protected Area and National Marine Conservation Area. It’s one of four regions on display in the documentary that may one day be legally protected by the Canadian government.
The film takes viewers on an expedition through the bays’ pristine waters where the Inuit and Cree communities live along the Hudson and James Bays in northern Canada—delicate areas that are under threat from climate change, mining, and shipping.
Protecting vital waters
The documentary is part of the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas project that, since 2008, has been exploring and protecting the world’s oceans, helping to create 31 marine reserves across the planet. Pristine Seas takes a unique approach to filmmaking by collaborating with Indigenous leaders to advocate for legal protection of marine ecosystems.
“Our entire project is built around the concept of using a combination of science, policy, and storytelling to convince governments and to help local communities create marine protected areas in their waters,” explained Brian Newell, the film’s director and senior editor at Pristine Seas.
The film unfolds across four chapters that depict four different marine areas—each one opens with a short animation telling a local legend or personal story. It’s not your typical nature film; instead of focusing solely on scenes of plants and animals, the filmmakers take a holistic approach to storytelling that begins and ends with Indigenous perspectives.
Jennie Knopp, the film’s producer and the community and science director for Oceans North (which co-produced the film with Pristine Seas), had existing relationships with many Indigenous communities around the bays, and understood their yearslong work advocating for marine protected areas. She said the filmmakers approached Indigenous leaders with the idea for the project, and they worked together to decide which voices to spotlight.
“It was very iterative and collaborative,” Knopp said. “We wanted to give an audience to and bring awareness to the Indigenous leadership, voice and vision, and share a message of hope.”
The film and expedition showed the animals, plants, and fish in the bays from an underwater perspective, reinforcing the connection that locals and viewers have to these places. It’s a connection the filmmakers hope will move decision makers to action, Knopp explained. “Because people only protect what they love.”
Honoring community ties
One of the brightest moments comes late in the film.
Several plump geese that were harvested by locals are roasting over a fire inside a tipi, in preparation for a feast as part of a Walking Out Ceremony. As the sun rises in Chisasibi, three small girls walk out of the tipi onto the grass. Held in the spring, the ceremony marks the first time that children ever touch the ground in their life. They are not allowed to touch the ground, Mother Earth, before this ceremony. The ceremony celebrates their duties to protect Mother Earth as they hunt, trap, and fish, and welcomes them into the world.
“That ceremony had never been filmed before and shared globally, so we were very honored to be able to film that,” Knopp said. “It was the chief of that community and several of the elders in leadership that said that there was going to be a Walking Out Ceremony for the three girls while we were there, and that we should film it, because it ties in everything.”
Knopp said her biggest takeaway from the project is that the natural world is so intricately tied to Inuit and Cree cultures, identities, languages, and ways of life.
“People still live as one with nature,” Knopp said. “This hasn't disappeared from our world. This is happening in the present day, and even though many of us live in cities, very populated places, and we might not be as connected to nature, we can all learn how important nature is, and can still be connected, and can still take care of it.”
