Navajo of the North

The wind picked up and the temperature dropped into the minus-20s for the opening of the Sami Film Festival here in Kautokeino, Norway, well inside the Arctic Circle where the sun don't shine for weeks at a time. The movie Miss Navajo played to a packed and rapt house in a theatre made entirely of ice. Constructed by Thomas Orderud of Orderud Design, this ice palace, with its Studio 54 blue-lit staircase, completely surpassed expectations – even though global warming plagued construction by repeatedly melting the edifice during the two weeks it took to build.

If you click here, you can catch a glimpse (toward the end of the newscast) of Miss Navajo director, Billy Luther, with his subject, Crystal Frazier, disembarking from their triumphant entrance on a reindeer sled.

– Text and photos by Fenton Bailey

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