Pageant contestants usher in WEIO spirit of competition
Originally published Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 12:25 a.m.
Updated Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 2:09 p.m.
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FAIRBANKS — Conditioning caribou hide in rotten caribou brain water, flinging around-the-worlds with homemade Eskimo yo-yos and speaking in their tribe’s native languages were just a few of the talents showcased at the Miss WEIO pageant Tuesday morning.
Six contestants vying for the Miss World Eskimo-Indian Olympics crown presented their personal talents at the Denali Center in front of an audience of about 30 residents, several families and three judges. The college-aged women dressed in traditional regalia and performed for about 20 minutes each, demonstrating activities, physical feats and art that reflect their Alaska Native culture and families.
“My mom would sell these yo-yos in the Inupiaq days, while I would stand by the booth and do this,” said Miss Arctic Circle Stacey Harris, spinning a yo-yo made out of seal skin leather, sinew and baleen as she talked.
The program brings together women who represent communities and villages across Alaska to celebrate indigenous lifestyles, pay respect to their elders and compete in a weeklong decathlon of events, part of the 2008 World Eskimo-Indian Olympics that begin in Fairbanks today.
Contestants win points from the talent show, the first judged event, that accumulate with upcoming personal interviews, impromptu speeches and a host of public appearances. The pageant culminates Friday night with the 2008 Miss WEIO coronation.
The show, from the dress and talents of the young women to the use of Microsoft PowerPoint and TVs, blended old Native traditions with modern flair and technology. The entire talent show screamed of the differences between WEIO and a typical Miss America pageant.
“It’s not about a surface type of beauty,” pageant leader Mandy Sullivan said. “It’s about a deep, cultural type of beauty.”
“Starting with the introductions, it’s very obvious,” she said.
Kelsi Ivanoff, 20, took the floor first, speaking in her native language while introducing herself, the rest of her family from her village of Kasannaluk and sharing her knack for hunting and gathering.
“Once I was old enough and done breast-feeding, my dad would take me hunting with him,” she said.
Ivanoff showed PowerPoint slides of herself hunting geese with her two brothers, catching a king salmon before she was big enough to reel it in and as a young teen next to a skinned whale.
“I finally learned to butcher a beluga,” she said.
After three years at the University of Alaska Anchorage, the senior-to-be is transferring to Portland State next year. To stay connected to the land she grew up on, she flies home whenever possible.
“But I almost missed bird migration this spring,” Ivanoff said with a wince after the show.
The contestants wore decorated fur parkas, homemade or passed down within their own families, mukluks and an array of hats made out of fur, hide, beads, shells and bright fabric designs.
The bleached, white parka of Miranda Solomon, a 19-year-old from Fort Yukon, jingled as she passed around a display of earrings she made out of porcupine quills and moose skin.
“I sell porcupine beads to tourists in the summer,” she said before singing a stirring, self-composed song “I See This Light.”
Elizabeth Rexford, a Fairbanks-born Ivy Leaguer, didn’t have much time to practice her Alaskan High Kick in her Dartmouth dorm this spring. Still, the 22-year-old threw athletic jump-kicks into the air, balanced her full weight on her palms in a Cirque-de-Soleil-style pose and made the crowd laugh with an interactive game of throwing mittens.
“It doesn’t feel like a competition,” Rexford said of the Miss WEIO contest. “The message is staying in touch with our culture and language.”
Kimberly Dullen, 23, who works for the Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks, expressed the same message with her talent — tanning caribou hides to make into a dress, after shaving the flesh and hair off the skin with tools she made of moose bone.
“It takes 20 hours per hide total,” she said, softening a hide on a cottonwood pole. “If you’re not good at it, it takes a lot longer.”
Tiffany Clark, who is a Cherokee Indian from Nome, has competed in the Olympics for seven years.
Now 19, Clark wore tights and a shirt splashed in butterflies as she demonstrated the kneel-jump that won her gold medals in the World Arctic Games and the Native Youth Olympics in the past two years.
“When you’re done, you can barely walk,” she said.
While technology has snuck into the pageant, many contestants dispersed to colleges Outside and wore jeans under their caribou-hide parkas, the core values of Miss WEIO remain strongly traditional.
Sullivan, who marshaled the talent show and is on the board of WEIO, said the contest is one way to prevent Native culture from being lost to the culture of technology.
“Once we lose someone, they’re gone,” she said.
Community Discussion
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Conditioning caribou hide in "Rotten caribou Brain Water !!!!
I'm Taking the 5th. on this one ! No Comment ! LOL !
Keep up the outstanding work ladies!! Keep the culture as intact as possible!!
intern doing a story. This was worse than the National Enquirer...get your facts straight before you publish them.
Pure innovation!! I love the way the Natives had to come up with alternative methods of doing things. For instance, back in the day, when they didn't have access to lye and such, they used the brains of the dead animal for 'conditioning'. I also love the idea of not letting any part of the animal go to waste!
Kudos to these young ladies for keeping their cultures alive!
This forum is really teaching me how misunderstood Native people are, according to LoadDrive 1, the girl isn't truthful. My dad, 55, tanned three hides a summer with his grandma the same way. What isn't true about the method?? I keep reading these forums but I get so discouraged. If Fairbanks doesn't understand or value the Native culture, we're screwed. Please correct me if I'm reading the comment wrong...
LoadDrive 1....you are scum. why even comment if you're going to spout stupidity?! if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. i wouldn't have said anything negative at all, but someone saying something so stupid like you, i couldn't help but stomp on you. Good luck to all you lovely ladies. i'm looking forward to seeing true native beauties.
This contest has been going on as far as I can remember. If you can't accept the native culture, I would suggest you move. Alaskan natives are proud of their culture which is the only life we know. Please be considerate and show respect if you have nothing nice to say, don't say it at all. Good luck to all these young ladies!
ps.
Miranda, we're all pulling for you!
LoadDrive1.....I'm hoping your misguided post was due to ignorance of the Athabaskan culture, but I'm guessing it goes beyond. Having many native friends in Alaska and having seen then subjected to overt racism, I'd say you probably fit that description.
Have you even tried to learn about the native cultures of Alaska or anywhere else? You could have done a simple Google search, for instance, and read about the process here:
http://www.stikine.net/Tahltan/tahltanhi...
I wish I could be at WEIO this year and miss attending such a wonderful event! WEIO.....welcome back home to Fairbanks!!
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