Museum invites visitors to annual open house

Submitted by Kerynn Fisher
Phone: 907-474-6941
02/06/09

The University of Alaska Museum of the North’s open house only comes once a year, but it’s well worth the wait for the chance to meet with the museum’s research staff and to visit the museum’s specimen preparation labs and exhibit design suite. The family-friendly event is presented by BP and will be held Saturday, Feb. 7 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Visitors will be able to meet with curators, collection managers and graduate students to learn more about the museum’s collections and research. Displays specific to the open house event will include stone tools from On Your Knees Cave, an archaeological site on Prince of Wales Island; new acquisitions to the fine art and ethnology collections; a cross-section of Alaskan birds, fish, insects, mammals and plants; and a 16-foot ichthyosaur specimen retrieved from the western Brooks Range in 2002 with help from Army soldiers stationed at Fort Wainwright.

"This is our favorite event of the year because it highlights the heart and soul of the museum - our research collections," says museum director Aldona Jonaitis. "All of our exhibits and public programs evolve from the collections."

The open house also features demonstrations by painter Karen Austen and Alutiiq beadworker Eleanor Naumoff. Younger visitors of all ages will enjoy hands-on activities in the museum’s Education Center. Two of the activities - making snow goggles and Yup’ik hunting visors - are inspired by the museum’s current special exhibit, "Yuungnaqpiallerput (The Way We Genuinely Live): Masterworks of Yup’ik Science and Survival." The museum’s exhibit galleries will also be open.

For more information on the museum’s spring events and exhibits, please call 474-7505 or visit the museum online at www.uaf.edu/museum.

MEDIA CONTACT: Kerynn Fisher, University of Alaska Museum of the North communications coordinator, at 907-474-6941 or 907-378-2559.