One Ocean Film Tour Films

Neah Bay: Restoring Ancestral Waters

Film Maker: Nancy Donnelly
Run Time: 15 minutes

For thousands of years Makah Tribal fishermen like Robert Moss hunted for traditional foods in the waters of Washington’s Neah Bay. But today thousands of tons of marine debris literally loom over the Makah Tribe’s ancestral waters, threatening to choke the waters that sustained these self-described ocean hunters’ families for generations – including a dystopian 3,000-ton piece of concrete-and-steel highway bridge abandoned decades ago. It’s a daily reminder of the potentially toxic waters plaguing this small fishing community. In this story of environmental and social justice, a coalition of motivated Tribal leaders and organizations works together in a spectacle of mechanical and human determination to demolish, remove, and recycle the massive decaying highway fragment and abandoned vessels of Neah Bay, to restore healthy waters and traditional foods to the Makah community.