Arctic Currents: A Year in the Life of the Bowhead Whale (English)

This film (narrated in English) presents the epic journey of bowhead whales as they make their annual migration across the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas. The film takes its narrative and title from the 2013 calendar edited by Steve Okkonen. The vision for this film is to improve public understanding of the iconic bowhead whales and their role in the Pacific Arctic marine ecosystem.
The film explores whale taxonomy, physiology, diet, behaviors, and their widespread movement through Subarctic and Arctic waters. Other topics include the study of the whales through ongoing tagging and aerial observation programs, and the extensive body of traditional knowledge gathered and sustained by the indigenous whaling peoples.
This film is also available in these languages:
St. Lawrence Island Yupik: • Arctic Currents: A Yea...
Inupiaq: • Arctic Currents: A Yea...
For more information, please see the museum's production blog at www.arcticcurrents.wordpress.com

[@marczwander893]

Love that people narrate who actually know how to pronounce the native names. Thank you.

[@inkydragon27]

I'm very grateful Indigenous community members were onboard to narrate 🙌

[@lisayee-litzenberg9880]

Fantastic film! I love that it is from the viewpoint of native Inupiat peoples. I learned a lot about the Bowhead Whale, perhaps the longest lived mammal on earth.

[@teds9896]

Absolutely excellent! Love the animation, score, and narration as superb.

[@sandyharper7810]

This is brilliant and beautifully presented, I could watch this consecutively...for hours ; ) The graphics highlighting the whale's migration and the season's changing are fantastic and informative.

[@MRptwrench]

This was outstanding. Artistic and educational. I believe this should be required education for every U.S. public school student. What an effective way to communicate the importance of these Indigenous Peoples' culture and the citizens' responsibility to support it.
(p.s. I hope I'm mistaken, and this is actually part of the U.S. public school curriculum!)

[@judithazavala]

This was awesome!

[@SameerPrehistorica]

Nice animation, the average Bowhead whale certainly weighs more than 50 tonnes.

[@whaleharmony5984]

amazing material! Thanks

[@elizzievb]

This was great! Very informative and I love the narration. Thank you!

[@gooberson995]

Beautiful

[@sarahlynn4798]

that was great! i love learning about whales. love the native representation. God i want videos on all animals like this 😁

[@janetdavis3289]

Sounds like they are using native inupiut, sorry can't spell it. Very interesting, love the idea of using the native Alaskans. Who else would understand the go-ahead whale. Beautiful!

[@jaxnean2663]

Why cgi!?? I'm really disappointed...

[@inkydragon27]

To gather the live footage would take many hours of arctic diving, many thousands of dollars, in addition to special permissions from the owners of the territory. Even then we may never have gathered adequate footage to populate this film.
I animated the whales in this film as faithfully to real-life Bowheads as I could, using live footage clips and first-hand accounts from Inupiaq whaling captains and marine scientists.
Cheers,
Hannah

[@rickwhite4137]

I didn't know...

[@perennialbeachcomber.7518]

Wikipedia: "Bowhead whale." Files: 1: "Geoglyphs Worldwide." 2. "Visual Metaphors".
3. "Variety." Etc.

[@janetdavis3289]

Bow head, sorry predictive texting.

[@beerthug]

sound like they're talking to 3 year olds.

[@floyddavidson3250]

How well do you speak Inupiaq? That is their first language. Both the male and female narrators speak English as a second language.

[@MRptwrench]

I removed my initial reply to the comment because it was confrontational. Some Aboriginal/Indigenous Peoples have English as their second or even third language, as learning the language of their neighboring people may seem to be more important to their survival. The Indigenous of the far North survive in an extremely cold environment. Their breathing and metabolism is not similar to the average suburbanite of the lower 48. Their vocal pacing is going to be different.
Perhaps next winter consider a trip to Alaska. Somewhere like Juneau, or if you're daring try Anchorage! I don't suggest a tenderfoot travel any further north though. Nome might be better to visit in the summer. Hey, maybe you'll get to interact with a friendly Iñupiat or Yup'ik ! Then you can ask them, but try to be careful and not insult their culture and heritage.

[@oliviathehuman3163]

Fb 🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈

[@95KIPPIE]

This documentary is being narrated by any inuite people

[@BrandonCiCi]

500 peo-pol

[@kylewood303]

strange accent, sounds like a russian documentary

[@hoodhippo674]

its actually a native american talking

[@RoseGold1224]

kyle Wu Russian 😂

[@201dineh]

lol.. russsian

[@terris8555]

The 2 narrators are Native Americans from Alaska.

[@inkydragon27]

The narrators are Indigenous community members from Inupiaq and S.L.Yupik villages on the Alaskan coast.