Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hit the skins with an authority that makes everyone in the grandstand sit up straight and
the dancers—“Okay, four and five year old girls!”—respond to the call with smiles
widening into grins and movements deepening into what amounts to Eskimo rock and
roll. It's hard to keep your feet still, especially when the last dance is an invitational, they
want everyone up on stage, and an old guy wearing hearing aids who has still got the
moves leads out two young boys. Behind me a voice says, “Come on, Rachel, it's easy!”
and a girl in a bright green print kuspuk leads her T-shirt and jeans clad friend—“Sixteen
to 18 year old girls!”—down to join the Husky mascot, the rest of Kotzebue, and a couple
of enthusiastic and totally rhythmless tourists.
An older Inupiat lady in a white kuspuk commands us to “make oohnga to each other,”
which means to make each other happy by smiling at one another. We are happy to obey,
even if it has started to rain. The new Miss Arctic Circle is crowned with a jade and ivory
tiara. There is a beautiful baby contest, a muktuk eating contest, and a snow machine race
across the lagoon, the shore lined with spectators and boats standing by to rescue anyone
who goes too slow and sinks.
We head home to Red's house, where a holiday feast is waiting, along with Sarah and
Red's aunt and uncle, elders Rachel and Herbert Adams. After dinner Rachel and Herbert
tell us stories of the old days. Herbert, explaining the complicated parentage of two relat-
ives, says, “Well, it was a cold winter,” and then blinks demurely at the resulting roar of
laughter.
You could pick up my home town of Seldovia and put it down whole on one of Kotze-
bue's streets, but Kotzebue feels like a village to me.
