About 30 people armed with rainbow flags and warm beverages came together on a cold, windy Saturday. They braved the elements for Kotzebue’s first known pride event. One attendee maneuvered a cart with a boombox blasting Madonna and David Bowie through the city's uneven sidewalks and potholed streets.
“There's a good turnout that came out here,” said Kotzebue resident Chloe Naylor. “I love all the colors, all the flags and the signs, the music. Everyone is just vibing.”
Naylor wears a big, bright smile, which accentuates her Pride-themed makeup.
“I did a rainbow eyeshadow and then rainbow heart freckles,” she said.
Naylor’s motivation for joining Kotzebue’s Pride march was simple.
“Everyone should be able to love whoever they want to love no matter what gender,” she said.
Rachel and Gem Belamour own Vibrant Brews coffee shop, where the walk started and ended. Rachel said once she heard about the event, she knew it would be good for her business— and it was something she and her wife wanted to support.
“Once we found out about this, we 100% knew we wanted to be involved,”
Rachel and Gem were part of a handful of people who helped organize the event. The Belamours were at their coffee stand an hour before the walk to decorate the small drive-up kiosk with rainbow banners and streamers. Rachel said she was a little nervous before the event. She said she didn’t know how many people would come.
“But a lot of people showed up and so much love and support has been given. It was a huge turnout,” Belamour said.
The large turnout was a surprise to Brittney Sweeney, too. She was the lead organizer of the event, which began as a social media post on a local community page.
“I didn't plan very far ahead," Sweeney said. “It was just some time here in June when I said, ‘Hey, let's give this a try.’”
Sweeney spoke at a City Council meeting earlier this month, to ask council members for a donation to help with decorations and other supplies for the event. After hearing the meeting over the radio, one Kotzebue resident rushed into the Council chambers to voice their concerns. They opposed the Council spending public funds for the event, saying that it went against family values.
Finnean Sweeney is the youth representative for the City Council and Brittney’s son. He attended the Kotzebue Pride event.
“I think family values are very important and the core part of a family is love and respect,” Finnean said. “That's what I think this event is all about.”
The Council ultimately rejected the donation request because the newly-formed Kotzebue Pride group was not a non-profit organization. However, the city decided to promote the event on their Facebook page.
Charlie Santos is a city employee and nonbinary. They were in charge of monitoring the social media posts which received dozens of comments.
“The first comments that we got were negative comments, and that really bothered me, personally, as a queer person,” they said. “It bothered me that that was the first thing that we saw.”
But Santos said soon the positive comments overtook the few negative ones. It was one of their motivations to attend the Pride Walk.
“Somebody saying, ‘I felt so invisible, being queer and Indigenous in this area. And I'm so glad to see an event like this,’” Santos said.
Santos said several community members expressed fears of being singled out because of their association with Pride. They said exclusion and intolerance in rural areas can affect residents more significantly— because of the size and interconnectedness of the community. But they say that events like this help people in the community feel like they belong.
“We're up in the Arctic Circle, it's dark, it's cold, and people get bored and lonely, so mental health is a very important thing to talk about,” Santos said. “Kids can know from such a very young age that they are queer people, and those kids deserve to feel accepted.”
Santos, like many other attendees, said they hope that Kotzebue Pride becomes an annual event.
Brittney Sweeney, the event organizer, said she doesn't necessarily want to take up the reins again next year.
“I don't think that it's necessarily something that I would need to have ownership over,” Sweeney said.
But she said it's important for Kotzebue’s Pride celebration to continue.
“Pride is important because right now there's somebody who thinks they're better off dead than being queer,” said Sweeney. “And I was like, ‘That could be somebody here, right?’”
Representatives from Kotzebue’s Pride group said they are already thinking about how to make next year's event even better.
