Fiona Hamersley Chambers founded Metchosin Farm in 2004 on Southern Vancouver Island, where a unique temperate climate makes ideal conditions for seed crop production. Locally produced, organic, open-pollinated seeds provide the resilience, adaptability and hardiness required to maintain generations of food production in our bioregion. Fiona’s seed saving techniques can be replicated on a small or micro scale—anyone can do it! 

Salmon have always been an essential ingredient in the health of Mother Earth and her creatures. To Indigenous people the salmon is the Spirit that swims. This film will be a journey up and down the Fraser, the longest river in British Columbia (1375 km). We will show how many distinct Indigenous groups pay tribute to Mother Nature and the salmon through ritual, potlatches, stories and celebration ceremonies. We will explore how these beliefs and values have been translated into the Indigenous laws that follow the natural laws of Mother Earth, and how they must be integrated into our governing systems if we intend to survive on this planet.

Amalaxa Louisa Smith is a survivor of Canada’s residential school system, which targeted Indigenous children in a deliberate program of state-sanctioned cultural genocide.
Louisa is an elder, a trustee of Salmon Nation and a healer who believes that “reconciliation” cannot occur without people everywhere knowing the truth of what happened to Indigenous children. Louisa agreed to share the truth of her experience in residential schools to help people on their own reconciliation journey.

A warning: Louisa’s story includes content that many people will find difficult to listen to. 
If you feel you need support, we have a team to help you with that. Click the “support” tab on the Festival website or you can email pier@festivalofwhat.works

Thank you, and thank you Louisa for sharing your story.

The Voices for Wild Salmon: Salmon Forests Reel is presented by Friends of Clayoquot Sound as part of our Clayoquot Salmon Festival curation featuring 4 short films:  "Looking Back, Looking Forward", "ƛaʔuukʷiatḥ Dugout Canoe", "History of the 1993 Clayoquot Sound Logging Protests", and "Salmon Parks". For longer descriptions of each, please visit: https://focs.ca/clayoquot-salmon-festival/Fiona Hamersley Chambers founded Metchosin Farm in 2004 on Southern Vancouver Island, where a unique temperate climate makes ideal conditions for seed crop production. Locally produced, organic, open-pollinated seeds provide the resilience, adaptability and hardiness required to maintain generations of food production in our bioregion. Fiona’s seed saving techniques can be replicated on a small or micro scale—anyone can do it! 

The Salmon Celebration and Solidarity Concert Reel is presented by Friends of Clayoquot Sound as part of our Clayoquot Salmon Festival curation featuring 5 performances including the Gust of Wind Concert Series, Tsimka and Gisele Martin, Midnight Oil, and Praxis Life. For longer descriptions of each, please visit: https://focs.ca/clayoquot-salmon-festival/

This is Shortstack: a project dedicated to creating a housing solution that delivers a responsive, replicable, “missing middle” product in the Portland metro region. Find out more about their exceptional vision—and the way the founders work towards it by collaborating with women, non-binary and BIPOC individuals in every role involved in the building process, and prioritizing sustainable building, including ensuring any wood used is from the local region. This is an uplifting, fascinating exploration of a vision from the founders of Homework Development and Sister City respectively.

Norwegian/Unangax̂ filmmaker, Anna Hoover lives in Alaska, and has spent her summers in salmon territory on the waters of Bristol Bay. Hoover’s 4-minute film, Salmon Reflection, includes carefully curated voices and visuals, gathered with the goal of communicating the sacred reverence she and her culture hold for salmon. Salmon are the lifeblood of the communities they feed and support. Salmon Reflection provides a portal into an indigenous worldview of what salmon need.
Be carried by Aassanaaq Kairairuak’s Yup’ik song Seal Boy, and find your place in solidarity as a steward for future healthy generations of salmon and people. Chin’an – Gunalchéesh – Mahsi’choo – Quyana – Qagaasakung – Thank you

This time lapse shows the monthslong process of deconstructing the Nooksack Dam on the Middle Fork of Washington’s Nooksack River. This restoration will repair 16 miles of habitat for threatened salmon and steelhead. As America removes more and more deadbeat dams, the Nooksack stands as a powerful model for what's possible in Pacific Northwest river restoration efforts. 

Produced by director Shane Anderson and filmed and edited by Jesse Andrew Clark

Conventional fishing practices in mixed-stock commercial salmon fisheries often result in myriad, negative consequences for ecosystems and communities. This short film explains why and documents Wild Fish Conservancy's efforts to return to this historical fishery in the Pacific Northwest. This may be a win-win for fishermen, coastal communities, threatened wild salmon stocks, and the environment.

Produced by NORTH FORK STUDIOS and directed by Shane Anderson. Director of Photography: Jesse Andrew Clark
 

In 2018, the historic Camp Fire destroyed the town Paradise and killed 85 people. In its wake, the community gathered to rebuild. Their vision ensured housing and employment for the survivors, and an economy and community that are resilient in disaster. This film, set 50 years in the future, reflects on the rebuilding process in Paradise using stop-motion depictions of original paintings. The film is a blueprint for communities around the world who are facing disastrous conditions and seek to create a better world.

Join us at the Festival of What Works on November 6th from 12:00pm-1:00pm (PST) with our panelist Peter, Browning, Jenna Friebel, Will Honae, Jack Fiander, Nino Maltos and Andrew Miller for The Skagit: A Rural/Indigenous Case Study event.

Due to the scarcity of water with increasing drought, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon found common ground with local ranchers and farmers in the John Day Basin at Fox Creek to restore water flows and habitat to the region.

"The thing I can do the most for the environment would be to farm and to do it well," says Dave Semmelink, owner of Lentelus Farms in the Comox Valley. In this exclusive interview, Dave speaks about his regenerative agriculture techniques, funding opportunities for farmers in the valley, partnerships with conservation organizations, and the future of sustainable meat consumption.

Glen and Kathy Beaton of StoneCroft Farm have been farming in the Comox Valley, BC since the 70s and are passionate about preserving the land for future generations. Both raised on conventional farms, the pair decided to practice more sustainable and organic turkey farming. From breeding and raising to walking the birds to the abattoir, the entire process is done locally on the farm. Another way they’re making the switch to sustainable farming is by growing grains they need to feed livestock locally, rather than by purchasing from the prairies, which until recently was the primary option for settler farmers in the Valley.

Thanushi Eagalle, owner of Wild Bee Floral and founder of Wilder Florals, works to create a more sustainable and local option to the traditional imported flower market in Canada.She works with other floral farmers in the area to grow both flowers and businesses together. We joined Thanushi in conversation to find out What Works in floral farming across Salmon Nation.

Check out her website at www.wildbeeflorals.com

The Salmon Solidarity Documentary Screening is presented by Friends of Clayoquot Sound as part of our Clayoquot Salmon Festival curation featuring "Fairy Creek: The Last Stand" - a film by Justin Douglas and David Testo. For a longer description please click on the video or visit: https://focs.ca/clayoquot-salmon-festival/

Rebuilding local food systems is one of the best ways to make communities more healthy, prosperous and resilient. As CEO and co-founder of Cairnspring Mills , Kevin Morse recognizes this, and has been able to use his experience as a farmer, economic development leader, conservationist and community builder to revitalize the local food system in the Skagit-Valley. The team at Cairnspring Mills are demonstrating the central role that community and authentic foods like flour play in life through the unique working model they employ with local grain producers.
You can learn more about Kevin's work and Cairnspring Mills at www.cairnspring.com
Film by Taliesin Black-Brown and Ben Cowan

This innovative digital production features the captivating life stories of ten Indigenous community members of the Stikine River, as well as cinematic imagery and Indigenous music and visual art. Drawn together by shared concerns of climate change, resource extraction in northern British Columbia, and declining wild salmon populations, Stikine River Indigenous peoples now seek reconnection and shared solutions. 

Presented by Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission and Ping Chong + Company, in collaboration with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Salmon Beyond Border. The production is led by Tis Peterman (Tlingit/Tahltan, US), Annita McPhee (Tahltan/Tlingit, Canada), Kirby Muldoe (Gitxsan/Tsimshian, Canada), Heather Hardcastle, and Creative Director/Producer Ryan Conarro. 

Amy Gulick, author of The Salmon Way; Melanie Brown, Bristol Bay fisherman and musician; Elizabeth Herendeen of SalmonState; and Ray Troll, well-known Ketchikan-based artist of all things wild Alaska salmon, speak about their stories and connections to wild salmon. 

In Episode 2 of The Salmon Way web series, join Amy Gulick in dialogue with Michelle Ravenmoon. Alaska Native Michelle Ravenmoon (Dena’ina Athabascan) grew up on the shores of Iliamna Lake, fishing for salmon, hunting moose and birds, and gathering berries and plants. Salmon are the life force for her traditional way of life, nourishing body and spirit and connecting her to her home stream.

In Episode 3 of The Salmon Way, Amy Gulick, John Yeager from Wrangell, and Tlingit Athabascan artist and co-founder of Trickster Company Crystal Worl to celebrate and share stories of their salmon ways of life in Alaska.

You’re invited to show your support for Bringing the Salmon Home: The Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative. Salmon have been blocked by dams from returning to the upper Columbia River for over 80 years. It will take all of us working together to bring the salmon back. Sign on here: https://columbiariversalmon.ca/petition/

We follow Lennie Skookum John, a salmon warrior from Ahousaht Nation and Jeh Custerra campaigner at Friends of Clayoquot touring the fish farms in Clayoquot Sound and discuss the consequences of fish farms on local ecosystems —and how we can save our wild salmon and communities moving forward. 
It’s by using an integrated approach to learning, advocacy and regeneration that we can shape the future of our coastal waters.

The second video is a portfolio on Alexandra Morton shot by Mark Titus and edited by Patrick Troll.

This video was screened at the Festival of What Works 2020.

Joe Martin is one of the most respected Indigenous leaders in British Columbia, and is a leading voice about old-growth protection. Gisele Martin, his daughter, continues the family legacy through her work as a Nuu-chah-nulth language and culture activist and educator.. Enter the creative hub Joe’s carving shop and listen to Gisele’s wisdom on a visit to a recent clearcut to see the forest, and its future, through their eyes.
 

Join us at the Festival of What Works on November 5th from 6:00 to 6:45pm (PST) for Collage as Love Letter event with artist Sarah Campen. 

Award-winning interdisciplinary artist Sarah Campen will share a 2-3-min teaser, discuss her creative process, and field questions about her forthcoming film, Meant To Be Out There (working title). The work explores and celebrates the connections between water, salmon, and fishermen in Lingit Aani (Southeast Alaska) through story-telling and the dancing of movements of fishermen involved in the commercial salmon troll fishery. Sarah will describe how this unique film is her “love letter” to Southeast Alaska/Lingit Aani, to wild salmon, and to a salmon-centered way of life that she and so many Southeast Alaskans cherish and fight to protect. There will be an opportunity for Q&A.

Video Clip from The Blue Economy session on Thursday, Nov, 4th led by Native Conservancy. How can Alaskans harness the opportunity to create healthy economies and ecosystems through development of Indigenous-led kelp farming practices?  This session will showcase leaders in the Blue Economy—Alaskans staking a claim in the state’s plans to grow a billion-dollar mariculture industry. While leading fisheries are lining up for permits, the difference lies in millennia of experience in sustainable harvest and marine responsibility that inform a Native brand in Indigenous-led kelp farming and processed foods.

For thousands of years, the Nimiipuu people piloted their canoes along the tumbling waters of the Snake River. But after dams were built and the river choked off, a tradition was lost for over 100 years. Until now…

Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment and Earthjustice present “A Healing Journey.”

Emerge Collab’s Super Tank team has collectively facilitated thousands of hours of collaborative breakthroughs, insights and transformations. We’ve bridged silos, connected cultures and broken down barriers in large corporations, creative enterprises and nonprofits alike with infectious insight and empathy. Folks who have experienced us in action are blown away by how quickly we cut to the core of things, bringing clarity, peace, flow and transformative impact.