Participants

Our Flags and Honor Guard will be posted by the

Alaska Native Veterans Assoc.

Soaring Eagle Drum is the Host Drum for our Powwow

Our Guest Drum

Biographies for Performing Participants

LAKOTA THUNDER Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, North and South Dakota Recipients of the Native America Music Award for two recordings,
Lakota Thunder returns as our guest drum.

Members are of the Hunkpapa band of Lakota and formed the drum group in 1994 “to preserve our traditional, spiritual and celebration songs.”

SOARING EAGLE, Host Drum Fairbanks, AK
Formed in 2007, this drum group performs all types of American Indian and Alaskan Native songs. Open to male and female members, their mission is to maintain an inter-tribal drum in Interior Alaska for all those seeking a positive spiritual path and lifestyle.

Active members include: Bob Maguire, Drumkeeper (Irish American);

Ben Boyd, Hoop Dancer (Cherokee);

Angel Stevens (Koyukon Athabascan);

Jormah Pope (Lenape);

Neil Scannell (Koyukon Athabascan);

Abigail and Mary Scannell (Koyukon);

Debbie Ogden (Gros Ventre);

Sarah Grover (Cherokee);

Audrey Jones (Koyukon );

A.J. Dick (Koyukon Athabascan);

Tonya Esmailka (Klamath/Aleut);

Nita and Charles Esmailka (Klamath/Aleut/Koyukon);

Dean Merculief (Aleut);

Mary Vilandre (Lakota, Yupik, Athabascan);

Sherry Byers (Cherokee);

Sonja Cook ( German American);

April and Valerie Frank (Han Gwichin);

Ann and Nick Austin (Inupiaq);

Samuel Shore (Tlingit);

Sam Demientieff (Deghitan);

Tonya Brown (Blackfoot/Crow/Algonquin).

MORNING STAR Interior of Alaska
This drum was born out of the Thunderhawk drum and
awakened on April 25, 2008. Members include women and men of Blackfeet, Hunkpapa Sioux, Santee Sioux, Mohawk, Ojibwa, Apache, Cherokee, Mexican and European descent.

The drum
lead is Dodie Douglas and the keeper is Andrew George.

SEVEN BUFFALO Anchorage, AK
Lead singer and drum maker, Frank Buck, started the group in 2004. An all male traditional intertribal drum, they sing contemporary Northern style songs.

NORTHWIND UNITY YOUTH DRUM GROUP Kenai, AK
Named by elder, Ella Eide, this group formed five years ago, learning their songs from the Kenaitze drum.

Members represent the Athabascan,
Inupiat, Yupik, Cherokee and Seminole nations.

Their leader is Vide.

The Midnight Sun Intertribal Powwow Council

is organized exclusively to bring together

Alaska Natives, American Indians, and First Nations People of Canada in a powwow setting to share similarities and diversities, to honor the elders, and children, and to educate the general public of the heritage of the indigenous people of North America.