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One of the guests admired her cloth kuspuk, a traditional Alaska Native garment similar to a smock, and wanted to know if it was water resistant.

“Mary is a woman whose heart is as grounded in Alaska as anybody you’re going to find,” Murkowski told reporters after the event, wearing a gold-colored, paisley-patterned kuspuk, common Alaska Indigenous clothing Peltola gave her last year.

She was wearing a hand-stitched whaling crew kuspuk — a pullover with stars and burgundy piping around its front pocket.

Adrienne Aakaluk Titus says her son was told prior to commencement that he would have to remove a kuspuk he wore with his graduation robe.

Once she appeared — she wore a kuspuk, a longish hooded shirt with a large pocket in front — she made the rounds, introducing herself, thanking the staff members for the work they did and giving a brief speech, her voice just audible over the crackling sound of a partygoer’s hand riffling through a bag of Fritos.