Southcentral Gallery

The prominent Alaska Pipeline traverses high coastal mountain ranges on its way from Prudhoe Bay south to Valdez. The Museum's one-third scale model of the pipeline's above-ground supports demonstrates the engineering involved in keeping soils frozen when the pipeline and its warm oil crosses frozen ground.

 

Brick tea, samovars, padlocks, and brass bells represent the Russian-American Company's early history in Alaska, with an extensive network of trading posts. Russian Orthodox missionaries traveled to these outlying areas and established churches and schools, some of which form the centers of villages today.

 

The Birds of the Wetlands exhibit highlights the Copper River Delta, an important resting and feeding area for several million migratory shorebirds and waterfowl. Eiders, geese, swans, jaegers, and dunlins are some of the birds depicted in this environmental diorama.