Jane Brower on the bank of the Kuukpik River

Many more things happened at Kuukpik's 40th anniversary celebration for the village of Nuiqsut, and I did my best to photograph it all. There was an Iñupiat fashion show with contestants ranging in age from infant to elder, there was a rock and roll dance with a 60s and 70s dance competition and there was another boat ride, this time upriver. There was a grand finale Eskimo dance. And there was gospel singing. It will all be in the publication I will make for Kuukpik to document the celebration. I did promise to include a photo of Jane Brower in this iPhone/Instagram series and here it is. She sits on the bank of the Kuukpik River (Coleville) at a picnic that was part of the second boat ride - quite a long ways up river from the village, late in the afternoon. I will make another one-picture post from the grand-finale dance. There is a point I want to make about the vastness of this country up here and the closeness of the very few people spread across it and I think this dance picture will help me to do so. I will follow this with a short series on the gospel singing, because it is just too important to the culture to leave out. And then I will make one more small series on the goodbyes and that will be it. I had planned to do this tonight before I go to bed, but I am exhausted. I think I might just try to relax, get a good rest and a decent night's sleep and then post this in the morning. But you never know, I could get restless and post it tonight. It could happen. But I'm going to try to resist and just relax.