Festooned in animal masks, kuspuks, gloves and mukluks, the garb of their ancestors, a Native American dance troop recently performed for more than 80 representatives from HUD, Minerals Management Service, IRS and the Cook Inlet, Aleutian and North Pacific Rim Indian housing authorities who were in Anchorage to celebrate Native American Heritage Month.

One of the King Island Dancers dons eagle feathers and leather gloves with ivory "claws" for the nearly extinct Wolf Dance.

The Department's Alaska Office of Native American Programs hosted the celebration, which featured the King Island Dancers, a world-recognized group based on an island in the Bering Sea. Though many of the dancers now live in Anchorage, their skills and hearts are still very much tied to their Native Alaskan roots.

The guests were also treated to a potluck dinner that consisted primarily of Native foods, such as kippered, baked, smoked, barbecued and peppered salmon; moose and elk stews; caribou soups; fresh and pickled muktuk, more commonly known as whale; mikigaq, which is whale meat and muktuk that has been fermented for 21 days; kiniqtat, which is dried walrus in seal oil; and Eskimo doughnuts and pilot bread.

After the dinner, the dancers performed traditional King Island dances, including the wolf dance and the raven dance. Two of the dances, including the wolf dance, were nearly lost to today's generations until two elders resurrected them a few years ago. Though one of the elders has since passed on, their descendents now carry on the dance tradition, including the other elder, a grandmother, who sometimes joins with the youngsters.

A King Island youngster makes his first tentative dance moves to the drumming of his elders.

A male dancer, in walrus mask, makes the moves and sounds of a walrus during the Walrus Dance.