The Little Museums That Could - Sort Of

This past weekend we went to two more of Anchorage's fine meccas of entertainment - The Anchorage Museum of Natural History, and the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. I will just go ahead and get the funnier one out of the way.

The Natural History museum reminded me of nothing so much as an old-school scout house. Readers of a certain age (and possibly from the northeast) will know exactly what I mean. The place was kind of jury-rigged together out of plywood and duct tape, the walls festooned with art that was clearly some Jr. High class's art/science Comes Alive! project.

...like this. I swear this is hanging on their wall. I could not ascertain from the display when the Saurians were supposed to have settled in the greater Anchorage area, but judging from the moons, they were either here for many, many months, or they arrived by some sort of swirly time tunnel.

No, seriously. Most of their displays were more like this...

A lot of the labels were misspelled, and many of them were handwritten on torn-up squares of notebook paper. To return to my earlier scout-house analogy, there were the cases of dusty bones, a display of minerals, posters illustrating things like "Insects of Alaska", and the persistent, mysterious smell of mildewed canvas. Their mission was supposed to have been illustrating Alaska's natural history, which in some instances they did very well. For example, their models of volcanos and maps of the Pacific's Ring of Fire were pretty well done. However, there was a considerable amount of mission creep-most of it not for the better. Some examples of this problem include our old friends the Reptoids and a section of things concerning Haunted Alaska, which by anyone's definition is more the Unnatural history of Alaska. I found it deeply charming, but not really a credible source of Natural History information. All in all, this would be a great place to take impressionable young children you would like to confuse or upset - a niece or nephew, perhaps. Another bonus is that things are just sort of sitting out on display with little context or information, so you can amuse yourself by making up extravagant lies about them!

...like this: It is a well-known fact that bears steal money from banks and eat crackers from tins.

It is a bargain at $5 for adult entry, so it has that going for it as well.

Just Plane Folks
By contrast, the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum is actually pretty good. It is a bit garage band-y as well, but they are doing well for a plucky underdog style establishment. Alaska does have quite a bit of aviation heritage, so there is that going for it as well. Quite a lot of interior and otherwise rural Alaska can be reached only by small planes (or foot or dogsled-you choose!), and sometimes only by float planes. So quite a lot of people and items make their way around the state by air.

Alaska being as independent as it is, quite a lot of colorful folk tend to make their way here - usually the exact same kind of people who wind up flying for a living. Also, there has been a lot of military aviation based out of Alaska, including a few units with extremely comical unit patches. So that made me very happy indeed.

Here is an inevitable diorama - this time of a crashed plane. [Art's commentary: In a happy coincidence, an awful lot of Alaska's aviation history involves crashed planes! This is not the only crashed-plane diorama.]

Information is well laid out, though, and in addition to informational placards, pictures and some memorabilia items, the place is absolutely rife with salvaged old planes.

...some of which make you appreciate how crazy and/or brave the people who flew these things really were. This picture is from one of the hangar/worksheds out back, where restoration work is ongoing on a number of planes. You are allowed to just sort of poke around, which is nice. Also, it was not crowded, and I have the impression it never really is. When we went into the one shed where serious restoration work was going on, one of the volunteers and his dog took us around a bit and showed us some neat stuff about the planes there.

For instance, this 737, donated by Alaska Airlines, has some modifications to it so that it can land on dirt runways, which is so it can go to some of the bigger interior villages! We would not have seen the modifications without his help, so it was nice to get some guidance. [Art's Commentary: The picture on the tail is a native guy in a hood and NOT Bob Marley, as I had previously thought]

If you are at all alive to the romance of aviation, particularly in its older, wilder days, the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum is for you.