Miho Aida Won’t Let the Outdoor Industry Off the Hook

February 21, 2020

Photo of Miko Aida, featured in Outside Magazine

Outside recognizes former NOLS Instructor Miho Aida as an environmental educator and champion of inclusivity, challenging the outdoor industry to make room for women from marginalized communities. Her award-winning documentary, The Sacred Place Where Life Begins: Gwich’in Women Speak highlights the role Native American women activists have played in fighting to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the significance of this land to the Gwich’in people.

“Miho Aida had a Flip camera and zero filmmaking experience when she traveled to the southern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and made the documentary that put her on the map in the outdoor industry.

It was July 2010 when the environmental educator and filmmaker arrived at Arctic Village, a town of approximately 150 people in northeastern Alaska. It was one of the most remote places she’d ever been. Aida was working on a media project to document the role of Native American women activists in preserving public lands. She was there to meet Sarah James, an elder within the Gwich’in Nation, and hear James’ stories of her people’s 30-year fight to protect ANWR’s wild lands from oil and gas drilling.”

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Brooke Ortel

Brooke is a runner and writer who enjoys finding adventure in the everyday. True to her island roots, she loves sunshine, that salty ocean smell, and the sound of waves against the shore.