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Alaska Film Archives

About the Collection

Over the past half century, the University of Alaska Fairbanks has built the largest collection of archival films in and about Alaska. The collection combines hundreds of donations of film and videos to UAF by individuals, organizations and institutions. Materials range from professional productions to amateur home-movies, made in and about Alaska from the earliest days of filmmaking through today. Since 1993 these materials have been held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library. Films and videos selected for this portal project are a sampling of the thousands available for checkout on DVD through the Rasmuson Library. Unless otherwise noted, items are presented here in their entirety, unedited and uncut. Short, popular clips from the collection can be viewed on our YouTube channel. Read more about the Alaska Film Archives.

1 to 2 of 2 Objects
[Howard C. Robinson's Alaska film]
[Howard C. Robinson's Alaska film]
AAF-11895 begins with the title screens: "Howard C. Robinson presents Alaska" and "Produced by Robinson Studios." Program includes scenes of the Inside Passage, Ketchikan, commercial fishing activities, Wrangell, Petersburg, Taku Glacier, Sitka, Skagway, White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, Valdez, the Gulf of Alaska, Prince William Sound, Resurrection Bay, Seward, Resurrection River, Iron Mountain, a map of Alaska, the Alaska Highway, White Horse, Fairbanks, gold mining and dredge activities, Anchorage, a bear pulling cart with small girl in cart, Worthington Glacier, Keystone Canyon, Matanuska Glacier, Matanuska Valley, Palmer, Juneau, the Governor's mansion, Mendenhall Glacier, Malaspina Glacier, Cordova, Columbia Glacier, Whittier, Anchorage, Lake Spenard, Cook Inlet, the Alaska Railroad, scenery between Seward and Anchorage, the Whittier tunnel, Hurricane Gulch, Talkeetna, Mt. McKinley Park and park hotel, Elmendorf Air Force Base, Nome, placer mining, pilot Gren Collins and an airplane on skiis, Alaska Native activities such as seal hunting and jigging for tomcod, a Russian Orthodox Church, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, Umnak, Adak harbor, Massacre Bay at Attu, captured World War II-era Japanese equipment on Kiska, an Aleutian storm, and Aleutian volcanoes.
[Richard and Janet Ward collection 2]
[Richard and Janet Ward collection 2]
Footage includes a construction camp for the Anchorage International Airport, and airport construction scenes from both summer and winter. Additional footage includes winter travel, University of Alaska buildings in Fairbanks, a weasel tracked vehicle, airplanes that were damaged in the Easter 1949 wind storm at the Fairbanks airport, winter travel scenes, bison on a road, a muddy street in Fairbanks, the General Store in Fox, vapor trails, people skiing, travel on the Glenn Highway, ice going out on the Chena River during break-up, Copper Center Roadhouse, Keystone Canyon, people traveling by outboard-powered riverboat, a picnic, men working on a Caterpillar, a road construction camp, and 40 Mile Roadhouse. Additional footage includes a bear cub, salmon drying by a cabin, people traveling in umiaks, an unidentified village, a Cessna 195 light plane taking off, a gold dredge, a small outboard riverboat, caribou, black bears at a dump, summer scenes, ships at a dock in Seward or Whittier, Alaska Railroad travel, Alcan Highway travel, Seward, light planes, Winter Carnival activities, and people sport fishing.