The Native Youth Olympics in Anchorage, Alaska, is a three-day celebration of Indigenous culture in the form of games that mimic hunting and survival techniques that Alaska Natives in the Arctic region have relied on for thousands of years.
Jordyn Hoffman, of Mount Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska, scrunches her face as she participates in the Eskimo stick pull at the Native Youth Olympics, Friday, April 26, 2024, in Anchorage, Alaska. The Native Youth Olympics is a statewide competition that attracts hundreds of Alaska Native athletes each year and pays tribute to the skills and techniques used by their ancestors to survive in the harsh polar climate.
Now, today's youth play “to help preserve our culture, our heritage, and to teach our youth how difficult life used to be and to share our culture with everyone around us who wants to know more about our people,” said Nicole Johnson, the head official for the event and one of Alaska’s most decorated Native athletes.
“And when they got close enough to the seal, they would grab their harpoon and get the seal,” said Johnson, an Inupiaq originally from Nome. Awaluk Nichols has been taking part in Native Youth Olympics for most of her childhood. The events give her a chance to explore her Inupiaq heritage, something she feels is slowing fading away from Nome, a Bering Sea coastal community.
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