The first Native American woman to compete in the Winter Olympics, Naomi Lang, found herself on the global stage even before she laced up her skates at the 2002 Salt Lake City games.
During the opening ceremonies, Lang, an enrolled member of the federally recognized Karuk tribe in Siskiyou and Humboldt counties, was one of five athletes selected to present wreaths to leaders of Utah’s major tribes: the Ute, Goshute, Shoshone, Paiute, and Navajo/Dine.
Trailed by a procession of dancing and chanting tribal members, the Native American leaders rode on horseback across the stadium. Raising his arm, Goshute Chairman Rupert Steele recited a blessing as he stood before Lang—and the moment remains vivid in her memory. Indeed, it was a high point in a groundbreaking athletic career that included five U.S. national ice dancing championships and two Four Continents titles with her skating partner, Peter Tchernyshev.
“It was all pure white,” Lang recalls. “There were glittering lights in the stands. Then I saw the five horsemen coming toward us from the other side of the stadium. They were in full regalia and it was like we were witnessing history from the original days. It was the most spectacular thing I could have imagined. They were opening the games and each one of them spoke in their own language. Everything was so beautiful. And you can see me with the biggest smile, ear to ear, as I looked up at those beautiful horses. I gave him the gift. It was like the best thing in my life.”
A Life in Skating
Lang now lives in Arizona where she coaches figure skating and ice dancing at Ice Den Chandler. A mother of five with children ranging in age from 5 to 19, Lang performed in ice shows around the world following her competitive career. She was born in Arcata, but lived apart from the Karuk culture as she grew up. Her father Jason struggled with alcoholism and with her maternal grandmother battling illness in Michigan, as a young girl Lang moved with her mother to the Upper Midwest.
One day proved especially momentous when Lang was eight. “My mother took me to see the Ice Capades show in Kalamazoo,” she says. “Ice Capades and Disney on Ice were there the same week. I fell in love with the performance value of what the skaters were doing. I actually went down to the ice and got pulled around on a sleigh and driven around by the skaters. I could feel the wind in my hair and the freedom, even on a sleigh, just to be on the ice. I fell in love with that feeling right away. So I asked my mom to sign me up for skating classes.”
Before she began the classes, Lang took to the ice during a public session at a rink to see if she would actually enjoy skating. Turns out she was a natural. After initially staying close to the boards, her confidence grew quickly and by the end of the hour Lang was lapping other skaters. “I was going super-fast and thought, ‘Wow, this is cool, I’m kind of good at this. I like it.’”
From the time she was three years old, Lang had studied ballet. Her instructor was Virginia Niekrasz-Laurent and Lang even performed as a bon-bon in the Redwood Concert Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. Lang believes her ballet training established a solid foundation for skating by helping her develop good balance and posture, as well as an overall sense of body positioning.
“My look on the ice was more balletic and I had the proper lines,” Lang says. “It was perfect for ice dancing. Ice dancing came super easily to me because of my ballet background.”
Lang continued with both ballet and skating into high school. The demanding training regimen meant that she missed out on football games and other aspects of growing up that most people take for granted. Then at 15, she gave up ballet to dedicate herself fully to skating. Lang competed in all four disciplines—figures, freestyle, pairs skating, and ice dance—before committing to ice dancing. After practicing together, her coach told Lang what a natural ice dancer she was. Her ballet background had given her more of a dancer’s style than a jumper’s technique, and, paradoxically, she found it more comfortable and liberating to skate with a partner than on her own.
She clearly made the right decision. With partner John Lee, Lang won the 1995 U.S. Novice title and a silver medal in the junior competition the next year at the U.S. National Championships. Lang was on the way to the Olympics and her place in history. As proud as she was to become the first Native American woman Winter Olympian, Lang admits that she couldn’t fully appreciate the significance of that milestone. “I hadn’t connected with myself,” she says. “I kind of felt that I didn’t belong in that role yet.”
Rediscovering Her Karuk Roots
Growing up in Michigan, Lang imagined what it would be like to one day visit California to spend time with her father’s side of the family and learn about her Karuk heritage. “As a kid, I thought that if I go and visit, I didn’t know what I was going to find. I knew that it was a part of my life that I eventually wanted to discover. But I wasn’t ready.”
After only sporadic contact with her father, Lang started reaching out to him. Family members told her that he was struggling with alcohol-related health problems and living in elder housing. But through her cousin Brian D. Tripp, a renowned Karuk artist and poet, she learned that her father wanted to talk.
It was 2020. “I was finally ready. Perfect, I got this. I’m going to meet my dad. I’m going to finally figure out who I am, where I came from. All of it. I was super excited.”
When the day came for a phone conversation, Lang says family members called her six hours ahead of schedule. She was caught off guard and, in a panic, didn’t take the call, figuring they would try again later to reach her. Then she didn’t hear from anyone for another two days until her uncle Julian Lang, a traditional Karuk storyteller, broke the sad news that her father had passed away.
“That was the moment I thought, ‘Naomi you have to do this yourself,” she recalls. “There’s not going to be anybody to help you. You have to take the step. This all happened for a reason.’”
In 2022, at age 42, Lang finally traveled to California to visit her father’s side of the family. “I hadn’t seen them since I was maybe 10,” she says. “It was the most awesome experience. My mom and I don’t really look alike, and growing up I was in this world of blond hair and blue eyes. But I look exactly like my father, and everyone on his side of my family has the same nose. We all have the same eye shape. We all have the same hair.
“I felt like I belonged. They opened their arms and took me in. Started showing me around Karuk territory and where they held their ceremonies. The river where they catch salmon. The songs they sing. The art they create. Their regalia. I have just learned so much in the past two years. Amazing things. And my journey is just beginning.”
Lang’s goal is to give back to the Karuk community in whatever way she can. “I want to enrich children’s lives and tell my story and be a positive influence. To give a sense of what it takes to be a successful person. For them to hear a story of struggle that leads to success. That was my story. There are a lot of kids who deal with parents with alcoholism. And not having a second parent. I never had a second parent. But I didn’t blame my dad. I could tell he was struggling and knew he was proud of me.”
While in California, Lang spoke to Karuk tribal members and alongside the Northern California Indian Development Council organized a roller skating event (there was no ice available) for Karuk, Yurok, and Hoopa children. She’s now putting together enrichment programs in both Arizona and California to encourage an active, healthy lifestyle among Indigenous youth.
In April of 2022, her Karuk heritage and a lifetime of skating finally converged when Lang performed at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. During a skating program set to the sound of ocean waves, her cousin Brian’s poetry, and flute music, Lang wore the traditional regalia that Karuk family members had crafted for her.
“I’ve traveled all over the world for skating but when I went back to visit my family in Northern California two years ago was when I finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be. The Klamath River was calling my name my whole life. I was finally home.”