YouTube: President Obama dances an Alaska Native dance in Dillingham, AK
President Barack Obama enjoyed a unique Inupiaq welcome during his visit to the Native village of Kotzebue on Wednesday. Obama was meeting dignitaries and residents when Sandy Shroyer-Beaver, the president of the school board for the Northwest Arctic Borough School District, insisted on greeting him in a traditional way, The Washington Post reported. “It’s our culture to welcome you with an Eskimo kiss, a practice in which two people rub noses," Shroyer-Beaver told the president, the paper reported. Obama enjoyed it so much that he asked Shroyer-Beaver for another, the paper said. He also gave a traditional kiss to Cheryl Eden Shaw, the director of the Alaska Technical Center. “You should have seen the look on his staff,” Shroyer-Beaver told the Post after the exchange. “That alone was worth it.”
A Yup'ik dance in Dillingham, Alaska. Photo from TheObamaDiary.Com
Earlier in the day, Obama visited Dillingham in Bristol Bay. He met local fishermen -- including Alannah Hurley, the executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, and elder Mae Syvrud -- at Kanakanak Beach. The president also attended a cultural performance at Dillingham Middle School. But he didn't just watch -- he participated in a Yup'ik dance with youth from the community. Obama ended his historic three-day trip with a speech in Kotzebue. He was the first sitting president to set foot in the Arctic. Get the Story:
Obama gets an Eskimo kiss — and asks for another (The Washington Post 9/3)
In Dillingham, President Obama Yup'ik dances and talks up wild Alaska salmon (Alaska Dispatch News 9/2) Related Stories:
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