Around 18 hours before the crowning of Miss Cama’i 2025, the four contestants were flying through the crowd at the Native foods dinner.
“Every single Miss Cama’i contestant is helping the Elders with their food and bringing them to their tables, bringing them trays, bringing them tea or coffee and whatever kind of drinks they want,” said 22-year-old Joeli Angukarnaq Carlson, in between ferrying cups of tang and lemonade to Elders scattered across the folding tables in the Bethel Regional High School cafeteria.
Spoiler: Joeli Angukarnaq Carlson was crowned Miss Cama’i the following day.
“It's really rewarding,” Carlson said of serving Elders at the dinner. “Being able to help and talk to the Elders after not being home for a long time going to college, it's really nice to be around them and helping them.”
Service is one of the major pillars of the Miss Cama’i competition, which focuses on uplifting the Indigenous communities of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta through service, education, and leadership. Service is also a part of the judging process. Each year, Miss Cama’i candidates are judged on personal interviews, essay questions, and service at the Elders dinner.
Carlson is from Kwethluk and Bethel, and is named after her grandfather, Joe Angukarnaq Guy. Her gram, Sophie Guy, is originally from the old village of Tuntutuliak. Her mom, Juliana Carlson, is from Kwethluk, and her dad, Greg, is from Minnesota.
It had been about eight years since Carlson attended Cama’i – after studying at Ayaprun Elitnaurvik in Bethel, she went to Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, and straight to college at the University of Minnesota Morris, where she recently graduated with degrees in psychology and Native American and Indigenous Studies with a minor in English.
After all that time away, listening to performances in Bethel in late March, she said she realized she’d learned a different version of a famous yuraq song as a child.
“Earlier, one of the dance groups was performing the Crane Song, and in elementary school when my yuraq teacher, Paista, when we were singing that song at Cama’i, instead of being like, you know how they do the bird sound, we were doing, ‘Ha-ha, he-he, tooki-tooki,’” she said with a laugh. “I think that was one of my favorite memories, even though it's a little bit like embarrassing – I don't wanna say embarrassing, but like now that they're singing it and they realize what it's actually supposed to sound like, they're looking back now at how we sang it and like how we danced it is just kind of funny.”
Carlson said it was her family that got her to go for the title.
“My mom was the one who really encouraged me to try for Miss Cama’i, because she has always encouraged me to speak my language and be connected with my culture,” Carlson said. “And she's the one that taught me all of that, you know.”
Carlson said it was a bit of a mental challenge to enter the competition. She said she’s “kind of a shy person,” who doesn’t love talking in big groups.
“I think the hardest part about it for me was my own brain and my own anxiety, of like, going on stage and going into an interview,” she said.
And just like her family encouraged her to get into the competition, they helped her through the anxiety as well.
“I would take a few deep breaths and remember who I am and remember who my mom and dad are and why they are encouraging me and who I'm doing it for,” she said. “[For] the younger generations and the older generations, the Elders, so that they have hope for the future – that our language still continues and that our culture still continues.”
Miss Cama’i contestants pick a platform for their run. Carlson’s platform was about walking and living gracefully between the Native world and western worlds so Yup’ik and Cup’ik people can thrive for generations to come.
“Focusing on the Native values that we have, like cultural activities and stuff like that, speaking the language, while also making sure to stay in school and graduate and either go to college or training if you need or want to, and working so that you can live a comfortable life,” she explained. “You know, balancing out both of those lifestyles.”
Carlson said she’s tried to model that platform in her own life – speaking Yugtun in the home with her family in Kwethluk and Bethel, while also focusing on her education and how she can give back to the community through her work.
She’s recently been hired to work as a behavioral health case manager for the regional Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation. But she said finding out she got the job took a bit longer than expected.
“They'd been trying to call me, but I'd been out manaqing, you know, ice fishing every single day. So I didn't know that they were calling me because I didn't have service on the river,” she said with a laugh. “But yeah, that's what I'll be working as – a case manager for now, and then hopefully get my master's degree, not this year, but in the following few years.”
In addition to winning the title of Miss Cama’i, Carlson was also named Miss Photogenic. Her fellow competitor and first runner-up Sydney Lincoln of Toksook Bay was named Miss Congeniality. Hilary Oscar was second runner-up, and Lauryn Hansen was third runner-up.
“I'm excited to be a role model for the younger generations, being able to speak Yup’ik, even though I'm half kass’aq and half yuk,” Carlson said. “[...] and also be a living, walking hope, I guess I would say, for the Elders, because they get excited when they hear me speaking [Yugtun], because they don't expect that from somebody so young.”
Although early in her reign as Miss Cama’i, Carlson encouraged young women from the Y-K Delta to participate in the competition next year, “And encourage all the younger generations to continue to speak Yup’ik and continue to live their cultural lifestyles at home and be there for their families and their Elders,” she said.
Carlson will compete in the Miss World Eskimo Indian Olympics, also called Miss WEIO, competition later this year in Fairbanks. Last year’s Miss Cama’i, Tatiana Taanka Korthius, went on to win Miss WEIO, and will compete in the Miss Indian World competition in late April.
