The Man Who Lives with Bears

Alaska... Here, in this vast and spectacularly beautiful land teeming with abundant wildlife, discover the "Spirit of the Wild." Experience it in the explosive calving of glaciers, the celestial fires of the Aurora Borealis. Witness it in the thundering stampede of caribou, the beauty of the polar bear and the stealthful, deadly hunt of the wolf pack.

'Alaska Far Away' tells the story of the Matanuska Colonization Project of 1935, a creative and controversial New Deal program that relocated 202 families devastated by the Great Depression, taking them from the upper Midwest to the Matanuska Valley in Alaska to start an experimental farming colony. It generated a whirlwind of publicity and controversy at the time, not only as a federally-funded social experiment, but also as one of the last pioneer movements in America. The Matanuska Colony isn't just a fascinating footnote to the history of Alaska. It encompasses the despair of the Depression, the creative energy of the New Deal, the adventure of pioneering in Alaska, and the best and worst of our government and ordinary citizens in facing those extraordinary challenges.

Roam the Wild West frontier land of the Rio Grande’s Big Bend alongside its iconic animals, including black bears, rattlesnakes and scorpions.

The majestic Alaskan brown bear is the largest predator in southeastern Alaska, but everywhere, its ancient haunts are under siege. As the modern world closes in, the great bear’s world is shrinking and encounters between humans and bears are on the rise. Join researcher LaVern Beier as he uses cutting edge technology to protect this extraordinary species. To observe them on their turf, without risking life and limb, LaVern attempts to deploy National Geographic’s CRITTERCAM. Until now, CRITTERCAM has been used almost exclusively on marine animals. Vern and his colleagues are on the cusp of a revolution in terrestrial field science…the opportunity to vicariously walk with bears into the deepest corners of their habitats, where even great hunters barely dare venture.

The story of an Eskimo father and son who train and groom a sled dog team. When the father is lost on an ice floe, the son takes the unproven team on the search, and succeeds in finding his father.

Werner Herzog's documentary film about the "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one man's attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

Alaska – 90,000 square miles of wilderness. Could its uninhabited frontier be hiding monsters and mysteries?

Captain Kleinschmidt leads an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Museum to the arctic regions of Alaska and Siberia to study the natives and the animal life.

A documentary propaganda film produced by the U.S. Army Signal Corps about the Aleutian Islands Campaign during World War II. The film opens with a map showing the strategic importance of the island, and the thrust of the 1942 Japanese offensive into Midway and Dutch Harbor. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Alex Gray, Josh Mulcoy, and Pete Devries went on a journey through the remote Aleutian Arc of Alaska, the birthplace of storm systems that send swell back to the rest of us in civilization. They braved heavy weather, flew on rickety prop planes, and ate seal meat en route to discovering one of the best cold-water slabs in the world. The film follows the cold-water crew as they traverse the island on quad bikes, tracking pulses of swell to remote bays and never before surfed points. Set against the stunning volcanic backdrop of the Aleutian Islands, The Cradle of Storms is cold-water surf exploration at its finest.

The grizzly has roamed North America for nearly a million years. And now, in the last century and a half, he has come dangerously close to extinction. Frank and John Craighead have tracked this extraordinary creature.

Documentary about the lifelong project of Troy Hurtubise, a man who has been obsessed with researching the Canadian grizzly bear up close, ever since surviving an early encounter with such a bear. The film documents Hurtubise's diligent work to improve his homemade "grizzly-proof" suit of armour, his efforts to test its resilience, and his forays into the Rockies to track down the grizzlies he dreams of meeting. The film manages to capture the humor of the project as well as its sincerity.

Four Alaskan bush families take the leap of faith to pursue their lifelong dream of living off the grid in the remote and unpredictable wilderness.

Newly into addiction recovery, an urgent threat emerges to spur filmmaker, Mark Titus back to the Alaskan wilderness - where the people of Bristol Bay and the world's last intact wild salmon runs face devastation if a massive copper mine is constructed.

Even in a spot as remote and wild as Alaska's Kodiak Island, the struggle between man and nature continues. Wildlife filmmaker Wolfgang Bayer presents this tug-of-war from both the human and bear perspective. Taking viewers inside a Kodiak bear's den and providing an inside glimpse of the great carnivore's daily life, Bayer reveals the bears' fight for survival in the face of a shrinking habitat and often tragic encounters with humans.

Children of the Arctic is a portrait of five Native Alaskan teenagers growing up in Barrow - the northernmost community in the United States. As their climate and culture undergo profound changes, they strive to balance being modern American kids and the inheritors of an endangered way of life.

The documentary follows a crew of snowboarders for six weeks in the Chugach mountains, and showcases what it takes to ride these unique Alaskan mountains: the waiting, the stress, the dangers, everything that goes into it and is usually never shown. It also retraces some of the history of this unknown discipline and pays tribute to the pioneers. But the film really focuses on the human aspect and why these people do what they do.

Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska is home to the largest bear on earth, the Kodiak Bear. At least 2,500 bears live on the island and the animal is regarded as the world’s biggest land predator, reaching an impressive four meters in height when standing on its hind legs. Film maker Stefan Quinth spent three years filming the Kodiak Bear and the wildlife of Kodiak Island. His film is a dramatic story about bear and salmon, beavers and eagles. But it is also a film about the thrill of meeting the giant bear eye to eye in its natural habitat.

In 2019, 1.2 million people stepped off a cruise ship into the small, south-east Alaskan town of Ketchikan. The next year, in 2020, zero did. After decades of diligent work building a sleepy fishing, mining, and logging town into one of the most sought after cruise destinations in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed Ketchikan into an empty shell—lined with restaurants, shops, and attractions for the visitors who no longer come. Now, the town must find a way to survive without its key economy until the day arrives when cruise visitors once again pour into its docks.

First Descent is a 2005 documentary film about snowboarding and its beginning in the 1980s. The snowboarders featured in this movie (Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata, Terje Haakonsen, Hannah Teter and Shaun White with guest appearances from Travis Rice) represent three generations of snowboarders and the progress this young sport has made over the past two decades. Most of the movie was shot in Alaska.