‘One with the Whale’ review: Climate change and animal activists threaten an Indigenous Alaskan community

In the remote Alaskan village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, students are allowed 10 excused absences a year for subsistence activities, primarily hunting. “If you don’t do subsistence activities, you die,” says the school principal in the documentary “One with the Whale,” airing this week on public television as part of Independent Lens.

Directed by Peter Chelkowski (whose credits include the NatGeo series “Life Below Zero: First Alaskans”) and environmental journalist Jim Wickens...