Close together in a vast, spread out, land and seascape
Thursday, August 15, 2013 at 2:15PM 
This is an iPhone panorama I took at the Eskimo dance finale of Kuukpik Corporation's 40th Anniversary celebration to honor Nuiqsut. Seven dance groups, two from Nuiqsut, plus one each from the five other villages that sent drummers, singers and dancers, took their chairs in a 180° arc facing the audience in the bleachers at Trapper School and then in turn each performed songs and dances common to all, until finally they sang and danced together as one. The distance between Aklavik, Yukon Territory, Canada, the farthest east village to participate, to Point Hope, the farthest west, is as great as that between Ensenada, Mexico, and a point more than 200 miles north of San Francisco. A traveler starting in Aklavik and working his way by plane, boat, or snowmachine through the mostly roadless country to Point Hope will touch a maximum of nine villages ranging in size from just over to 200 people to about 1000, plus Barrow, the big city at 4500 - 5000. If the traveler is native to the region, it does not matter what village he or she enters, he will not be a stranger. People will know him – If not personally, then by his family; she will have relatives in each village. There will be a house to sleep in, a table to eat at. Most of the food will likely come from the land, the sea, the rivers and lakes.
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