The adventure film genre tends to conjure up images of rugged mountaineers risking their lives to climb the tallest peaks in the world.
However, at last week’s 5Point Adventure Film Festival in Carbondale, many of the stories on the big screen focused on the diversity of relationships people have with the wild places around them.
One such film is the short documentary, “School of Fish,” which was co-directed by Carbondale-based filmmaker Oliver Sutro and won this year’s People’s Choice Award.
The film follows 24-year-old Triston Chaney and his Alaskan Yup'ik family as they fight to protect their culture and fishing livelihood against a proposed mining project.
Chaney flew all the way from Dillingham, Alaska for the screening this past weekend and Oliver took him out fly fishing on a gray, rainy Saturday on the Fryingpan River.
Chaney grew up salmon fishing with his grandfather on Bristol Bay in the southwestern part of Alaska, and this was his first time fishing in Colorado.
Chaney cast his fly into the rushing water while standing on a large rock on the bank.
“There's no nets in the water, no smoke houses along the river,” Chaney said. “I guarantee you, if there was a native village here, [there’d be a] net, smokehouse, cabin, burn barrel, and way less fish in the river.”
For most of Chaney’s life, his family and the Native Alaskan community they’re a part of, have been fighting a proposed gold and copper mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay.
In the opening scene of the film, “School of Fish,” Triston’s grandfather, Robin Samuelson, talks about how his people have always been looked down on and treated as “expendable,” but they’re not afraid to stand up to big companies backed by money and political power.
“Iliamna Lake is the most productive salmon lake in the world,” Samuelson said in the film. “And I told them, I said, ‘You’re not going to pollute that lake, I’ll be up there with my shotgun if I have to stop you.’”
For Chaney and his family, salmon fishing isn’t just a hobby they enjoy, it’s their livelihood.
“That's how we measure wealth; how full the freezers are,” Chaney said. “You know, because when your freezers are full, you’ve got food.”
Another measure of wealth is generosity, something Chaney carries with him when he’s out commercial fishing or teaching other Native youth to be fishing guides.
“Sharing is a big part of our culture, so when we get our first moose and first fish of the season, we go and give it away,” Chaney said.
“School of Fish” is also a portrait of a vast landscape that Chaney describes as “a more wild Canada,” but local filmmaker Oliver Sutro doesn’t think that fully does it justice.
“I feel like Triston kind of dumbs down what it's like in Alaska, because he’s lived there and experienced it, but you could be flying for like 50 miles and not see a single house or a road or a hut.” Sutro said. “There's mountains and rivers and beautiful trees and tundra and it just goes on and on and on and there's no one there.”
That vastness makes it hard to travel in or out of the area; it took Triston 21 hours to get to Carbondale for the festival, but he said it was worth it because this was his first time seeing the film on the big screen with an audience.
“Before the film, you know, I was just chatting with strangers and whatnot and then after the film, I was chatting with strangers, but they were like, ‘You're him, you’re that guy in the film.’ It was cool,” Chaney said.
It was also a special experience for Sutro to get to show the film in the community he lives in.
“It's been amazing that it's been in my home, being able to share that with Triston, and to have it be at 5Point, one of my favorite festivals of all time,” Sutro said.
After the film screened at 5Point over the weekend, Sutro told the audience that he and his co-director Colin Arisman recently received a “cease and desist” letter from the mining company.
“This is just a reminder, you know, getting a letter from the CEO of the Pebble Mine telling you to stop screening the film, that this is a constant fight,” Sutro said.
While Sutro was editing the film, the EPA did pass some protections to block the mine, and Chaney is hopeful that screening the documentary at festivals like 5Point can also make a difference.
“It just brings awareness, you know, shows people something that, somebody from Colorado or somebody who doesn't know anything about Alaska, wouldn't know otherwise,” Chaney said.
During the film Q&A, Chaney and Sutro shared the Save Bristol Bay effort that people can support to help stop the mine.
But Sutro said they don’t want the mining controversy to take away from the larger story conveyed in the film about a culture and a people that have been stewarding the waters they fish for generations.
“I really wanted to focus more on Triston's family and the cultural elements that are at stake,” Sutro said. “Fishing is a way to invest yourself in a natural place or build connections and to make you want to preserve a place.”
Back on the Fryingpan River, Chaney told Sutro that he was excited to be fishing in a new place, but he was most grateful for the company.
“I love fishing with good people,” Chaney said. “And I have the best guide in Carbondale so, you know, I care less about catching a fish.”
As a light rain started up again, the two friends cast their lines into the water one last time before heading back to the film festival.
“School of Fish” will be one of the films showing at 5Point Adventure Film Festival’s encore screening on Saturday, May 4 at The Arts Campus at Willits.
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