Bowhead Whale
Museum visitors can now see the only suspended bowhead whale skeleton in the Americas. The museum has articulated and suspended a 43' Bowhead Whale skeleton from the lobby ceiling. The specimen, a young male harvested by Alaska Native hunters in 1963 near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), has been in the museum's Mammals Collection since 1965, with only the skull on exhibit since 1980.
The exhibition of this Bowhead Whale skeleton was made possible by the Bill Stroecker Foundation.
The special exhibition, Perspective: Ways to See a Whale, gives us additional opportunities to see the bowhead whale from the perspective of Native and non-native artists, from writers and whalers, photographers and engineers, and from scientists. Inspect the tiny animals a bowhead hunts for food, feel the weight of whalebone, and hear what a whale hears from beneath the ice and waves.
Perspective: Ways to See a Whale on exhibit in the special exhibits gallery.
View the tiny krill and copepods that bowhead whales feed on.
View artworks by Ken Ooyahtoona Lisbourne and six other artists from the museum's collection.
See art and cultural objects from the museum's collection related to whales.
This special exhibit is presented with support from the Friends of the UA Museum of the North.