The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host the first public screening from the Jeanie Greene Heartbeat Alaska Collection at noon Wednesday, March 8, in Ottenheimer Library. 

The Sequoyah National Research Center acquired the Jeanie Greene Heartbeat Alaska Film Collection in 2014. The collection is a record of contemporary Alaska Native life. In 1990, Jeanie Greene, an Inupiat journalist, established the television show “Heartbeat Alaska” as a forum for Alaska Native people to share the stories that impacted their lives on a daily basis.

Barrow, Alaska, is the northernmost city in the United States with a population of around 4,200 people.

The documentary, “Barrow: A Village of Whalers,” highlights the centuries-old lifestyle of the Inupiat people living in the northern Alaskan village that relies on the practice of whaling. The film shows how the villagers work together to harvest the bowhead whale and the importance that the whale has in sustaining the Inupiat people.

The film will be shown from noon to 1:15 p.m. in UA Little Rock’s Ottenheimer Library Room 535 followed by a short question-and-answer session led by Erin Fehr, an archivist with the Sequoyah National Research Center. Attendees are free to bring their lunch to eat during the screening.

In addition to “Heartbeat Alaska,” the collection contains recordings of Greene’s other television shows: “Northern Lives,” “This Generation,” and “We Win,” a faith-based show. The videos provide a window into topics such as whaling, subsistence, environment, culture, language, and more.

The collection contains 1,263 video recordings that have been digitized through a $24,000 grant awarded by the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council. The collection is being catalogued by two UA Little Rock interns: Heidi Davis and Stephanie Rabadeux.

The March 8 event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Erin Fehr at ehfehr@ualr.edu or 501.569.8336.