Bear People

Bear People was born of a desire to capture the oral histories of elder activists in the environmental movement. Both of us come from communities in the Northwest where significant environmental actions occurred in the past, giving rise to organizations such as Earth First!, the Ruckus Society, and Greenpeace. We have lived among people sharing stories about their activism for years, and feel that it is valuable history worth recording.

While attending a regional bear conservation meeting in the mountains of northern Idaho in 2023, Kevin asked the participants if anyone would be willing to speak on camera about their experiences. The three subjects in this film are those who volunteered.

This was initiated as a simple oral history project, but in the process of trying to better understand the context of these interviews, we stumbled across a trove of archival footage. Video capturing much of this history was sitting, largely ignored and un-indexed, in community access television archives that had been filmed by many people that we now know as friends. We found ourselves matching video and newspaper clippings with the stories told on camera, reading through radical environmental journals, and tracking down writers of protest music.

We hope we have put together a meaningful piece of relatively recent environmental history, one that captures an example of "positive masculinity" and shines a light on the well-worn (but under-documented) paths of political and environmental direct action for the next generation.