Arts & Culture

Monday, June 4, 2018 6:40 p.m. This story has been updated with more details about John's life since it was first published.

It’s a sad day at KYUK. Our friend, Yup’ik storyteller, culture bearer, translator, and longtime KYUK radio and TV host John "Aqumgaciq” Active died this Monday morning at age 69. John is irreplaceable. His broadcasting career at KYUK began in the early 1970s, and he is celebrated as a pioneer in Native media for his work spreading and preserving the Yup’ik language and culture.

John Active, Yup’ik story-teller and long-time KYUK personality, is in the hospital. For decades, John connected KYUK to the Delta community. This week, KYUK used the airwaves to connect this huge community to John’s hospital bed in Anchorage. The result was radio filled with love and prayers for his health. Some were old co-workers, like Peter Twitchell and Peter Atchak. Twitchell reminded John of the old days when they produced a play on KYUK called “Old Man, Young Man.” John played the old man and Peter the young man.

John Active, the legendary Yup’ik storyteller and host of Ketvarrluku and Talkline, has retired from KYUK.  

It’s the second year in a row that the Cama-i Dance Festival has brought back the Fur Parka Fashion Show, which was not held since the early 2000s.

Students from throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta danced at the Cama-i Dance Festival last weekend, including Bethel Regional High School’s very own wrestling team. They call themselves the Piniiq Dancers, and performing at Cama-i was one of their longtime goals.

The 2018 Cama-i Dance Festival was dedicated to six elders from the tundra village of Kasigluk. The elders revived Yup’ik dance in the village and serve as the foundation of the community’s dance tradition today. The community is working to never need a revival again.