Mixed reviews. The bottom floor is a wonderful place for kids. Lots of hands-on cool stuff to try and explore and play with. We don’t have kids, so we attempted to negotiate to somewhere more ‘adult’ oriented. And that’s when the difficulties started.
The museum building, while architecturally quite striking, is hellish when trying to figure out where you are and where you might want to go and how to get there. You are given a ‘map’ upon entering … but it’s pretty useless. Lots of great cavernous rooms and long hallways and conflicting signs don’t help. And there were no docents … no one standing around to ask questions of.
Now … Bruce doesn’t get lost easily. He’s the ‘go to’ guy with a head for maps. But this place defies all logic … with 2 wings – East & West – with one wing having 2 floors and the other having 4 floors … it’s just nuts.
Anyway … after wandering aimlessly for a while we did find some interesting displays of native clothing and artifacts and eventually found some interesting stuff about early Alaska and the gold rush as well as early military significance.
We wandered up to the upper floors where the map said ‘Changing exhibits’ and found some photos & art that were a bit confusing. Maybe it’s just me tho. We never did make it up to the top floor and finally found our way back out again.
I love museums and really wanted to enjoy this one, but I got so confused and disoriented that I just couldn’t relax and take it all in. I think better signage … better mapping … and some helpful people here and there would go a long way to making it a better experience.
**Note: You can buy a ‘Cultural Pass’ for $29 which gets you into the Museum AND the Alaska Native Heritage Centre – a savings of $10 if you’re going to both anyway!**
