Qiñiqtuuraaq Atuun

(Imagine song)

This story (song) includes references to many culturally important elements such as traditional spirituality, using the power of imagination*, and unity. Sovereignty Stories productions are appropriate for all-ages.

*See: “Aungayouksuk Teaches” in The People of Kauwerak written by William Okuilluk. Page 18.

Meet the artists!

Gabriel Igaugaq Tegoseak

MUSIC PRODUCER/VOCAL ARTIST

Gabriel Igaugaq Tegoseak is an organizer, activist and subsistence hunter. He is Iñupiaq (Alaska Native) and First Nation Nisqually. Gabe is originally born and raised from the Arctic Utqiaġvik, (Barrow) Alaska and currently resides in Anchorage. Gabe has worked with many organizations across Alaska including, Alaska Federation of Natives, First Alaskan Institute, Alaska Raising Tide, United States Coast Guard (Healy) and Alaska Youth For Environmental Action (AYEA). Gabe coordinates and helps advocate for a voices of the Arctic and around Alaska for awareness and protection of our land, waters and subsistence resources. Merging ancient Iñupiat values with a modern science.

Currently he is a members of the Siļaliņamiut - Arctic Just Transition Coalition and works as a director for Talking Circle Media.

Sara Siqiñiq Thomas

CREATIVE PRODUCER/VOCAL ARTIST

Sara Siqiñiq Thomas is a teacher’s kid and wife of a whaler from Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Previously a world traveler, she is now based in Dena’ina territory in Anchorage, where she is raising a lot of kids and working by contract as a creative collaborator for a just transition, guided by love for her family and community.

Born in Nimiipu territory, in Moscow, Idaho to two crunchy Euro-Americxn academics who were somewhere on the decolonizing spectrum without knowing it, she has been a poet, singer, writer, and eager student of language and culture from a very young age. She dreams of paying taxes to the local tribal governments instead of the U.S. federal treasury, and to one day traveling to the homelands of all of her ancestors, across three continents.

Doreen Nutaaq Simmonds

CULTURAL ADVISOR/LANGUAGE EXPERT

Doreen Nutaaq Simmonds. Nutaaq was born and raised in Barrow, Alaska where she currently resides. She is granddaughter of Nita and Eli Ahnupkana and Abe and Mamie Simmonds. She is the third daughter of Samuel and Martha Simmonds and has 12 siblings. She has four children, one adopted, and thirteen grandchildren and two great granddaughters. She is Iñupiaq and a speaker of the North Slope dialect of Iñupiaq. Nutaaq has worked as an oral historian for the Iñupiat History Language and Culture Commission of the North Slope Borough and as a news reporter and traditional story translator for radio station KBRW.

After retirement from North Slope Borough School District as an Iñupiat Language Teacher, Nutaaq went back to school and attended the University of Alaska. She graduated with an Interdisciplinary Studies degree on Alaska Cultural Native Knowledge in May 2021. She has dedicated her life to the conservation of native languages while advocating and organizing around issues of environmental justice.

Nutaaq is also a writer and artist who draws, sews, beads, carves, sculpts and makes pottery.