Following a major overhaul and four-month closure to install new exhibits, the Museum of the Aleutians held a grand reopening last weekend. The interior landscape has changed dramatically at the Salmon Way institution in Unalaska.
The ceremonial event took place over a two-day period, on Friday and Saturday. The weekend kicked off with an invitation-only opening Friday for various dignitaries and higher-level financial supporters of the nonprofit organization. The new permanent exhibit is a far cry from the former collection of glass cases and posters and more effectively engages the imagination, with exhibits featuring Aleut culture, the commercial fishing industry, World War II and the U.S. Coast Guard.
"The Aleutian Islands: Crossroads of the North Pacific" is the name of the new permanent gallery, located on the side the building that formerly housed the gallery where temporary displays were exhibited.
Saturday's activities included presentations on kayaks by local historian Jeff Dickrell, while former local pilot Burke Mees gave a talk on the Grumman Goose amphibious airplane.
Mees's art exhibition is on display in the Changing Gallery until March 29, entitled, "The Grumman Goose and the Aleutian Landscape. The paintings of Burke Mees." The exhibition also features photos of the Goose by numerous photographers. The Pen Airways vintage aircraft for years flew between Unalaska and Akutan, until a new airport opened last year on Akun Island, the first-ever airport on land in Akutan.
Wheeled aircraft have since replaced the 1940s-era Grummans, and Mees said Pen Air sold their last two, with one going to an aircraft museum in the Lower 48, while the other one will fly sport fishers around Bristol Bay.
The Museum of the Aleutians opened in 1999, literally on a historic foundation, atop the concrete remains of an old World War II warehouse. The construction was paid by the city, while the land is owned by the Ounalashka Corporation.
This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.