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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.

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[Our Alaskan Winter – original reel 2]
[Our Alaskan Winter – original reel 2]
Detailed summary information was provided by the filmmakers, Bud and Connie Helmericks. According to these notes, this film includes scenes of travel by dogsled while hunting for seals.Polar bear tracks. Connie comes up to her dead polar bear — shot from the tent at 1 a.m. in late May — feasting (not shown) followed immediately after butchering. Seal meat goes into a modern pressure cooker. Apiak serves the dogs their meal. A starving seal has lost its diving hole and can’t find the ocean — carried in a sack on the sled to the nearest seal hole and it finally dove down into the ocean. On shore after two months at sea. A summer tent. Lydia, Nannie, and George. Saying goodbye. Home to a cabin at Takahula Lake. Unloading cargo from Hughes, the trading post (100 miles away), at the new dock at Takahula Lake. Bud cuts a moose hide into strips and makes chairs. Connie casts for pike at a tent camp at nearby Iniakuk Lake. Broken airplane tail — Bud fixes it by taking off part of the tail and then fortunately it flew okay. Connie catches a grayling. Geese migrating. Grizzly bears, moose, and other animals. Roasting caribou ribs. Connie uses the little yellow kayak on Takahula Lake before winter. Ice pans float down the adjacent Alatna River. Arrigetch Peaks rising above the house. Bud and Connie, in full winter dress, are prepared for winter again. Connie reads contentedly by the blazing hearth.
[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.