Alaska Heritage Museum - Seal Gut Parka, Wooly Mammoth Tusk, And Other Dazzling Objects

It's not exactly hidden away, but I've never noticed a sign outside announcing it.  The Alaska Heritage Museum is inside the lobby of the, now, Wells Fargo Building.  I say 'now' because this used to be the National Bank of Alaska Building (from Alaska.org):

"Even though the art-gallery-sized space feels intimate, this is the largest private collection of its kind in Alaska.  The museum was started by the First National Bank of Alaska in 1976, as a way for the bank’s owners, the Rasmussen family, to create a space for high-quality art and artifacts largely from Alaska's native tribes, such as the Northwest Coast Indian, Athabascan, Aleut, Yupik and Inupiaq tribes."

Alaska.org also says the museum is in downtown, but I think most Anchorage folk would disagree, saying it's in midtown.  A heftier walk for tourists in downtown hotels, but still doable.

My Pecha Kucha class was in the library of the museum and after the last class, I decided to take some pictures to give folks an idea of the range of items.  By the way, the museum is free, and as the sign says, it's open Mondays through Fridays from 12 - 4 pm.  

Those are murres, not penguins, as pawns on the left.

 The sign says this is an Athabascan Chief's Coat.  The beaded coat and the seal gut parka below were the two most stunning items for me.

   

Here are assorted SE Alaska items.











Mike Healy is an interesting Alaskan character - an important sea captain of the north as the story says.  All the while, it seems one of his major attractions to historians, is the notion that he 'passed for white" although his mother was a "light skinned" slave.  Of course, that sort of characterization reminds us that for the dominant culture, if you have 'a drop of black blood' then you are black.  Even though most of your heritage is white and no one suspects you aren't white.

I've put this sign up twice to highlight the problems I'm having with editing on iPhoto lately - the edits don't stick when I export the photo.  I upped the contrast so it would be easier to read.  So if I'm insistent, I have to take a screen shot of the edit and use that.  Which is what I did for the version below.  But, of course, that degrades the quality in different ways.

A reminder, also, that most pictures enlarge and focus better if you click on them.

Here are some much older artifacts.  Some 2000 years old.










Even older - 12,000 to 15,000 years old - is this wooly mammoth tusk.

And much more recent are these Russian samovars.


The museum is at the corner of C Street and Northern Lights, in the Wells Fargo Building.