Ellen Bradley

Ellen Bradley is a Lingít skier, scientist and storyteller born and raised in the Salish Sea (Puget Sound). A child of the People of the Tides, Bradley’s ancestors come from a place where the Tongass rainforest-painted mountains meet the ocean, Lingít Aaní (Southeast Alaska). Skiing has always been the way Bradley has felt most connected to the land and her relatives. As a scientist, she has worked on projects ranging from epiphyte growth on big leaf maples in the Hoh Rainforest to the impact of wildfires on phytoplankton in tundra lakes of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Bradley is the director of Let my People Go Skiing (Mountainfilm 2025), a film about dismantling barriers to snow sports for Alaska Native youth. She roots all of her work in traditional ecological knowledge, fighting for the Land Back movement, and tribal sovereignty and self-determination.