Barrow welcomes 700 for Kivgiq

Residents of Alaska’s North Slope gathered this week for three days of dancing, storytelling, games and feasting. The traditional Inupiaq feast celebration, or Kivgiq, had died out before George Ahmaogak Sr., mayor of the North Slope Borough, restarted the midwinter gathering in the late 1980s.

Organizers expected 20 dance groups from Alaska, Canada and Russia and many other visitors in Barrow this week.

Kivgiq was capped off on Wednesday afternoon by a community feast featuring muktuk, whale meat, seal flipper and polar bear as well as fish, birds and wild game.

The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission was to hold its annual general meeting immediately after Kivgiq.