We Live in the Arctic, 1947

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• published: 22 Jan 2016
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"We Live in the Arctic" is a silent film by Harmon “Bud” Helmericks and Constance Helmericks, circa 1947. The film details the Helmericks lives as homesteaders in the Brooks Mountain Range of Alaska, and as explorers of northern Alaska and Canada. In 2015, the original 16mm film was preserved by the Alaska Film Archives through funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF). Bud Helmericks and his first wife Constance (Connie) Helmericks spent more than a decade living in and exploring northern Alaska during the 1940s and 1950s. Constance was the best-selling author of seven non-fiction books detailing their lives and adventures in the far north. Films that the couple shot on 16mm color film were the subject of national lecture tours. Shot with great care and artfulness under extreme living conditions, these films depict the unique lives of the Helmericks family, as well as the rapidly-changing lives of small groups of coastal and inland Iñupiat peoples during the era of pre-Statehood and pre-pipeline Alaska. Detailed summary information for "We Live in the Arctic" was provided by the filmmakers. According to these notes, the film includes scenes of a Cessna 140 (the “Arctic Tern”) taking off from Tucson, Arizona; aerial views enroute to Alaska; Grand Prairie, Alberta; aerial views of Hughes, Alaska; Brooks Range mountains; landing at Takahula Lake; Connie and Bud at their log cabin at Takahula Lake; snowshoeing and seeing a “snow doughnut” that has rolled down from the mountain; Bud splitting wood and Connie collecting water; ice fishing on Takahula Lake while sunbathing; planting a garden; Connie climbing Takahula Peak; kayaking on the Alatna River; airplane flight 300 miles north to the Arctic Ocean; cooking a meal of caribou and cornmeal along the Arctic Ocean; the village of Paulatuk in Canada; Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island; power schooner (the “Tudlik”) traveling from Banks Land; Inuit hunters cooking caribou in northern Canada; Lakes Peter and Schrader in Alaska; filmmakers Bud and Connie; Inupiat family identified in notes as Nanny and George, son Apiak, and daughters Lydia and Martha; Nanny tending fishnet set in the Arctic Ocean; Lydia eating dried meat with an uluruk; Martha holding a mirror and applying lipstick; a woman identified in notes as Bessie with homemade guitar made from a Prestone can; whale boat in Arctic Ocean; people identified in notes as Oolak or Job, Little Jacob, Carrie with little Maugaulak or Mark, and Richard; Chandler Lake; group of inland Inupiat or Nunamiut at Chandler Lake, including people identified in notes as baby Franklin Roosevelt and his father, Simon Paneak; caribou skin tents covered with canvas; bear damage at cabin; Connie picking berries; Bud and Connie hunting moose; Connie rendering tallow; Connie chinking cabin with moss; Bud making a cabin window; Bud demonstrating winter wear; fishing through ice; Bud cutting ice blocks; and heating the airplane engine before take-off. Edge codes on original film indicate that the original film stock was manufactured in 1947. Original film contains a mix of Ansco Safety Film and Kodachrome film stocks. The original Ansco film was noted in 2015 to have faded to a sepia or magenta tone, while the original Kodachrome film retained good color. In 2015, the original film was preserved through funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF); Reflex Technologies of Burbank, California, scanned both reels of original film and created digital DPX files, which were then output to new 16mm internegative and answer print film stocks by Video & Film Solutions of Rockville, Maryland. The original films, new internegative and answer print films, and digital files are all being preserved by the Alaska Film Archives at University of Alaska Fairbanks. This sequence contains excerpts from AAF-16016 and AAF-16017 from the Constance Helmericks Papers collection held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. The collection also contains audio recordings, news clippings, publications, film transparencies, scrapbooks and other materials created by Constance Helmericks during her lifetime. Bud Helmericks was interviewed in 2003, and his interview is available online as part of the UAF Gates of the Arctic National Park Project Jukebox (http://jukebox.uaf.edu/site7/interviews/264). Books written by Constance and Bud Helmericks throughout their lives are housed in the main collection of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at UAF. For more information about this film, other Helmericks films, and related holdings from the Jean Aspen Papers, please contact the Alaska Film Archives.