A
television documentary series in four parts
about Native Alaska produced by Channel 6 Television Denmark |
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The
Native peoples of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions
share a common fate - the gradual erosion of their
ancestral lands and traditional way of life by colonization,
assimilation and the exploitation of their
sovereignty and natural resources by outsiders.
Though citizens of the United States, Alaska's
Natives retain a legitimate claim to their own
nationality and sovereignty based on their use and
occupation of their lands for thousands of years. |
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| "Native
Experience" is the story of the colonization
and industrialization of Native Alaska - told in
particular through the words and experience of
Alaska's Inuit - a story which began in the 19th
century with the arrival of Russian fur-traders,
American missionaries, gold-digger, homesteaders
and Yankee whalers, and which led to Alaska's
Statehood in 1959, the discovery of the Prudhoe
Bay oil fields in 1967 and Native Alaska's fight
for the land. |
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With
the enactment in 1971 of the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act, the US Congress opened the door
for the development of Alaska's oil and mineral
resources, sealing the fate of Native Alaska.
ANCSA extinguished - at least under US law - all
future Native claims to the land, and shaping the
future social, cultural and economic development
of Alaska's Native communities. The Settlement Act
would have far reaching consequences for Native
Alaska. |
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| Today
- three decades later - Native Alaska is still
working to adapt to the changes which ANCSA
brought, and to restore, enhance and protect the
Alaska's traditional cultures and ways of life -
in the face of industrial development and a
growing cash economy - for Alaska's Natives, the
fight of their forefathers to protect their
language, culture and traditions continues. |
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| "Native
Experience" is their story. |
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| This
four part documentary series was filmed on location in
Alaska over a two year period working closely with Native
communities and Native organizations, to provide a
comprehensive history of modern industrial, economic and
social development seen from the perspective of Native
Alaska. This is probably the last documentary series about
this subject that features many of the key people who were
a part of the fight for the land in the late 60's and
early 70's, and who experienced at first-hand Native
Alaska's transition from a subsistence culture to a modern
industrial society. |
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This
website has been created to promote the Native Experience
series to broadcasters, educational and institutional
establishments, Native organizations and other cultural
institutions. The producers are keen to promote its
distribution and exhibition in public-service television,
educational and cultural applications, and in particular
in Alaska and amongst Native communities in the English,
Danish and Inuit speaking regions of the world.
For further details, please contact the "Native
Experience" production team at Channel
6 Television Denmark. |
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