1. Browse Repository
  2. Alaska Film Archives

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
[Our Alaskan Winter – original reel 1]
[Our Alaskan Winter – original reel 1]
Detailed summary information was provided by the filmmakers, Bud and Connie Helmericks. According to these notes, this film includes scenes of the “Arctic Tern” (Cessna 170 airplane) on skis. Six different airplanes, all named the “Arctic Tern” and all painted with a bird symbol, were used in the production of the three Helmericks films over seven years. Upon return to the Brooks Range cabin after many months away, Bud takes down hanging empty gas cans left to scare bears away. Bud shows how the arctic dweller uses an ice chisel — it takes about one hour to cut through the four-foot ice of Takahula Lake; He lifts out net with fish. Icy lake water is hauled to the house. They tramp down an airfield for the plane with snowshoes. It is necessary to push a small piece of stove-wood under each ski of the airplane when parked to keep it from freezing down. This is followed by views of Oliktok Point on the Arctic Ocean. Friends run out of their door waving joyously. Tagiluk, the adopted older son, and little Lydia; Martha at the door is around age seventeen; Oolak, fifteen, in a pink snowshirt over caribou furs, turns the dogsled upside down and ices its runners. Bud and George work with shovels and flags to make a more safe airplane field; Oolak returns hours later with a load of small driftwood sticks for fuel — this wood is very scarce, and he must scavenge a large area to find it — the wood comes from large rivers which flow into the Arctic Ocean and have trees at their heads thousands of miles away. A sled with a big sail approaches out of the frozen ocean — the woman has a baby, born in a hospital in Point Barrow 200 miles away, hidden on her back under her warm caribou fur parka. Carrie with her boy Maugulauk and husband Jacob. When Carrie becomes ill, Bud flies her to Point Barrow Hospital during a wind storm. Back at Oliktok Point camp, Connie directs the airplane to safety. A dog buried in snow in a spring blizzard during the month of May. Another dogsled visitor arrives, and they all shake hands with Colliak, who has come from 100 miles inland. A caribou is butchered. Sawing out a new sled from driftwood as Lydia plays about. Apiak, the older son, builds sled flooring — it is necessary to make an entirely new sled almost every season. Apiak shows how he ties the flooring with sealskin — this enables the sled to bend and be pliable. A flight out over the polar ice fifty miles. Landing fifty miles offshore where Apiak had designated a hunting camp in his earlier explorations by sled. They pitch a tent. There's a rifle close at hand in case of polar bear. Travel via dogsled while hunting for seals.
[We Live in the Arctic - Reel 1]
[We Live in the Arctic - Reel 1]
Detailed summary information for this film was provided by the filmmakers, Bud and Connie Helmericks – see a film archivist for full information. According to these notes, this film includes scenes of a Cessna 140 (the “Arctic Tern”) taking off from Tucson, Arizona; aerial views enroute to Alaska; Grand Prairie, Alberta; aerial views of Hughes, Alaska; Brooks Range mountains; landing at Takahula Lake; Connie and Bud at their log cabin at Takahula Lake; snowshoeing and seeing a “snow doughnut” that has rolled down from the mountain; Bud splitting wood and Connie collecting water; ice fishing on Takahula Lake while sunbathing; planting a garden; Connie climbing Takahula Peak; kayaking on the Alatna River; an airplane flight 300 miles north to the Arctic Ocean; cooking a meal of caribou and cornmeal along the Arctic Ocean; the village of Paulatuk in Canada; Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island; a power schooner (the “Tudlik”) traveling from Banks Land; Inuit hunters cooking caribou in northern Canada; Lakes Peter and Schrader in Alaska; and the filmmakers, Bud and Connie.
[We Live in the Arctic - Reel 2]
[We Live in the Arctic - Reel 2]
Detailed summary information for this film was provided by the filmmakers, Bud and Connie Helmericks – see a film archivist for full information. According to these notes, films include scenes of an Inupiat family identified in notes as Nanny and George, son Apiak, and daughters Lydia and Martha; Nanny tending a fishnet set in the Arctic Ocean; Lydia (age 5) eating dried meat with an uluruk; Martha (age 17) holding a mirror and applying lipstick; a woman identified in the notes as Bessie with a homemade guitar made from a Prestone can; a whale boat in the Arctic Ocean; people identified in the notes as Oolak or Job (age 15), Little Jacob, Carrie with little Maugaulak or Mark, and Richard; Chandler Lake; a group of inland Inupiat or Nunamiut at Chandler Lake, including people identified in the notes as baby Franklin Roosevelt and his father, Simon Paneak; caribou skin tents covered with canvas; bear damage at a cabin; Connie picking berries; Bud and Connie hunting moose; Connie rendering tallow; Connie chinking a cabin with moss; Bud making a cabin window; Bud demonstrating winter wear; fishing through ice; Bud cutting ice blocks; and heating the airplane engine before take-off.