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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 2 of 2 Objects
[Alaska Native celebrations]
[Alaska Native celebrations]
This film contains scenes of different groups of Alaska Native peoples drumming and dancing in Southeast and Northern Alaska, people sharing and eating muktuk (whale) at a celebration in Northern Alaska, and a blanket toss in Northern Alaska (possibly Barrow).
[Caribou herds and Teller, Alaska]
[Caribou herds and Teller, Alaska]
First approximately eleven minutes of film contain various scenes of a large herd of caribou and Denali (Mt. McKinley). Remaining portion of film contains snowy scenes in Teller, Alaska, including a polar bear hide being offloaded from an airplane while people watch, woman and four children posing for camera (identified in 2022 as Rachael Otoyuk of Teller, Alaska, standing on the far right in a red kuspuk, with her children from left to right, Virginia Menadelook, Sam, Richard and Daniel), two boys demonstrating traditional Alaska Native dance (identified in 2022 as Marvin Okleasik at left in dark coat, and brother John Okleasik in light blue coat), woman in scarf (identified in 2022 as Theresa Soolook from Teller) hugging small baby, woman with tattooed chin and large fur ruff on her parka hood (identified in 2022 as possibly Ruby Gaugryya Singyke Cronin), man and woman wearing parkas with fur ruffs (identified in 2022 as likely John and Asicksik Kakaruk), boys demonstrating Alaska Native dance, aerial view of reindeer or caribou herd, dog sleds approaching herd, and men butchering a reindeer or caribou on the tundra. 2022 identifications were made by people from the Teller area via a historical social media site.