Alutiiq Museum to host Culture Fest this weekend

The Alutiiq Museum is hosting an event called Culture Fest this weekend, as a way to get the community involved in the museum’s annual meeting.

“We need to do our annual meeting and we wanted to find a way to make it more relevant for the community besides just having a public board meeting,” said Djuna Davidson, Education and Outreach coordinator for the museum. Davidson added that the idea for Culture Fest came from Executive Director April Laktonen Councellor.

“We were thinking about something that would be meaningful for the town, and we started talking about how it’s cool that Kodiak has so much diversity, and what was a way that we could kind of showcase that.”

In a statement, Councellor said they’re excited to share some of the things the Alutiiq Museum has been working on this year, including a “culturally-themed coloring book,” and an “excavation on Near Island.”

The event will include performances from a number of different cultural groups in town. “The performers are the Russian Balalaika Dancers, the Kodiak Samoan Dancers, the Kodiak Alutiiq Dancers,” Davidson said. “We also reached out to the Kodiak Filipino Dancers, but were not able to connect with them.”

The event is free and open to the public, happening this Saturday from 1 to 4 pm at the museum downtown.