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At the Statewide Native Youth Games, you can hear the sound of fans cheering wildly with enthusiasm, yet somehow the sound of a human mimicking a seal cuts through the roar of the crowd. The art of the seal call is one of the many skills athletes pick up at the games that gives them a distinctly Indigenous flavor.
KNBA News
  • This year the Arctic Winter Games were held in the Ma -Su Valley, the first time this international competition has been in Alaska in a decade. Many call this event, which is held once every two years, the Olympics of the North. Alaska governor Wally Hickel and other Arctic Nation leaders founded the Arctic Winter Games in 1959. They believed that the peoples scattered across the Circumpolar North share a mutual identity — and in the case of large countries like Northern Canada and Alaska, perhaps have more in common with the rest of the Arctic than they do with the rest of their own countries.
  • Get out the Native Vote has worked hard to get more Natives to the polls in both local and national elections. Recently, the non-profit has branched out to 45 schools across Alaska.
  • With films like Killers of the Flower Moon winning critical acclaim, Native Americans have a lot to look forward to during this year's Academy Awards ceremony. Ariel Tweto, an Inupiaq TV personality and actress from Unalakleet, says it's an important milestone for Indigenous people.
  • An SD card ,with an almost unimaginable story, turned out to be the key to the murder trial of Brian Smith, a killer who targeted vulnerable Alaska Native women. During the trial, it was revealed that footage on the card came from a cellphone, stolen from Smith. Family members and advocates for Kathleen Henry and Veronica Abouchuk had to hear sounds from Smith's videos and see images that were horrific. And yet they came everyday to seek justice, to remind the court that the women were someone's daughters — and in Abouchuk's case, a mother and a grandmother.
  • After three weeks of testimony, the trial of serial killer Brian Smith came to a quick conclusion Thursday. The jury convicted Smith of all counts against him in the deaths of two Alaska Native women, who he targeted for their vulnerability. National media has followed the Smith murders closely, dubbing them the "Memory Card Murders." During the trial, the jury saw footage and photographs of the killings.