In the northernmost town in the U.S., there’s no Santa’s workshop. But there is a unique maker’s space where Indigenous artists can come anytime to make traditional artwork.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The closest thing to Santa’s workshop – in Alaska, anyway – is a building just blocks from the Arctic coast. It is the nation’s northernmost maker’s space, a place where Indigenous artists can create things like walrus ivory earrings, figurines made from whale baleen and traditional knives with caribou antler handles. As Emily Schwing reports, what’s made here is steeped in thousands of years of tradition.
EMILY SCHWING, BYLINE: It’s polar night this time of year in the Arctic, but there’s a golden glow from the windows of the traditional room at the Inupiat Heritage Center in the heart of Utqiagvik.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAW BUZZING)
SCHWING:…
