A wedding and a limo.

A limo!!!

My beautiful cousin was getting married in our tiny village nestled in the mountains of Interior Alaska and my sisters and cousins and I were SO excited because a LIMO was coming! WHHHAAAATTT??????!!!!! #scooby-doo-ahrooor?

Look, it doesn’t matter where you live in Alaska, a limo is a big HUGE freaking deal and we were ready to live it up. 

I was about 12, huge glasses (mom says I wanted them – impossible), bangs and a horrible perm (sister made me do it), slowly growing into my teeth (no thanks to IHS) and just starting to spray “Sun In” into my hair (cousin made me do it).  My sisters and I watched in awe as my gorgeous cousin walked down that Alaska wilderness “aisle” in full buckskin to marry her handsome husband.

An Indian fairy tale. 

Then… the limo came and we piled in!  Happy Indian cousins, forgetting the stereotypical Native drama that many of us existed in on a day to day basis, we stacked 15 to 20 high into that white limo!  It had a tiny box TV that played music videos and we turned that “mutha” out! 

Drive Mister!!!

We cruised up and down that dusty village road, chewing Blue Hubba Bubba, drinking no-brand grape pop and hanging out of windows and sunroofs waving at our other cousins who had been to slow or young to wiggle their way into “our” limo. 

I’ll never forget that limo.  And I’ll never forget the beauty of my cousin as she “rocked her mocs” in full buckskin down that wilderness aisle.

While my cousin ultimately separated from her husband, we all (even her) loved him until he passed.  Their kids? Super Stars.  My Cousin?  Vice-President of an Alaska Native Corporation. 

To me, the Bright Side of the Rez is all of the above.  Native people survive because we are gifted with the ability to find, remember and appreciate the fun, the laughter, the awe… of a happy day. 

A limo on a sunny day deep in the mountains of Interior Alaska.  A very Bright day.  

Lael Echo-Hawk is a member of the Pawnee Nation and an adopted member of the Headwater People of Mentasta Lake Village Alaska.  She’s a Univ. of Washington grad, lives in Seattle and practices Indian Law at Garvey Schubert Barer.  She ditched the glasses, no longer has a perm or dyes her hair blond.