This craft show was a cultural extravaganza

Last Friday the newspaper article began, “Thousands of people from every corner of Alaska’s islands, coastlines and riverbanks convened in Anchorage’s Dena’ina Center on Thursday for the annual Alaska Federation of Natives Convention.”  The AFN is the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska, whose mission is to enhance and promote the cultural, economic and political voice of the Native Alaskan community.  Sal and I were there Saturday, not for the convention but for the accompanying Native Arts and Crafts Show which is easily the most fascinating craft show I have ever attended.  The show is a cultural extravaganza.

More than 150 artists from villages across Alaska sell crafts typically made from plants and animals they have gathered or hunted.  We saw walrus ivory carvings; hats and gloves made from moose hide, the spotted white fur of harbor seals, and qiviut, musk ox wool which is insanely soft, warm and expensive; balms made from wormwood and other plants; birch baskets; and a $7,000 blanket of nine sea otter pelts which had been hunted by the artist with his two daughters and sewn together.  The most unusual thing I saw were earrings made from ermine fur, the entire ermine intact, head and feet included, which were so long they would hang past your shoulders.  I so wanted to take a picture but felt it would be disrespectful.   We did make some purchases, a print I liked, some notecards and a headband ear-warmer thing.  No earrings and no qiviut, but something qiviut is on my have-to-have list to get before I leave Alaska.  It will be one of my nice souvenirs of this wonderful adventure.

We talked with a lot of interesting people. The man Sal bought notecards from lived on one of the Aleutian Islands and said there are members of his tribe in Russia and how during the Cold War the two groups would join together in their boats to hunt, speaking the same native dialect so no English or Russian would be picked up by anyone listening in.  There was an artist there from the Four Corners area of the US whose father had been raised in an orphanage in Haines.  We said we would be visiting Haines next month, and she talked of how she loved it.  Her heart was there.  Sal and I thought how very different Alaska is from the dry, brown Four Corners area.  We saw the man wearing a necklace with the giant claws of a polar bear that he had killed outside his home in Northwest Alaska decades ago.  The artist pointed out the faces of her husband and daughter she had included in the print I purchased.  That was a sweet detail I will not forget.

Make no mistake, the things we saw, the furs, the beadwork jewelry, the carvings, while not what I’m used to seeing “down below,” were art.  The paper quoted one artist, the one with the polar bear claws, saying he expected to make $30,000 at the three day event.  He carves beautiful white ivory carvings, otters, walruses and other marine life from whale baleen.  Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Alaska Natives are allowed to sell Native crafts made from marine mammal parts.  They captured the animals’ playful personalities perfectly. I would have loved to purchase one, but they were out of my price range. 

We did take advantage of a photo area that had puppets of different Alaska animals.  I imagine it was set up for children, but after having a pleasant conversation with the group there, we were encouraged to pose.  So we did.  I chose a bear.  Sal, sadly with no moose option, chose an owl.