Monthly Archives: July 2018

Alaska Museums

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Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Skagway Museum
Sheldon Jackson Museum
June 23 and June 26, 2018
Skagway, Alaska
Sitka, Alaska

The National Park Service has several museum buildings in Skagway, right near the cruise ship landing. We watched a 25 minute video about the Klondike gold rush of 1896-1899 at the visitor center. Skagway and the nearby (now deserted) town of Dyea were jumping off points for “stampeders” who came by ship then went overland on the Chilkoot Trail from Dyea or the longer but less steep White Pass Trail from Skagway. They endured great hardships because they had to traverse the trails many times, hauling food and gear sufficient to last through the winter, a requirement imposed by Canadian Mounties as a condition of entering their country.

The historic district is about twelve blocks long and two blocks wide. The National Park Service maintains several museum buildings: the visitor center, the Mascot Saloon, a junior ranger center, and the Moore Homestead. Skagway boasts many gold rush era wooden buildings, and we enjoyed strolling up and down its main street, stopping to enjoy some spruce tip blonde ale.

We visited the Skagway city museum and learned about local Native American cultures as well as more about the gold rush era.

There was also a sobering display about the wreck of the S.S. Princess Sophia in 1918, which sank with no survivors after it hit the Vanderbilt Reef on the way from Skagway to Seattle. Although the ship remained on the rocks for about 40 hours, and other ships were nearby, the weather was too severe to allow for putting off lifeboats. At least 343 lives were lost. Reading about it made us slightly nervous to be sailing the same waters by ship, but of course navigational equipment has improved, and we enjoyed better weather.

In the town of Sitka we found an excellent museum devoted to native Alaskan peoples, the Sheldon Jackson museum. Meredith’s mother Margaret would have really loved it! There were many fine pieces on display – baskets, tools, clothing, kayaks and canoes, and a number of other items.

The building’s octagonal structure allows for maximum display room, with cases on the exterior walls, a ring of tall cases inside that, and then another ring of chest-high cases with displays on top and drawers that can be pulled out to see additional items. In the very center were several totem poles. Everything was well organized and labeled.

Exploring Alaska

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We joined seven other family members in June for a cruise on the Oceania ship Regatta from Seattle to Alaska and back via Victoria, B.C. The scenery was spectacular!

Bob landed a king salmon in Ketchikan, as did our oldest daughter and our niece.

We kayaked on Mendenhall Lake with two of our daughters, seeing both the Mendenhall Glacier and Nugget Falls.

In Skagway we biked through the forest, including the site of what was once the town of Dyea and the beginning of the Chilkoot Trail.

At Icy Strait Point we took a tram through the forest, then hiked a short nature walk.

The ship sailed on north from Icy Strait Point to the Hubbard Glacier, stopping just a mile short of it. The glacier is six miles wide and approximately 300 feet tall. We saw several “calvings,” that is ice breaking off the face of the glacier, where it meets the sea. The whole experience was breathtaking.

On the way back south, we stopped in Sitka. We and our niece hiked with a guided group through the rain forest.

In Victoria we took it a bit easier and hired a van and driver to give us a guided drive through the city. One of our stops was at the largest one-log free-standing totem pole in the world.

PMCA’s Last Hurrah

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Pasadena Museum of California Art
Pasadena

We learned from an article in the Los Angeles Times that the Pasadena Museum of California Art will be closing.

As the name suggests, this museum features California art. Specifically, its mission is “to present the breadth of California art and design through exhibitions that explore the cultural dynamics and influences that are unique to California.” It is unusual in not having any collection of its own. Rather, it showcases special exhibitions, three at a time. The museum lacks an endowment and has largely been supported by a pair of donors, the founders Bob and Arlene Oltman. It fills its niche well, but its unusual structure has proven to be unsustainable. In June, the board voted to close on October 7 when the current exhibitions finish.

The current exhibitions include: works by painter and graphic designer Grafton Tyler Brown, the first known African American artist to work in California; another featuring feminist artist Judy Chicago; and the third displaying sculptures by contemporary Los Angeles artist Brody Albert.

We visited the museum once, on a get-away weekend in Pasadena a few months before we started this blog. We did not take photos there, but our “PMCA” stickers can be see in this selfie taken outside the Gamble House.

While there we saw an exhibition featuring paintings by Alfredo Ramos Martínez produced in the 1930’s and 40’s, another displaying several dozen silk screened political posters from the 1970’s on, and the third compromised of studies done by Flora Kao of cabins in the Mojave Desert.

We enjoyed our visit and are sad to see PMCA close.