Eddie Bauer guide Kayla Lockhart discovered her love of the outdoors and fishing as a young girl, traveling to the many lakes of Minnesota with her father. But when her parents divorced, her home life spiraled out of control. Kayla and her sisters cycled in and out of foster care for several years, and there were no more days spent near the water. As an adult, Kayla took a fly-fishing class. In casting, fly-tying, and reading the river, she found unexpected healing and solace from the anxiety and depression brought on by her past, and now she’s introducing others, especially foster kids, to its restorative energy as well.
This video is the first in our new Live Your Adventure series. We’re partnering with previous One Outside Film Grant winners Erin Joy Nash & Sanjana Sekhar of Brave Space Media to highlight four Eddie Bauer partners who are tapping into the healing power of outdoor recreation to nourish themselves, their communities, and our planet.
About the Filmmakers
Brave Space Media is a multi-racial, women-led, radically collaborative creative team dedicated to stories of healing that uplift traditionally underrepresented voices. Brave Space’s founder Erin Joy Nash is a visual storyteller working to incite change and foster connection through filmmaking and photography. Her work focuses on elevating voices of womxn and BIPOC around issues of intersectional feminism, antiracism, environmental justice, and compassionate living. Collaborative partner and co-director Sanjana Sekhar is an Indian-American filmmaker, climate action communicator, and outdoor wanderer. Her work seeks to amplify character-driven stories that heal our human relationships to ourselves, each other, and our planet, with a specific interest in socio-ecological justice, ancestral knowledge, and systems of re-nourishment. Together, the team prioritizes imagining, learning, and co-creating a decolonizing approach to filmmaking.
Land Acknowledgement and Land Back Location Fee
This film was created on the ancestral lands of the Tenino, Warm Springs, and Paiute peoples. Moving beyond simply land acknowledgment, Brave Space Media practices a commitment of 5% of a project’s budget to local #landback initiatives or similar Indigenous-led initiatives that directly support local tribal nations. Traditionally on a film production, filmmakers will budget for the costs of location permitting or renting studios and venues for filming. Brave Space Media wants to encourage all storytellers to consider the land and her stewards as part of the creative ecosystem, to dig deeper into what reciprocity truly looks like, and to continue learning more about how the industry can participate in reparations for stolen land.
Resources
The Mayfly Project: The Mayfly Project is a 501(c)(3) national organization that uses fly fishing as a catalyst to mentor and support children in foster care. The Mission of The Mayfly Project is to support children in foster care through fly fishing and introduce them to their local water ecosystems, with a hope that connecting them to a rewarding hobby will provide an opportunity for foster children to have fun, build confidence, and develop a meaningful connection with the outdoors. Kayla is a Mayfly Project mentor.
Donation to Warm Springs Community Action Team: This goes towards a variety of programs for the Confederated Tribes that are centered on community resilience and socioeconomic re-empowerment.
The Indigenous People of the Deschutes River: Learn more about the ancestral stewards of the river that Kayla fishes.
Donate to or volunteer for Native Land Digital, the go-to digital map aimed at mapping Indigenous lands in a way that changes, challenges, and improves the way people see history and the present day. We hope to strengthen the spiritual bonds that people have with the land, its people, and its meaning.
KAYLA LOCKHART
Eddie Bauer Exploration Guide
Born and raised in a small town in Minnesota, Kayla Lockhart discovered her love of the outdoors, and of fishing and hunting, at an early age. As a young girl, she traveled all over Minnesota with her dad, fishing many of the state’s fabled 10,000 lakes. She works with The Mayfly Project, a nonprofit organization that mentors children in foster care by introducing them to fly fishing.
