This is another in a series of posts I will do of my trip to Alaska. I did a similar thing when I was in the Baja this winter. NOTE: as I posted before i do not intend these posts as mere cheerleading but to communicate what I see and experience.
With the above in mind...
We took a few hours to have a good look at the Anchorage Museum. They do have a stunningly good collection of artifacts of Alaskan history especially of the Native Cultures.
However I was very very disappointed in the museum in several respects. the lighting of many of the artifacts was very bad or non existant, many of the descriptions were unreadable due to being worn away by people following the text with their fingers or poor lighting or in some cases lights just off or not working.
But the major drawback for me was the historical handling of several installations.
In one instance on the Tlingit culture and it's history of contact with Americans and Europeans. A great deal of space was allotted to the so called "benefits" of the missionaries that came with the Americans after the purchase from Russia. This included glowing accounts of education and healthcare.
However nowhere did it balance that view with the historical reality for the destruction wreaked upon these people. In reality when the missionaries came they mistook the totem poles and painted boards on the houses as "gods" or religious symbols and tore them down and had them burned. In actuality these were the History of that family or Clan that lived in that house. They literally destroyed a family's and cultures history.
Nor was any mention made of the forced use of English and forced abandonment of their own religion which is one filled with wonderful Myths based on the Raven.
There really should have been much much more balance in this installation. It was almost as if there were an underlying agenda going on here. Much of the real history of those people was ignored.
This approach of unstinting praise for the Missionary work is echoed in exhibits of the other native cultures as well without the balancing historical context of the destruction wreaked by those with ideological fervor who blunder into another culture and (despite good intentions) wreak havoc, pain and long-standing animosity.
However one great part of the museum and very well done was the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center which was beautiful, well done and balanced. But you expect this of the Smithsonian. I highly recomend this part of the museum.
I spend a lot of time in museums, I lived in Washington DC and have been to all of the Smithsonians as well as others. I have been to the Lourve, the Prado in Madrid, The Rijskmuseum in Amsterdam, the Uffizi in Florence and many others. I dont expect Anchorage to come up to that level. But I did expect more balance in telling the history of some of our first peoples.
And a note: As a young man just out of the service in Alaska I spent a summer in a Tlingit village, Hoonah, commercial fishing and living with my best friends family (the son of the captain) and one of the leaders of the village. I learned a lot of their history, culture and a bit of the language. For the Anchorage Museum to be so careless in their portrayal of Tlingit history is truly unforgivable.
But do go if you are there and don't miss the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center exhibit.
Anchorage is bittersweet for me this visit. The first time I was here was 44 years ago in the Air Force, my last visit was more than 15 years ago. The Changes are stunning including the population has more than doubled since I was here in 1973.
But one thing has remained the same. The best Hamburgers are at the Arctic Roadrunner on the Old Seward Highway. Go there and have the Pepper Burger. You wont regret it. I was eating here in 1973 (in the old building) and the hamburgers have not changed.
We are staying at the Ship Creek RV park, it's right at downtown very convenient to everything. It is simple...no resort (thank goodness) but has everything you need. With the GS discount it is $35.10 per night.
The weather has been sunny and nice tomo is forcast to be 73 and sunny. be sure to go and pay your respects to the Captain Cook statue (he wreaked his own brand of mayhem along the way but at least expanded mans knowledge of his planet exponentially) and today I am off to the Alaska Aviation Museum...they have a flight simulator I am looking forward to.
Anchorage is a great and must-do stop while in Alaska and while it is a big city now it still retains a bit of it's rough edges I appreciated in my younger days.
