Alaska State Museum

The Alaska State Museum was established in 1900 as the Historical Library and Museum for the District of Alaska. The Museum’s purpose is to collect, preserve, and exhibit cultural materials from across Alaska.

The Alaska State Museum houses collections that include cultural materials from:

• the people of the Northwest Coast
• the Athabascan cultures of Interior Alaska
• the Inupiaq of the north coast
• the Yup’ik of the southwest of Alaska
• the Alutiiq people of Prince William Sound and Kodiak Island
• the Unangax from out along the Aleutian chain.

Today, the Museum’s collections have grown to 27,000 objects. Artifacts from the state’s Russian colonial eras, state and political history, fine art, natural history, industry, and trades are exhibited.

Alaska State Museums

The collections of the Alaska State Museums are located across two facilities:

• The Alaska State Museum in Juneau
• Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka

Sheldon Jackson Museum

The Sheldon Jackson Museum collections include objects from the Native groups in Alaska that reflect the collection by the founder, Sheldon Jackson, from 1887 through about 1898.

In 1984 the museum was purchased by the State of Alaska, and only Alaska Native materials made before the early 1930s are included in the collection.

Highlights of the Alaska State Museums

• Alaska Native technology, tools, and utensils
• Russian America exhibits
• Missionary Era exhibits
• World War II in Alaska
• Civil Defense and the Cold War exhibits
• The Matanuska Colony History
• Early Aviation History
• Early Industry exhibits such as Canneries and Fishing
• 19th and early 20th century Alaska paintings

Taion (chief) from Aliaksa Island by Mikhail Tikhanov, 1818 – Alaska State Museum, Juneau