Camai Festival

Each year, Elders, dancers, and Cama’i attendees line up on Saturday afternoon of the festival to load paper plates full of the bounty of food from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Miss Cama’i represents the Yup’ik, Cup’ik, and Athabaskan people of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta at events and pageants throughout her reign. This year’s winner ran on a platform of existing gracefully between the Native and western worlds so Yup’ik and Cup’ik people can thrive.

Over the years, the community has gained a reputation for serving up high-energy performances in their Cama’i appearances. The current leader of Chevak Tanqik said he remembers it always being this way.

This year, the Cama'i Dance Festival honored the late Cakicenaq Stanley Waska for his contributions to preserving dance and potlatch traditions, immortalized in the award-winning film "Uksuum Cauyai: The Drums of Winter."

This year’s theme of Ciuliamta Cauyait, or “Drums of Our Ancestors,” highlights the roots of traditional yuraq revival that remain on full display in Bethel’s premiere annual gathering.

Organizers of Southwest Alaska’s largest Indigenous dance festival have announced the Cama-i Dance Festival’s 2025 theme: Ciuliamta Cauyait: The Drums of our Ancestors.

A college student from Bethel and Emmonak has been crowned Miss World Eskimo Indian Olympics. She said that she’s driven by a desire to practice and share traditional ways of life.

The 2017 Cama-i festival, while still in the early planning stages, is taking shape.Bethel Council on the Arts, the sponsor of the festival, has decided…