Posted: November 29th, 2007

BC SPACE Gallery

235 Forest Ave Laguna Beach, CA 92651

Please join us for a great opportunity to learn about the struggles faced by Tribes in Washington through a viewing of the environmental film “Unconquering the Last Frontier” AND participate in an environmental roundtable this Sunday in Laguna Beach.

The screening will be held in support of Southern California creeks, rivers and riparian ecosystems, including San Mateo Creek (Trestles), Aliso Creek, and Matilija Creek (at the Ventura River) among others, along with habitat preservation efforts located on the land previously occupied by the former El Toro Marine Base in Orange County. Community and environmental leaders, indigenous representatives and healers, activists, and the public are invited to attend.

The screening will be followed by an environmental roundtable where Acjachemen tribal leaders, the United Coalition to Protect Panhe, and The City Project, along with other environmental groups will discuss how this film relates to environmental and cultural causes here in southern California.

“Unconquering the Last Frontier” describes how the Lower Elwha Dam was constructed illegally in 1908, how dam management practices contributed to the river’s decline, and how events on the river were paralleled by the systematic political, economic, and cultural suppression of the native people. The story is told through the eyes of Lower Elwha Klallam tribal elders, Beatrice Charles and Adeline Smith, along with tribal members, Rachel Kowalski-Hagaman, Joe Luce, and former Tribal Chairman, Russ Hepfer. Acclaimed Native American actor Gary Farmer narrated the film. Bay Area composer Tony Saunders created its score.

In 1976, the tribe, along with 14 environmental groups, intervened in the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) process to stop the relicensing of one of the river’s two dams. The tribe wanted the dams removed and the Elwha River watershed ecosystem restored. Such restoration was mandated by Congress in 1992 and is slowly moving forward. In February 2000, the federal government purchased the dams, the first step toward their physical removal, now anticipated to begin in 2012.

The film tells of the Klallam Nation’s struggle to recover their culture and traditional livelihoods in the shadow of hydropower development. At the same time, the story can be seen as a cautionary tale, as the companies that once developed and dominated the Pacific Northwest have since moved on to Pennsylvania, to the American South, to Canada, Alaska, Malaysia, Thailand, South America and Russia, and now China and other locations, where they’ve continued their same practices at the expense of the global environment and of indigenous peoples of those regions. The film also calls into question an Americanized notion of “Progress,” which assumes that ecosystem resources are expendable in the process of capital and technological expansion and resource extraction. Now in the era of global climate change, we find out they are not.

Robert Lundahl & Associates, LLC is a global film, video and multimedia production company specializing in environmental sustainability. More information about “Unconquering the Last Frontier” is available at: www.unconquering.org.

Admission is free, but seating is limited so reservations are encouraged. For additional information and rsvp, please contact BC Space Gallery at (949) 497-1880 or c/o bcspace@mol.net, or visit on the web at www.bcspace.com.