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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 7 of 7 Objects
[Eyth Family collection films 4]
[Eyth Family collection films 4]
This film contains scenes from the 1967 flood in Fairbanks including flooded streets and homes, a bridge, cars under water, people in a yard, a military truck driving through water with a truckload of people evacuating the flood, people on top of George’s Supermarket sign, and people on the roof of Traveler’s Inn.
[Fairbanks 1960s]
[Fairbanks 1960s]
This film contains views of Fairbanks in the early 1960s, including cars driving through thick ice fog downtown, muddy neighborhood roads during spring break-up, the sternwheeler “Nenana” parked along the Chena River prior to its restoration and move to Alaskaland, and a bulldozer clearing snowy land.
[Fairbanks Daily News Miner newspaper development process]
[Fairbanks Daily News Miner newspaper development process]
[Fairbanks, family scenes]
[Fairbanks, family scenes]
This film contains footage of men fishing in a river, a large garden in summer, cabins in the snow, trucks driving on a snowy road, Chena River during breakup with large ice flows, a gravel pit with dragline pulling up gravel and depositing to dump truck (dredging river?), farmland with cows, a snowy road, Fairbanks homes and a flower garden, Creamers Dairy and fields, traffic driving on 2nd Avenue in downtown Fairbanks, a woman opening gifts at what appears to be a baby shower, a newborn baby, various scenes of a very young baby in a crib, a baby getting a bath, a man holding baby in a baptismal gown, additional scenes of a baby getting older, laying on floor, rolling over, sitting up, playing with toys, scenes of Christmas, a Christmas tree, a baby in a baby seat next to a Christmas tree, and a group of people celebrating Christmas.
[Fairbanks International Airport construction]
[Fairbanks International Airport construction]
This film contains scenes of the construction of the Fairbanks International Airport runway and paved surfaces, starting after the trees have been cleared and ending with the first airplane landing. Footage includes construction crews with Caterpillar tractors, scrapers, dump-trucks and draglines moving earth and leveling ground, construction buildings and housing, a man demonstrating an unstable patch of ground which turns to jelly as he jumps on it, a drainage system and lighting system being installed, an asphalt plant in operation and paving crews finishing construction. The film ends with a Consolidated LB-30 Liberator owned by Morrison-Knudsen Construction Company making a landing on the completed runway.
[Fall, winter and summer of 1958 and 1959]
[Fall, winter and summer of 1958 and 1959]
Footage includes Jan Koslosky with a large polar bear hide, Fred and Sara Machetanz with dogs and cutting firewood, downhill skiers, a snowplow, a plane on skis at High Ridge Lake, Ernest Gruening on an Anchorage street, High Ridge, an Eskimo woman dancing, Fur Rendezvous dog races, a merry-go-round, and dog weight pull. Additional images include reindeer on rope, Dr. Vic Hessler, a weaver at the loom, a moose in High Ridge Lake, Chilkat dancers at Haines, Sara eating strawberries, Sara and children feeding a moose calf, ski planes on High Ridge Lake, a party at Atwood home in Anchorage, airliners at Anchorage International Airport, a choral group, a moose on the road and High Ridge Lake, aerial view of High Ridge Lake, Alaska Railroad tracks and trains during winter, a snowplow, Healy coal mine, Mount McKinley, Alcan Highway, sign forest on Alcan Highway, Miles Canyon, highway scenery, oil drill rig, water well drill rig, George Sundborg at teletype, statehood celebration in Fairbanks, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner presses, Riverboat Discovery operation, logs on conveyor at mill, fish camp and birch bark basket construction, Fred and Sara at fish camp, gold dredge and loggers.
[Lounsbury film collection 1]
[Lounsbury film collection 1]
Footage includes children, rotary snow plow, men outside F.E. company building, downtown Fairbanks, a dredge, Pacific Alaskan Airways (PAA) hangar and people leaving, the Cleary City Post Office, people posing, Billy Roots bus (?), Cleary Summit roadhouse, men with a caterpillar tractor, small cat train in front of Service motors, Fairbanks streets, Jimmie Mattern signing autographs at PAA Hangar at Weeks Field, Mattern's airplane “Texan” and Russian flying boat at Weeks Field during search for Sigismund Levanevsky, people departing Fairbanks on Alaska Railroad (ARR), Richardson Highway Transportation Company bus, steamship travel in Southeast, a gold dredge and thaw field, MST Company bus , boys at Fox, woman with a horse at Cleary Summit roadhouse, a boy with shovel, Chena River spring break-up, dog races, Sigrid Seppala wearing parka, Winter Carnival Parade, and dog races.