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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 3 of 3 Objects
[Camping, outdoor scenes, and scenes from an airport]
[Camping, outdoor scenes, and scenes from an airport]
This footage features a woman on a swingset next to a lake, a woman and a man paddling a canoe, palm trees, a beach, a city, a woman modeling dresses and furs in front of a brick house, a well-dressed woman and man getting into a car in winter, driving, a woman and man getting out of a car, a landscape viewed from a moving vehicle, an airplane on the tarmac, two women boarding an airplane at an airport, an airplane being fueled at an airport, women picking produce in a field, a group of people eating at a picnic table, and airplanes taking off at the airport.
[Jeanie of Alaska – original reel 2]
[Jeanie of Alaska – original reel 2]
This film features an airplane in flight from underneath, showing the floats; the word HELP written on the ground at remote Anaktuvuk Pass in the Brooks Range; Chandler Lake people, dressed in summer parkas, are worried about a very sick baby (Bud flies the baby to the nearest hospital at Point Barrow - not shown); a view of landing on Takahula Lake; the family examines a new electric generator weighing 800 pounds which was flown in 100 miles from the trading post; painting the big yellow canoe; Jeanie crawling over an ancient mastodon tusk on the lake shore; Bud motoring up the Alatna River in the big yellow canoe; caribou and sheep; Bud felling a giant spruce tree; Bud hoisting an enormous eight foot log on his shoulders and carrying it; Bud filling a 20 gallon water tank inside the house; Connie at her twin aluminum sinks inside the cabin with piped water; Jeanie sampling the pie dough; Bud cutting moose steak from a moose Connie shot in the fall; Connie, author of books on the northern wilderness, at her typewriter inside the cabin; the cabin at treeline is used as a base for northern explorations as much as for a home; Jean sleeping in her little sleeping bag; outside, the first snow of winter begins to fall; barricading the cabin and lying a plank with spikes in front of the door to ward off bears; Bud and an unidentified man at Hughes, the trading post, pulling a plane from the Koyukuk River by tractor; ice cakes running in the Koyukuk; flying through Anaktuvuk Pass over the Brooks Range once more to the Arctic Ocean to meet with commercial fishing partners and friends, George and Nannie; landing on sand beach of the Colville River delta and waiting for the Arctic Ocean to freeze for ice fishing; friends looking at the power generator brought for them; their old house and a view of their new frame house (lumber was ocean-freighted from Point Barrow, 240 miles to the west); Connie pulling 12-year-old Lydia and Jeanie on a sled across the new ice of the Colville River channels; Apiak, the oldest son, pulling another sled; George, the father, using an ice chisel to work at a fishing hole; sculpins, or “Irish Lords,” inhabit all the oceans and are a great nuisance to fishermen - they are worthless, covered with spines, and it takes valuable time to disentangle them from nets; tossing fish into the sled lined with a caribou skin to hold them; skinloads of fish are upset onto the ice, making piles of frozen fish all over the river delta to be picked up at will; Jean with George and Nannie, her “Eskimo grandparents,” inside the new frame house - looking at the Sears catalog is a popular pastime; Nannie and her sewing machine; grace, taught by Presbyterian missionaries at Point Barrow, is said before a meal with all participants seated on the floor; Bud draining the oil out of the “Arctic Tern” when the temperature turns 30 below zero; Jean and Lydia in their warm caribou parkas playing house in the discarded airplane cowling as Bud works; Bud’s tool kit - he must do all work on the airplane and make all checks himself without the benefit of a CAA inspector, for the nearest repairs or authorities are 520 air miles away in Fairbanks; Jean scrambling about in her double parkas - the outside parka she wears over caribou is of fancy grey rabbit – she also wears caribou pants, caribou stockings, and caribou booties; the instrument panel upon which the lonely pilot depends; the airfield at Barrow is marked by two lines of empty oil drums on the snow; scenes at Point Barrow: a tractor is used to haul Arctic Ocean ice (fresh) for drinking water for the village - lakes can’t be used because they are too distant and are tainted with salt from the ocean - but ocean ice “turns” fresh when it is over one year old; a sign for Barrow Theater - there are three motion picture houses in Barrow at this time, all owned and operated by an Eskimo businesswoman - the theaters run 24 hours a day, and fresh films are flown in daily from the U.S.; a panorama of Barrow shows a city without sidewalks or streetlights - garbage and sewage disposal is by truck and sled, carrying the city’s refuse out on the Arctic ice to be carried away - permanently frozen sub-soil makes a flush system impossible; Barrow Post Office and children getting mail; polar bear cubs in Barrow await shipment to some zoo; Ice blocks are stacked for the year’s water supply beside the school; a panorama shot of Barrow village, ending with the white framed Presbyterian church whose diocese covers an area the size of England and the British Isles; an Eskimo businessman who owns much stock in the cooperative Native Store enterprise; an American flag; Connie, Jean, and Bud walking through the snow in full winter dress consisting of two parkas; and The End (written in the snow).
[Richard and Janet Ward collection 1]
[Richard and Janet Ward collection 1]
Footage includes a porcupine, Dick Ward with a chained sled dog, Dick Ward in a Pan American World Airways (PAA) uniform in Metlakatla, the PAA terminal building, a PAA Dc-4 or DC-6 passenger plane, Annette Island scenery (?), trucks and equipment at an asphalt plant, men paving a runway, cars and trailers at the Log Cabin Inn on the Glenn Highway, a gold dredge in operation, ice going out on the Chena River during break-up, aerial views of mountains, cars and a semi truck on a muddy road, a glacier moraine, early tripod-style power poles or telegraph/telephone poles used by ACS, a river, a rainbow, power boats, a parade in downtown Anchorage, power boat races on Spenard Lake (?), a squirrel, a light airplane taxiing across railroad tracks, and a small boy. Footage from outside Alaska includes palm trees, scenery, neon lights, an orange grove, highway travel, and a variety of locations. Additional footage includes Alcan Highway scenes during winter, Whitehorse, U.S. Customs at the Alaska border, Macintosh Trading Post, Alcan Highway scenes during summer, sternwheelers and street scenes in Whitehorse, Peace River Bridge, and travel back to the U.S. Border. Additional footage from outside Alaska includes a college, road travel, a flock of sheep on a road, beach and city scenes, PAA and logging trucks, crew members, and (back in Alaska) scenes in Fairbanks following a large snowfall. Additional footage from outside Alaska includes neon lights, travel, a cactus, small children and adults, and a parade.