Alaska Native Heritage

Fairbanks’ northern region reveals a rich tapestry of Alaska Native art

and culture. There are many different indigenous groups in Alaska and each has their own way of life, including language, material culture and traditions. Alaska’s vast Interior is home to Athabascan people who were once nomadic but now live in small villages. Farther north, the Arctic is home to Inupiaq Inuit people. Adventurous travelers can visit remote villages and be inspired by the resourceful and contemporary lifestyle of Interior and Arctic peoples. Alaska Native peoples create works of art out of strikingly different materials like caribou antler, moose hide, whale baleen and walrus ivory. Athabascans make baskets of birch bark and are renowned for exquisite beadwork. The Inupiaq Inuit of the Far North are often coastal and create elegant carvings of the natural world around them from ivory, bone and driftwood. Alaska Native artists demonstrate and sell their work in galleries and specialty stores and Alaska Native performing arts like drumming, dancing and fiddle playing can be seen during special events around town, offering an authentic view into the past as well as a bridge to the future.

One thing that Fairbanks has taught me about my own culture is how much history is in our own city, from the potlatches to the Native dances and sports at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. One memory that stands out to me is the canvas tent inside the exhibit hall in the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center. I went there with my mom and she told me that when she was growing up, she and her 11 siblings would sleep in a tent just like that on the Yukon River while their parents were harvesting fish or berries or moose. I was so amazed because the tent was so small! Fairbanks holds a lot of history and the Natives here hold a lot of stories and I love that! Amanda Mitchell, Athabascan photographer