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
[Gold mining, Alaska travel and activities 2]
[Gold mining, Alaska travel and activities 2]
Footage features people aboard a boat outside of Alaska, dog mushing, a tractor pulling a load of timber or logs with the Cushman Street Bridge visible in the distance, small girls at a birthday party, a girl with a dog, a bridge and road, people posing for the camera, a Farmall tractor pulling a boat out of the river at Cushman Street Bridge, hay piles, mountain scenes, Savage Rock at Denali or McKinley National Park, a large coal chute near Healy, a truck loaded with coal, mining operations, men and women in a boat, a waterfall, mountains and a sunset, aerial views of a river and mountains, airplanes and a camp on a rocky beach in northern Alaska, men posing by an airplane, aerial views of wildfires and mountains, men with cameras posing along with children in a northern Alaska coastal village (Barrow?), children in parkas posing, village homes, a woman chopping wood, a caribou, children in parkas with a small dogsled in Fairbanks, a brief glimpse of Leonhard Seppala with a dog team in Fairbanks with the Samson Hardware Building in the background, winter carnival scenes in Fairbanks, women in parkas posing near a Pacific Alaska Airlines airplane, a brief aerial view of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, people disembarking from a DC-3 airplane, women and a man posing, people re-boarding the airplane, winter carnival lights, people shoveling deep snow at a cabin, men and women posing with a dog team, a man placing dogs in harnesses (black & white section of film with the first man identified as Jeff Studdert by local historian George Lounsbury in 2014), dogs running under the Noyes Slough swinging bridge and out onto the Chena River in Fairbanks, and another man driving a dog sled as a woman rides in the sled. Handwritten notes on film boxes are as follows, though the order does not seem to correspond with the order of scenes above: “Boat trip, Bowler[?].” “Dog team and tractor.” “Trip to Delta – loop.” “Fire scenes at Mc Park, coal mine at Healy.” “Lake Chelan boat trip sunset.” “Trip to Barrow, caribou, carnival and dog sled ride.”
[Lee family films 1]
[Lee family films 1]
AAF-16344 is from a film containing the following two notes: “Early film 1938 [??] Jean, Ingrid and Norman” and “Jean’s birthday 1947 party, 1948, 1949; Ingrid and Norm’s birthday; skiing with Guri, John, Arne and Margaret, Chena Slough; Enid[?] and Arne at Lost Lake.” The film contains scenes of the Lee family, the Richardson Monument, a family having a picnic, a woman wearing traditional Scandinavian clothing in Alaska, a girl sitting on an ice carnival throne, a girl riding a tricycle a sidewalk in Fairbanks, women with skis, people around a campfire in winter, dog mushers on the Chena River in Fairbanks, Cushman Street Bridge, the winter carnival throne, people downhill skiing and some falling, people cross country skiing, men walking through woods and at cabin, men filling a car with gas using a gas can, Fairbanks homes in winter and in ice fog, dog mushing, a family around a dinner table in a home, a family celebrating Christmas and opening presents, children racing on ice skates around an outdoor rink in Fairbanks, children figure skating, Cushman Street Bridge with United States and Canada flags, and a view down Second Avenue in Fairbanks during winter.
[Lee family films 3]
[Lee family films 3]
AAF-16346 is from a film containing the following note: “Jean, Ingrid and Norm at 18 Mile, Bob and Charlotte, Carl Elken[?] Matanuska, Ron and Norm Davidson Ditch, Harding Lake, dressed up for Easter, Jean in [??] parade, birthday Ingrid and Norman, reindeer [??] at university, Jean’s birthday party, Christmas at Arne’s home, Ingrid and Norm learning to ski, beaver swimming.” The film contains scenes of family activities and travel around Alaska, children walking on railroad tracks, the Cushman Street Bridge in Fairbanks, people hiking and climbing on tors formations, children swimming at Harding Lake, a family in a boat, children playing on snow piles, children racing on ice skates, a boy dressed like a cowboy, children dressed up and posing for the camera, a girl in traditional Scandinavian clothing, a summer parade in Fairbanks, a Pioneers of Alaska float and other floats in the parade, a birthday celebration, a family riding on a sled pulled by reindeer, Christmas celebrations, and children on skis.