The Brilliance of Mary Lou Sours

In Northwest Alaska, there is a community of over 400 called Nautaaq, or Noatak, meaning “inland river people,” in Iñupiaq, within the traditional territories of the Iñupiat. 

It was Noatak, her elders, and her loving family and friends throughout the Northwest region and around the state who influenced and cherished Mary Lou Sours, a master seamstress who passed December 8, 2022.

In her short 50 years, Mary Lou would amass a following of thousands, be at the center of a vast network of skin sewing students and enthusiasts, and lead in revitalizing an art form that once was a household skillset—the traditional crafting of the kammak (maklak), made from seal skin, tuttu skin, with hard-bottomed soles made from bearded seal skin. In Alaska, the number of practitioners have grown few, and with long waits times to acquire new atuŋŋaq, either to replace old soles, or to outfit people in new kammak. I became aware of Mary Lou when I saw a flyer for a kammak making class in Anchorage; it was rare in Alaska that someone was willing to teach this in a public class, and growing up outside of the city, it was not yet a skill I had learned.  

“Long ago, everyone passed on their different styles from mother to daughter, and somewhere along the way that gap was broken to where families were not doing that anymore, so I just [want] everybody to get back into their culture, learn more about it, and keep it alive,” she shared in a video for Indie Alaska.  Qunmiġu Kacey Hopson said, “I think the reason there was so much interest in her classes, is that there is this deep desire within all of us to more strongly embody the knowledge of our ancestors that is our birthright and the knowledge that we would have had had that transmission not been disrupted by colonization.” Mary Lou made sewing kammak accessible through her sold-out classes, independent of any organization, and the creation of her famous kits, bundle of all of the needed materials cut to the requested size and prepared to stitch together. 

While teaching and sharing knowledge with miquqtit across the state, she was also quietly helping those who were struggling, such as working to bring a woman home from the streets of Anchorage to her home village. “Mary Lou had a big heart in helping people who needed it,” her cousin Lena McClellen emphasized. “She was that angel.”

“She did touch a lot of people’s hearts and did her very best to pass on her knowledge. She would want the knowledge she passed on to keep going no matter how hard it may be,” her daughter Alannah Jones shared. Alannah is a well-known and accomplished parka maker and seamstress in Alaska, as well. 

Lena Sours, Mary Lou’s great-grandmother, was a prolific seamstress, and Mary Lou began sewing as a girl with her mom, said Lena McClellan. Mary Lou sewed as a girl, and intermittently with her mom, but began sewing in earnest after the birth of her grandson. 

Many describe the spaces that Mary Lou created, as therapy. “She helped to create this space where we could come together and create this healing community. It’s not just healing because she was claiming knowledge that had been disrupted, but it was healing because we were created this space of Indigenous sisterhood that is harder to come across in Anchorage,” Qunmiġu describes. Fellow student Patuk Glenn agreed, “Coming together was so healing for the soul for me. I don’t think she knew this, but she was saving people’s lives.” 

In a video for Indie Alaska, Mary Lou expressed about her students, “it’s so exciting to see their faces light up when they learn something new and they’re just so in awe that they’re doing it, and that’s what it’s all about.” 

In Mary Lou’s last-ever class, she said soundly and clearly to her students, “Don’t be stingy with knowledge. That is not our way. The more we share, the great chance we have that we keep our culture and traditions alive.” 

To learn more about Mary Lou Sours, visit her Facebook page, “Inupiaq Custom Mary Designs,” for photos of her classes, her kammak, her kits, and the trove of sewing information she posted there.