Alaska’s
Native peoples -- notably the Yup’ik
and Inupiat Eskimos who inhabit the
Pacific and Arctic Ocean coasts; and
the Aleuts of Southwest Alaska --
have hunted whales and seals since
time immemorial, and several communities
continue a limited whale hunt under
special subsistence - whaling licenses
of the International
Whaling Commission.
Yankee whalers visited Alaskan
waters from the middle 19th century;
the bowhead whale fishery in the
Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea was
one of the last to be commercially
viable in the 20th century.
There are many wonderful objects of
Alaskan origin exhibited at the KWM
-- see especially the Arctic, Northwest
Coast, and Scrimshaw Galleries; and
Angokwazhuk (“Happy Jack”),
among “Famous Whalemen.”
There are also a great many objects
in the museum that have an Alaska
provenance, notably some of the shoulder
guns (“Whaling in the South Seas”)
and ship models.
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