The Alaska Collections Project

Through the Alaska Collections Project, Alaska Native Elders have an opportunity to share their knowledge of traditional Inuit (Eskimo), Athabaskan and Unangan (Aleut) cultures with younger generations in their own regions and with the world as well.

Since May 2001, delegations of Elders have been making the long journey from their homes in rural Alaska to Washington, D.C. There they are working with Arctic Studies Center curators to document some of the many thousands of Alaskan cultural objects housed by the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Some of the items - boots and parkas stitched with sinew and caribou hair, woven baskets of grass and spruce fibers, wooden dance masks, hunting weapons, carvings of walrus ivory and much, much more - are up to 150 years old. Others were made in recent decades of the 20th century. In materials and design, they embody a whole way of life on the land as well as indigenous ways of seeing and celebrating the connections between human beings and the natural world.

The uses and meanings of the objects come to life in the words of the Alaska Native experts. Many learned the intricate skills of skin sewing, kayak building, trapping and hunting when they were young, and they examine the old museum objects with practiced eyes. Estelle Oosevaseuk from the village of Gambell described how St. Lawrence Island boot makers measure their patterns on reindeer and bearded seal skins using a system of finger lengths and hand dimensions. Oscar Koutchak, from the village of Unalakleet on Norton Sound, held an implement that hunters used for scratching the sea ice to attract seals. He said, "My Dad used to use this kind. It's handy, it's small, you can put it in your pocket?ou are sitting down on a cake of ice or the main ice and you want the seal to come close before you shoot. They can hear you (from underwater), you're scratching?hey think it's another seal."

Information provided by Elders will be joined with historical and anthropological information, photographs and video clips to create an exciting web site about traditional and contemporary Alaska Native cultures, with a focus on the rich diversity of the Smithsonian collections. Many of the objects will be brought to Alaska for future exhibitions, including Smithsonian galleries at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art as well as special displays designed for travel to Alaska Native museums. Watch this site for future developments and web links.

The Alaska Collections Project is a collaborative effort of the Arctic Studies Center and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, with major funding from the Rasmuson Foundation (Anchorage), Phillips, Alaska Inc., the Museum Loan Network and the National Museum of the American Indian.

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