We were honored to be invited to Cultural Camp by the Northway Village Council to do some filming. Culture Camp is a fish camp that has been around for generations at a location about 10 miles (30 minutes by boat) down river from Northway at Ten Mile Camp. There are some cabins, and most people bring tents. The entire village comes and goes during the week, including elders, even ones who can barely walk are driven by boat to sit for the day and catch up with their neighbors. Ada, who I posted about before (the 86 year old woman who does beading), actually spent the night.

We first filmed the men picking whitefish out of the nets they had set earlier in the day. They do this several times a day. The fish is cut, smoked and shared with the entire village. The purpose of camp is to teach the younger generation skills that they will use their whole lives, such as proper techniques for cutting and smoking fish. You can see the little girl has a tiny ulu to cut her fish, so cute!

They had a huge feast of whitefish and biscuit, which was delicious. They also drummed, sang and danced. It was another once in a lifetime experience. Top photo by Zak Melms. By the way, the amazingly talented Zak started a photoblog, which you can check out: click this