Highlights of Collections

• Archaeological fragments from Vitus Bering’s ship Saint Peter

• Russian trade beads, trade goods, and material used in daily living by Russian American colonizers in Sitka in the early and mid-1800s

• Russian Orthodox icons and vestments

• The original journal from the U.S.S. Ossippee, a U.S. sloop of war present for the official 1867 transfer ceremony when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia

• An 1879 painting of the U.S.S. Jamestown, a U.S. sloop of war present in Sitka at the time of the transfer, and purportedly done by the ship’s painter, R.P. Smith.

• Letters written by Emily McCorkle Fitzgerald, an army doctor’s wife who lived in Sitka for a two year period after the Transfer

• Photographs by Sitka’s most renown photographer of the early 20th century, E.W. Merrill

• Mining tools and household items from Chichagof Mine, operational from 1905 until 1942

• Fine examples of Tlingit spruce root basketry and regalia,including a Chilkat blanket woven by Mary Willard

• Tlingit handicrafts made for the curios trade in the early 1900s, including halibut hooks, bentwood boxes, carvings, and spoons made of animal horn

• Paintings by William Stewart,

• Works of art by Theodore J. Richardson and self-taught artists, such as Paulina Cohen

• Firsthand accounts of early 19th century steamship travel up the Inside Passage

• The Photo Shop Studio Collection of photographs of downtown Sitka and local landscapes dating from 1927 until 1974

• World War II era uniforms, medals, cutlery, scrapbooks, correspondence, and photographs

• A collection of wood blocks, wood engravings, and prints, including fifty prints of the Raven Series by master Southeast artist Dale DeArmond

• Early and first edition books including U.S. Coastal Pilots and publications by ethnographers such as George T. Emmons and R.J. Swanton

• Alaskan newspapers and publications dating from the late 1800s until the present day

• Numerous architectural plans, blue prints, structural reports, and maps

• Fishing gear, nautical instruments, and maritime-history related artifacts

• 20th century items related to pulp mill production, logging, and other industries in Sitka and Southeast Alaska