During Celebration, Native people come to Juneau from surrounding communities to share their histories, traditions, songs, dances, customs and their foods.

"Sometimes we'll pull out fish breads and smoked strips and just sit down and share stories and visit," White said. "But you're lucky if that can happen because Celebration is going on at Centennial and ANB from 8 in the morning until 10 at night, so you don't have time to go visiting in the homes!" she said.

The Black Seaweed contest at Celebration gives participants a chance to offer up their best recipes for cash prizes. Entries are sampled by judges who are familiar with and have a good sense for traditional foods. Samples must be collected and prepared by the entrant and submitted in a clearly marked bag. Directions for submission are on the Sealaska Web site.

White has a recipe for black seaweed and eggs that calls for dog salmon eggs because, she says, they're the biggest. She collects them in summer when the fish are spawning. She also recommends air-drying the seaweed and "putting things on it to give it flavor as its drying," she said.

To round out a good meal, White recommends preparing clam patties served with local Hudson Bay tea leaves and a dessert made from hand-picked salmon berries, blueberries, gray currents and high-bush cranberries.

"We have all kinds of berries that we mix and we make for our own fruit cocktail," she said.

Seaweed and salmon eggs
Black seaweed
Dog salmon eggs
Bacon
Fresh clams
Seal oil
Water

"I like to cook my salmon eggs and then I add that to seaweed," White said. "My own way of preparing it is I chop up bacon and fry my bacon until its almost done and then I add clams, some seal grease, my seaweed and enough water to soak that seaweed and have that with a bowl of rice. The seal oil is from when you get your seal meat, from when you're getting your subsistence food. The Tlingit people they use the meat, but they also use the fat from the seal. They cook that seal fat until it cooks out of the fat, until its just grease."

Clam Patties
Fresh clams
Onions
Celery
Eggs
Bread crumbs or corn meal
Seasoning