Elk River

Scientist Arthur Middleton joins photographer Joe Riis, artist James Prosek and filmmaker Jenny Nichols in this documentary that captures the migration of elk in the Yellowstone area through a multidisciplinary lens. For many of the elk herds that summer in Yellowstone National Park, home is outside the protected park boundaries the rest of the year, as far as 70 miles away. Mirroring a similar expedition undertaken in 1871 that fused science and the arts, this modern band of explorers join their ungulate counterparts on a trek from Wyoming’s rangeland through snowy mountain passes and treacherous river crossings to the rugged beauty of Yellowstone’s high-alpine meadows. Along the way, they meet backcountry guides and cattle ranchers whose lives are intricately tied with the fate of the elk and other migratory species that call the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem home.