Where's the original winter wonder land?

Folks are finally using snow machines to travel around but still have to travel carefully because the frozen ponds and river are not thick enough yet. Where's the original winter wonder land we use to have by this time of the year? This month in yupik is called "cauyarvik" which means month of the drums. It used to be used for having the traditional eskimo dance festivals. One was called kevigyaraq, Messenger feast where one village would send kevaq's, messengers to another village inviting them for a dance festival. I liken it today to a thanksgiving feast, where the villagers get together and hold a dance festival where they pass out their excess resources they had harvested or where they present a young person who had caught their first catch, berries or some animal to the visiting guests. They would then include subsistence catches before the influence of the western cultures. To me it sort of represented thanksgiving where they share with other villages their thankful catches of the season.Now when we have it we include all sorts of modern things that could be of use to families. This village usually hosts to Toksook Bay, Tununak, Nightmute, Newtok and other area villagers that could make it here. We hold our dance festival for three days on a weekend and then on sunday the visiting guests gather at the gym where the elders are seated first on down to the youngest guest, men and women on either side of the gym. The guests then get to pick out from a pile of goods whatever they want one at a time. When that is done, that evening after the evening meal the visiting guests then usually dance for the village in thanksgiving. Then the hosting village does the last dances and everyones gets to go home happy with giving and recieving of gifts. With this late winter the cauyarvik festivals are starting to be held later in the year such as in february or even march when the tundra traveling is better. I hope we get enough snow and cold to freeze up the traveling areas so our villages can hold the eskimo dance festivals. Everyone usually looks forward to the festivals.

Devils on the loose

Halloween ghosts

Happy late Halloween. Our school had its annual halloween contest where most students dressed up as spooky, funny, most original, members of ghosts. The highschool students had the king and queen halloween skit and the two grades from elementary made up halloween songs that were sung very loudly. It was a fun afternoon. Our local corporation cable company aired it on the village tv channel so most everyone who was not able to come to the school got to watch it also. Speaking of that. every friday afternoon our local student news team has a 15 minute show on that channel also and they usually have news of the school activities. Our NYO team of at least 16 students are competing at Akula. We had a parent teacher conference this past week and we had a good turn out. Our local traditional council tries to suspend local activities so that parents can go to the parent teacher conferences. I believe that shows the village supports students education. Its been a fun week.