by intern Maia Piccagli
“Eating Alaska” is a quirky documentary that follows the journey that Ellen Frankenstein, a former vegetarian, takes in search of a local, sustainable diet in Alaska.
After 15 omnivorous years married to a commercial fisherman and deer hunter, she sets out from her town of Sitka to explore the ways that sustainable eating in Alaska necessarily looks different from eating sustainably in the lower 48.
In her journey, she raises a number of questions and finds answers to a few:
- Can non-natives live off the land respectfully? According to whom? What does that mean?
- What happens when the environment where the food comes from is not healthy?
- What is the impact of eating foods shipped thousands of miles?
- How does the energy/fuel used to harvest some of these sustainable products affect the debate?
