Fred DuBray and his daughter Elsie DuBray work with bison in the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation, while the Ancestral Guard made up of Sammy Gensaw III and other Yurok men in Northern California practice and teach their tribe's traditional practices for fishing and preparing salmon on the Klamath River.

[4] During the production process for Gather, the team producing the film sought grants which they used to hire Native American journalists (including Kim Baca) as well as photographers; they were charged with producing stories for media outlets about stories related to food sovereignty which would not be included in the final version of Gather.

[8] As of December 1, 2020[update], viewing or screening it in Europe was only possible if a permission form had been approved by the producers of the documentary.

[1] In Mother Jones, senior editor Maddie Oatman contrasted it with the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground, writing that Kiss the Ground "remains sheltered under the auspices of modern capitalism" and glosses over the "struggle" and "violence" that Gather explores.

[4] In the Spanish language version of Condé Nast Traveler, an article by Marc Casanovas titled Por qué Gather ya es el mejor documental del año en Estados Unidos ("Why Gather is already the best documentary of the year in the United States") described the documentary as "a cry in favor of food sovereignty and the recognition of the generational trauma" ingrained in indigenous people.