Origins: The Last Reefnetters
February 26, 2025
7:00 PM | SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN
Presented by Cascade PBS
Join Cascade PBS for a preview screening of Origins: The Last Reefnetters, a documentary series on the history and culture of reefnet fishing in the Salish Sea, followed by a discussion with local filmmaker Samuel Wolfe of Fishboat Media and special guests.
Wolfe’s story follows the Salish Sea’s last reefnetters, examining the legal, spiritual and cultural subtext that intertwines them. Reefnet fishing is an innovative method developed by the Lummi Nation and other Northern Straits Salish tribes thousands of years ago. Following punitive legislation, environmental damage and devastation caused by a budding cannery industry looking to capitalize on a seemingly abundant resource, they were all but removed from the practice. Today, just 12 captains with a reefnet fishing license are left in the world, and only one of them is an enrolled tribal member. Upstream Battle is the story of the Salish Sea’s last reefnetters, and the legal, spiritual, and cultural subtext that intertwines them.
Image by Bert W. Huntoon, courtesy Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA. Logo design by Jason LaClair (Sienum).
- Director: Samuel Wolfe
- Country: USA
- Year: 2025
- Running Time: 60 min.
- Language: English