Melanie Anastasia Brown is one of the top cross-country skiers in Alaska.  She is on the Dimond High School, Anchorage, team and the state team.  She is an honor student and is a candidate for the U.S. Naval Academy.  She plays piano and flute, swims, and has her own set-net fishing operation in Bristol Bay in the summer.

Melanie is proud of her cross-cultural ancestry.  Her paternal grandmother was Emily Ivanof Brown of Russian-Eskimo parentage, a well-known writer and authority on Eskimo culture.  Emily's husband was German.  Melanie's mother is of Irish-Aleut parentage.

Melanie's mother Katherine and Gayle Cederberg made the doll costume.

Gib Whitehead, Photographer