Tundra Fest

Every year around the beginning of the school year, Chevak hosts what is called Tundra Fest.  It is a weekend full of cultural and community events.  People from neighboring villages come to Chevak to celebrate and join in the festivities.  This year, the first day of school was on Friday, August 19th and Tundra Fest began shortly after school was over and lasted until Sunday evening.  Some of the events this year included native dancing (called yuraq, which happened every night until around midnight and all of the different villages took turns doing their dances), potlucks, cooking contests, a bird plucking competition (which Falon and Stephanie both participated in and the prize was a sewing machine and kuspuk fabric), a harpoon throwing competition (the prizes were cases of shotgun shells), races (running, biking, and canoeing), and various other activities.

During the weekend of Tundra Fest I ate seal, raw beluga, aqutaq (eskimo ice cream), fish prepared in different ways, and moose soup.  I hadn't even been in Chevak for 2 weeks and I was already able to learn and experience so much!  The people were so friendly and welcoming.  They were so gracious and very willing to share their culture with the new teachers.  It was absolutely amazing and fascinating!    

 Here's a plate of food that I ate at one of the potlucks.  That white piece of meat on the edge of my plate is raw beluga....very chewy :)

 That pink stuff is aqutaq (eskimo ice cream).  There are many different ways to make it, but I think that it is typically made here with crisco, instant mashed potatoes, sugar, oil, and berries (of course!).  It is my students' favorite dessert.  This one was made with black berries, and I think they must have put some jello mix or something in it to make it that pink color.  This was actually my favorite aqutaq recipe that I tasted.

 The black berries in the aqutaq turned my tongue purple.

 Yuraq (native dancing).  The men sitting in the back are beating on drums and singing.

 This little girl was too cute!  She had her own little fans and walked up in front with the people dancing.  She even bounced up and down a little bit with the beat.  It was adorable.

 The things that the women are holding in their hands are called fans.  They are handmade with caribou hair/fur (I'm not sure what the proper name is).  They are beautiful.  I plan to buy a set for myself before the native heritage week in April :)

 Some of the other teachers got up and participated in the yuraq.  They tried to encourage us to get up and try it too, but we were all too scared except for Stephanie.  One of the other teachers lent her the fans she had and Stephanie got up there and followed along.  She did an excellent job!  Hopefully we'll all be up there dancing together come spring time! :D

 All of the songs and dances have a story that goes with them, and the dance movements go along with the story they are trying to tell.  It was just fascinating to watch.  I seriously could have sat and watched for hours.  We tried to guess what some of the songs were about, and I think we were pretty close with a couple.  I actually asked our school security guy what some of the songs were about, and he said that there were some about seal hunting, there was one about a tundra owl, and there was one about an engine that won't start, among others.  

 The kids and the adults both participated.  It was so neat!

Below are some videos of the yuraq.  Some of the guys in these videos were especially fun to watch dance.  They really got into it and were very expressive.

The guy in the video above was really entertaining to watch.  He definitely got into it and told the story well :)  He had everyone laughing.

Tundra Fest was such an incredible experience!  I am SO glad that I got to be a part of it!  I have learned and experienced so much already, and am excited to learn and experience even more to come.  I am really looking forward to the next cultural heritage week in April!  I am so excited to learn some of the native dances this year with some of the other new teachers and hopefully participate in the yuraq in April!