Photo. Inuit girls dancing in Kotzebue, Alaska, USA. © Travel Explorations.
What fascinated me most were the Inuits - the Inupiat people - who have lived here since the 1400s. Their lives are still tied to hunting, fishing, and even whaling, not as a tradition on display, but as a real part of everyday survival and identity.
Kotzebue is home to one of the largest populations of Alaska Native peoples in the state - 80 percent of its residents are Iñupiat. Situated 26 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Kotzebue provides access to some of the finest river running in Arctic Alaska due to its proximity to the Noatak, Kobuk, and Selawik rivers.
Kotzebue’s Indigenous people are the Iñupiat, whose presence in the area stretches back thousands of years. They call the place Qikiktagruk, meaning “almost an island.”
For Europeans, the Kotzebue Sound entered the maps in 1818, when explorer Otto von Kotzebue sailed into the region while searching for the Northwest Passage.
In the afternoon attended a dancing show by the Inuits. At first it seemed simple—people in warm parkas, calm faces, quiet conversations. But when the drums started, everything changed. The rhythm rolled across the room like the beat of the Arctic itself. Then they danced - strong, graceful, rooted in centuries of storytelling.
Yup'ik dance or Yuraq, also Yuraqing is a traditional Eskimo style dancing form usually performed to songs in Yup'ik, with dances choreographed for specific songs which the Yup'ik people of southwestern Alaska (source: Yupʼik dance - Wikipedia).
Inuit ancestral dancing was once banned by Christian missionaries in the late 1800s, who dismissed it as primitive idolatry. But after nearly a century of silence, the tradition found its way back. In the mid-1980s, the Cama-i Dance Festival was created to reunite dancers from remote Inuit villages and revive their old songs, rhythms, and movements.
Today, numerous groups across Alaska perform Inuit dances again, proudly bringing their heritage to life. In the Yup’ik-speaking regions, the most popular revival is Yup’ik dancing - reborn, celebrated, and stronger than ever.
Standing there, camera in hand, I felt completely drawn in. Their movements spoke of ice, wind, hunting grounds, and the deep connection between people and nature. It was powerful. Pure. Human.
The photos I took that day of Inuits dancing and chanting in Kotzebue has followed me through life. Every time I look at it, I’m back in that moment: surrounded by cold air, warm smiles, and a culture that welcomed me for a few unforgettable minutes with a dance on the edge of the world.
Stein Morten Lund
Additional information
Inuit is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic coasts of Siberia, Alaska, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Québec, Labrador and Greenland.
"Alaska" means "great land" or "mainland" and originated from the people of the Aleutian Islands. Alaska, the 49th and largest state in the Union (almost one-fifth the size of the lower 48), was granted statehood on 3 January in 1959 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The United States purchased the land from Russia on 18 October in 1867.
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