7 Best Museums In Alaska

Most visitors to Alaska search for the largest U.S. state’s natural wonders. There's no shortage, from glaciers and salmon runs to jagged mountains reaching for the Arctic sky. But for those who prefer their learning experiences a little less rugged, Alaska is also home to various worthwhile museums.

And whether you’re usually a museum person or not, they’re worth a visit. You’re likely not planning your visit to Alaska for its indoor activities. Still, you might enjoy the great outdoors more after visiting these museums to contextualize the state’s rich history and unique ecosystems. Uniquely grounded in their extraordinary location, these seven best museums in Alaska are worth the hours you’d devote to them.

Alaska State Museum - Juneau

Though Juneau is a small city by state capital standards, its trademark museum serves as a gateway to a much wider world: it displays representative natural and cultural artifacts from around Alaska. The museum's thorough survey skips over no era of Alaska’s human or natural history. With a little bit of almost everything from nearly everywhere, it’s about as concise an introduction to this unbelievably vast state as you could ask for.

And concise it may be, but one-note it’s most certainly not. You might expect to see taxidermied Arctic critters and lots of indigenous art, and that’s certainly all here — but so are all sorts of surprises. Learn about the Russian fur trade in the region; discover Alaska’s little-known World War II history; trace the development of Alaska as a bucket-list travel destination…you get the picture: a lot is going on here!

If you want to explore Juneau a little more, the nearby Mendenhall Glacier is a must-stop. It's accessible and provides guided tours of the glacier. For those who prefer nature a bit more sedate, the Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure is one of the more unique botanical gardens you'll ever see and offers panoramic views of Juneau.

Alaska Native Heritage Center - Anchorage

Many of Alaska’s best museums are broadly-focused overviews of the state, so you’ll find Native Alaskan art and artifacts in most of them. But if you’d rather visit a place that focuses solely on Alaska’s first inhabitants, Anchorage is the place to be. This museum aims to preserve the living heritage of the state’s Native cultures.

It began in 1987 as a cultural hub for Native Alaskans, with a dual focus on educating the public and collecting knowledge so that traditional customs could thrive in the modern era. Training programs in conventional arts, language-learning resources, and community events are just a few of the Alaska Native Heritage Center's non-museum functions.

That focus on living cultures means that visitors will experience Native Alaskan culture not as a static thing of the past but as it’s actually practiced. Life-sized replicas of traditional villages and demonstrations of Native Alaskan games and dances complement multimedia displays of artifacts. It’s as immersive and varied an introduction to Native Alaskan cultures as you could hope for, and it's a must-visit if you find yourself in Anchorage.

Once you've finished your museum visit in Anchorage, you'll find plenty to do. Local hiking trails like Flattop Mountain give visitors ample opportunity to get outside, and if you're not museum-dout yet, the Anchorage Museum is another of Alaska's finest.

Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum - Fairbanks

Most people would probably never guess Alaska if asked where to find the nation’s best automotive museums. And in fairness, Fairbanks is a pretty random place for a world-class vintage car collection to call home. But there’s a reason that the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum is a top-rated museum in the state, according to guest reviews.

A collection of over 115 vintage vehicles is impressive, but its local focus makes the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum special. In a state as vast as Alaska, automotive transportation has played a significant role in development and industry, and this museum is an informative look at just how vital that role has been. Even if you’re not into cars, you’ll find some aspect of Alaska’s often colorful relationship with the humble motorcar to interest you.

Adding charm and heart to this impressive collection is that all but three of the vehicles can actually drive. And since you’ve got to drive a car to keep it in driving condition, museum staff regularly take many of said cars out for the occasional jaunt when the road conditions are adequate. (That’s never a guarantee in America’s coldest major city.) Though you can’t go for a spin yourself, it’s much more fun to wander the collection when you know that nearly every one of these 100+-year-old cars could drive off on a modern-day Alaskan adventure if the need ever arose.

You'll find no shortage if you're looking for additional activities to fill a day in Fairbanks. Not only is it one of the best places in the U.S. to spot the Northern Lights in winter, but it's also home to one of the other entries on this list - see #7. Later, you can warm up in the nearby Chena Hot Springs.

Iditarod Headquarters - Wasilla

Dogsledding - or mushing, if you want to get technical about it - is on many Alaska visitors’ bucket lists. It’s a uniquely Alaskan way of getting around that’s accumulated an appealing mystique over the years: name a story of adventure and peril in the Arctic that doesn’t feature a loyal sled dog team. And no element of mushing culture is more iconic than the Iditarod, a world-famous annual sled dog race run every year for 1200 miles from Anchorage to Nome.

But what do we actually know about the Iditarod? You may find that the answer is “not much.” The race is shrouded in misinformation (no, it’s got nothing to do with the famous 1925 Serum Run that saved the city of Nome from a diphtheria epidemic!). Its cultural significance is often overlooked because it’s such a grueling athletic challenge. That’s precisely why the Iditarod Headquarters museum is an excellent addition to an Anchorage itinerary.

About forty-five minutes outside the city in Wasilla, this museum exists to chronicle the history and culture of the world’s most iconic sled dog race. All those artifacts and exhibitions provide a lively firsthand experience: in the summer, paying guests can experience (snow-free) mushing with a trained musher and racing team. Though a little out of the way, this quirky museum is a great place to learn about and experience Alaska’s state sport.

Wasilla is a tiny place, easiest to fit in as a day trip from Anchorage. But it'll also put you close to Matanuska Glacier, an ice-filled valley where you can check ice climbing or hiking on a glacier off your bucket list.

Red Onion Saloon Brothel Museum - Skagway

If you are interested in Alaska’s Klondike Gold Rush era, you’ve got to get yourself to the Red Onion Saloon Brothel Museum. Before Skagway was a cruise port, it was a gold rush boom town — and there’s no place where that heritage is better preserved. Once one of the most happening saloons and/or bordellos in Gold Rush-era Skagway, The Red Onion Saloon is now an affectionate tribute to a colorful bygone era.

The Red Onion Saloon isn’t precisely a museum in the sense you might expect. There’s nothing behind glass here, and after refurbishment, it operates as a modern bar and restaurant in its original historic location. But it’s not all business: for those not looking for a lunch break, “Madams” in period-accurate clothing offer informative and energetic tours of the spot Skagway’s early transplants used to get their good times.

You might have guessed by now that Red Onion Saloon is a little bit livelier than your typical museum-goer might expect, but that’s its ultimate charm. 1890s Skagway wasn’t the cleanest-cut place, and its stories - some scandalous, some sad, but none of them ever boring — are what this unconventional museum is all about.

While in Skagway, you'll find no shortage of attractions related to the town's Gold Rush history, from the Klondike Gold Rush National History Park to the White Pass Yukon Railroad. (Ever wanted to ride a train across national borders? This one passes into Canada.)

Totem Heritage Museum - Ketchikan

Ketchikan is another favorite cruise ship port in Alaska. If that happens to be how you're exploring the state, and you can't make it up to the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, this favorite Ketchikan museum is an excellent introduction to (one of) Alaska's fascinating Native cultures.

For many visitors, totem poles are the most recognizable symbols of Native Alaskan cultures. Produced by indigenous groups throughout the Pacific Northwest, they're a form of commemorative artwork that has captured the imagination of countless visitors to Alaska. In Ketchikan, you'll find the largest collection of unaltered totem poles in the world—all of them dating back to the 19th century.

Thirty-three totem poles may not sound like many, but in the moist climate of southeastern Alaska, finding thirty-three wooden poles in pristine condition is no mean feat. The museum displays a rotating selection of these poles, which were created by the Tlingit and Haida people and found at uninhabited village sites, as well as handicrafts from various southern Alaskan Native cultures.

If you're curious about Alaskan art, Native Alaskan cultures, or totem poles, the Totem Heritage Museum is an excellent addition to your day in Ketchikan. Consider combining your visit with an outing to the iconic Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show, which honors the town's logging industry in boisterous style. Outdoor enthusiasts might try fishing in "the salmon capital of the world" or spot the local wildlife, including orcas and migrating humpback whales.

University of Alaska Museum of the North - Fairbanks

A handful of museums are on this list with a general Alaskan theme, all excellent. But many in the know claim that this University of Alaska-affiliated Fairbanks museum is the finest. Want to see a perfectly-preserved Ice Age bison mummified by the cold? Museum of the North has you covered. Learn about the Aurora Borealis through multisensory multimedia displays? That’s here, too. Even the building gets plenty of attention as one of Alaska’s finest examples of modern architecture.

From the variety of themes in its exhibitions to their innovative mixed-media presentations, every learning experience at the Museum of the North is of the highest quality. It’s quite simply the defining Alaska museum. Although Fairbanks isn’t what you’d think of as a museum town — most visitors to Fairbanks are chasing the Northern Lights or using the city as a jumping-off point to visit more remote destinations — it’s worth giving this excellent tribute to Alaska’s natural and human complexities a few hours of your itinerary. No place brings the state’s vastness down to a digestible size with as much skill.

You might recall a few Fairbanks attractions mentioned earlier, but if you're in town long enough to visit both museums, there are a handful of other worthwhile places to check out. Remember Chena Hot Springs? The especially adventurous can hike the Angel Rocks trail (a cool 8.3 miles) to get there. And winter visitors can enjoy about every winter sport there is, from ice fishing to snowmobiling.

You might assume that Alaska’s towering natural beauty speaks for itself, and you’d mostly be right. Much of the state’s allure is easy to grasp just by looking at it. But it’s always more meaningful when you know what you’re looking at, how it got there, and how it’s shaped this land’s relationship with its inhabitants. And that’s precisely what Alaska’s best museums are for. It becomes impressive and downright magical with a little bit of well-curated background information.