I was able to go on my second village trip a few weeks ago. It was an amazing experience. Teller is one of the few villages that you can drive to from Nome. It is a 2 hour drive northwest of Nome. The picture above is a view of the village from the landing strip.
The trip was to cover the 5th Annual Teller Cultural Festival for the station. The festival was a 2 day long event. I flew in on a Friday morning. Since the event didn't start until Friday evening so I had to figure out things to do until then. Walking around town, I tried to find out other story ideas to bring back to the station. I came across the story of a man who created a class that taught the tradition of building a utility dog sled made of traditional elements. Joe Garney, a thought to be a sort of local hero, is well-known for his racing days in the Iditarod. He now trains dogs for others to run. He is a wealth of knowledge of traditions pertaining to building. He felt obligated to create this class so I interviewed him and created a KNOM profile on the class he created that is still in the works because they received the wrong materials.
After talking with Joe, I went on a walk with his daughter. She was a few years older than myself and is a councilor in town. She talks works with a wellness group in town to encourage people to express their feelings, particularly towards depression. Depression and pressure is a huge issue in the villages. Villages typically have a few suicides every year. This year was particularly hard for Teller. The village already had a suicide during the fall and had someone hang themself earlier that week. Ages of those who commit suicide are typically in the early to mid 20s. This girl was telling me the effect that this has on her 8 year old child. She says the high amount of suicides are getting the younger generation used to it, thinking that suicides are common. It was a very eye opening conversation.
After insight, I went to my room (i slept in a book closet at the school) and waited til the funeral was over for the recently deceased. I couldn't believe how right after the funeral reception, these people had the festival. It was indescribable. Since people were morning, and understandably so, the festival started with some inspirational singing. After the introduction, some prayers, and singing, the Eskimo dancing started. Cultural festivals are basically a great way to get local villages and "tribes" together to perform and share their culture through dance. There were four groups, King Island Dancers (from Nome), Golovin Dancers, Brevig Mission Dancers, and Teller Dancers.
During the second day of the festival, there were workshops and a potluck, in addition to more dancing. The workshops include Eskimo games (like the Seal hop), beading, and a wellness video. The potluck was interesting. Typical food found at the potluck includes: salmon eggs, dried fish, balooga, reindeer soup, tundra berries, fried bread, and other food that I could not identify. There were some food that I could identify, such as salad, Pilot Bread, and pasta salad. One of the elders saw my plate and saidI had too much "White People food." After the potluck, we had more Eskimo Dancing. That lasted til about 2:30 am.
I got some good stories and good experiences from this trip. I wrote 5 news stories and created a KNOM profile from the trip. Over all, I think it was successful. In addition, I have some crazy memories. For example, I was walking along the harbor side of the village and I saw a boat with red stuff streaming to the water. I walked closer to see what it was.... it was blood. Someone killed a seal and left it laying right next to the boat. Naturally my first reaction was to take a picture, so the picture is below!
No comments:
Post a Comment