Once a year students at the Shishmaref School drop their textbooks to take part in Inupiaq Days. The week-long celebration connects the nearly 200 students with their cultural heritage with activities like sewing and singing.
“They're learning how to do traditional ways of life,” Josie Weyiouanna, an elder from Shishmaref, said. “If they go hunting in the land to get our caribou, our reindeer, our fish, they need to learn how to camp. We need to, we need to bring back the traditions hands on, and that's very important.”
In a classroom turned woodshop, students sawed long and thin strips of wood into fish hooks they used later in the week for ice fishing.
Across the hall, another group took turns on a sewing machine to piece together vespuks, cotton vests made with colorful floral prints. Shishmaref’s Autumn Barr and Nome’s Maggie Miller helped teach the students how to sew.
“You had these really good sewers teaching these girls how to use sewing machines, probably for the first time some of them, and man, seeing some of the stuff that they were doing,” Shishmaref School Science Teacher, Ken Stenek, said.
Native traditions were also passed on in the form of singing and drumming. Elders took turns singing traditional songs in both Inupiaq and English, while the children sheepishly joined in.
Singing
Drumming
Over in the gym, drums echoed as a group of adults led dances on half of the court. Students took turns joining in as they rhythmically bobbed and waved their hands from side to side. On the other side of the court, students practiced Native Youth Olympics games.
“It's real important for them kids to learn our tradition and how we live and stuff and the songs that we are teaching them,” Weyiouanna said. “There's hardly any young people that are learning these songs.”
The weeklong celebration welcomed speakers from across the country, including a group from Hawaii working on a documentary series that includes Shishmaref. Kaare Sikuaq Erickson taught students how to build harpoons, Roben Itchoak helped students make family trees, and Lena Danner, Brandolyn Ahmasuk, and Katy Tompter from Kawerak talked to students about job readiness.
Shishmaref School teacher Lauro Gacusana, originally from the Philippines, shared a piece of his own heritage with the students by showing them how he makes pancit. Huge batches of the salty, thin-noodle dish were cooked throughout the day and served throughout the campus.
In the evening, snowmachines packed a narrow road just outside the school’s front door. Teams from nearby villages Deering and Buckland motor over every year to compete in the weeklong “Spring Carnival” basketball tournament. This year Tyler Ivanoff organized and competed in the tournament.
Stenek said the Spring Carnival goes hand in hand with Inupiaq Days.
“It's not only just cultural, but just a fun time to celebrate the ending of the year. You know, we're done with the really high stakes testing and all that, and so let's try to celebrate and have basketball at same time,” Stenek said.
Nearby villages Golovin and Gambell put on similar week long celebrations, but Stenek hopes even more will join in.
“You know, it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun seeing the engagement and what everybody's doing,” Stenek said.
