Website For Members of the Barrow Iñupiaq Community

Click on the photo to see a large image of a photo taken by Laura Boulton during November, 1946 of the singers she recorded in Barrow, Alaska. From left to right, the identified singers in the photograph are: Leo Kaleak (seated left), Otis Ahkivgak (standing left), Willie Sielak, Guy Okakok, and Alfred Koonoalak. Not in the photo, but identified on the recordings, are three children: Mary (also known as "Eva") Ahvik, and Harold and Eddie Kagak (identified as "Eddie Orson" in Boulton's notes). Not in the photo, but prominently featured on the recordings, is singer Joe Sikvayugak (spelled "Sikvayunak" in Boulton's notes). This photo appears in two published locations. The version above is copied from Boulton's 1968 autobiography, now out of print, entitled The Music Hunter. A better-quality print was also published, but with extensive cropping, in the liner notes to Boulton's 1955 Folkways recording, now available from Smithsonian Global Sound, The Eskimos of Hudson Bay and Alaska.

If you are a member of the Point Barrow Iñupiat community and are looking for the website mentioned by Aaron Fox and Chie Sakakibara as heard on Earl Finkler's radio show on KBRW on Tuesday morning or at the community meeting at the Iñupiat Heritage Center on Tuesday evening, please click here for the website link.

A username and password are required to access the website. If you did not receive this information personally from Prof. Fox in Barrow, please write to him directly at aaf19@columbia.edu for the password.