The moment you step into the dance hall, the sound envelops you. A fiddle erupts; an electric guitar wails; a keyboard drives out steady chords. Under colorful paper decorations dangling from the ...

Fairbanks artist John Shewfelt Jr. has a song about late musher Lance Mackey nominated for the Native American Music Awards. The nomination itself makes Shewfelt feel like he’s already won, he said.

For more than four decades, the Athabascan Fiddle Festival has filled community halls in Fairbanks with a sound that is both global and distinctly Native. Marc Brown The moment you step into the dance ...