Wild Goose Days
Along Alaska’s roadless Kuskokwim River, a Yup’ik radio station along Alaska’s roadless Kuskokwim River keeps dozens of villages swapping stories, opinions, and fishing reports – holding space for dialogue as corporations threaten to reshape the river’s future, and villages weigh what that means. A station manager and an Yup’ik elder fight to keep the signal, and their community, from going silent.
In Bethel, “Wild Goose Days” is a mantra pointing back to a different time, long before screens and algorithm-driven feeds. KYUK, the region’s public radio station, is still living in them, carrying emergency alerts and Yup’ik-language programming across thousands of miles of roadless tundra to villages where the signal is sometimes the only daily link to the wider world.
When federal public media funding ended in October 2025, KYUK lost roughly 70 percent of its budget and most of its staff. The station manager, who arrived as a volunteer DJ more than fifteen years ago, fights to keep programs on the air, while a Yup’ik elder keeps the river’s news and stories moving between villages. Upriver, a gold mine advances toward construction. Downriver, industrial fishing in the Bering Sea reshapes the salmon runs the villages depend on. Wild Goose Days is an observational portrait of a community working to keep its voice.
Film Topics Include:
Andrew H. Brown
Director & ProducerKatie Basile
ProducerMike Morrisroe
ProducerMia Vyzis
ProducerDonate to this Fiscally Sponsored Project
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