"In the Pines"

Sno-gos and wheelers lined the Noorvik main street outside the Community Center Saturday afternoon as folks gathered for the musher's awards banquet.

Built in 1978, according to an Elder we chatted with, the Community Center provides a place for the community to get together for special events as well as play bingo.

Noorvik residents watched as Streeper was handed his 1st place trophy from the three days of racing. In his 100 consecutive days of being in Alaska, this Canadian musher has won all but one of the races he has entered.

All the mushers were so appreciative as they thanked the town for their support and hospitality. Many offered Noorvik residents, who may travel in the future, a place to stay at their own homes to reciprocate the hospitality.

The ladies worked hard to create a huge spread which included turkey, mashed potatoes, ham, caribou stew, sheefish chowder, pastas and desserts.

Following tradition, Elders ate first followed by the mushers and their crews and then the rest of us. Mollia and I stayed after to help clean up and ended up doing the dishes from the banquet for the ladies who had worked so hard to make the great feast and were the ones that had invited us at the races to the dinner. Once the dishes and the kitchen were clean we left for prom. As we exited the hall full of Elders that were starting to gather for the live music, they thanked us in echoes of Taikkuu! which filled the room (sounds like: Te'Gu!). What a wonderful feeling.

We returned after a brief visit to the prom for the live music. Principal Doyle Horton even participated playing guitar with the band (white shirt above).

Mollia filmed many of the songs. 'In the Pines' was a crowd favorite sung by the drummer.

This young girl was the Belle of the Ball with her shockingly great vocals and lack of fear.

Gospel songs as well as old country western tunes were the songs of choice for the night. When I complimented the lady on her gorgeous voice (pictured below) she simply stated "lots of practice".

The band played throughout the night while people from the audience took turns in a sort of open-mic forum. Edith (pictured below) and her husband Paul of 50 years in May, chatted with us for much of the night and filled us in on the singers, many of which were their children, grandchildren, or adopted children & grandchildren.

At one point in the night an Elder in the audience (not pictured) stood up and asked the crowd to join her standing and singing a traditional song. The band played as the crowd sang. Mollia glanced back with an excited look; we both felt pretty fortunate to be a part of this.

The closing singer (at least for us, we left yawning at 1:00am) was awesome and the crowd went wild. He started each song by saying the title of the song he was covering and then would add the phrase: 'in Indian style'. He would crouch down for many songs and then would leap up in parts of the song. What an entertainer!

Oh yeah.... and the Prom went well. The girls did a great job decorating, but as with most high school dances the dancing itself was limited as the wallflowers hung out by the pie and punch.