In the last week of April, the sound of booming drums filled the gym of Golovin’s Martin L. Olson School. Students and adults took turns dancing on the basketball court and catching a break in the bleachers.
But just five years ago, the Golovin school gym was quiet.
Bilingual Teacher, Debbie Anungazuk, said students weren’t taking an interest in learning how to drum or dance to traditional songs. She thought that was a problem and called up her friend from Gambell, Wesley Apatiki.
“I had asked him, could you come to Golovin and help us learn different songs and dances? And he agreed, and the students really love Wesley,” Anungazuk said.
In 2023 and 2024, students from Wales traveled to share their Inupiaq culture with the students in Golovin. For the first time this year, Apatiki brought students from his home in Gambell to share their community’s St. Lawrence Island Yupik traditions.
Beyond learning the songs and dances of the region, Anungazuk said Cultural Week is crucial to preserving all aspects of the Indigenous lifestyle.
“We live a subsistence lifestyle, and I want the kids to learn how to live off the land and sea,” she said.
To build a more holistic program, Anungazuk also reached out to tribal healers at Norton Sound Health Corporation.
“I wanted one person to come in and do a plant presentation with the medicinal and edible plants,” Anungazuk said. “When others found out that she was coming, the other tribal healers wanted to come, and then other people, it just grew.
Bringing the traditions back
Golovin resident, Janet Amuktoolik, supported the school’s Cultural Week activities this year. She recalled travelling to nearby villages like Stebbins when she was younger, where she learned traditional Yup’ik dances and songs.
“I listened to the songs, watched how they were danced, and being that this is what I wanted to do, I was able to learn them very quick,” Amuktoolik said.
She started sharing the Yup’ik dances with her classmates, while expanding her repertoire of Inupiaq dances along the way.
“I wanted to learn both, I wanted to grasp both the Yup’ik and Inupiaq dances, just being that they're Eskimo dancing,” she said.
Maria Dexter is a tribal healer with Norton Sound Health Corporation. In her work, she uses local ingredients to make medicinal salves.
“They also used the many plants we have that are medicinal, and they knew how to use them and when to pick them, how to prepare them,” Dexter explained.
Dexter has served the region for over 20 years as a tribal healer for Norton Sound, but she said her training goes back generations.
“It’s really important for them to know the history of traditional indigenous healing because it has been part of the practice of our people for many years before Western doctors came,” Dexter said. “Our own people took care of each other by using their hands and massage.”
In the school cafeteria, students learned how to mix akutaq – a whipped dessert made of salmonberries, blackberries, blueberries and traditionally with an animal fat. This year, though, they used vegetable shortening.
After fellow Norton Sound Tribal Healer, Etta Tall, finished vigorously whipping the akutaq, she moved it to a table with other traditional dishes for a potluck later in the day.
Back in the gym, drummers and dancers returned to the floor. Gambell High School Teacher, Nicholas Riddick, flew in with the students as a chaperone but joined them on the court too. He said his time teaching in Gambell has grown his appreciation for the ways the ancient songs connect generations.
“Sometimes you'll actually see a grandmother, someone in middle age and a child all standing next to each other doing the same dance,” Riddick said. “Seeing it coming alive here, and them attempting to bring more of that into their community. It's just really inspiring.”
Into the late evening hours, drums continued to echo across the gym floor as generations gathered not just to dance, but to keep the rhythm of tradition alive.
