Photos: Kaktovik artifacts

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A copper ulu on loan from the Canadian Museum of History was collected by Diamond Jenness in 1914 on Barter Island, Alaska.

A century ago, when the pioneering Canadian Arctic Expedition started to go awry, anthropologist Diamond Jenness found himself stranded for nearly a year on Alaska's North Slope. He spent the time studying the indigenous Alaska culture, excavating Barter Island and collecting thousands of artifacts.

When open waters returned the next summer, he sailed back to Canada, taking with him the Barter Island artifacts, which date to the proto-Inuit culture known as Thule.

Now those artifacts, which number about 3,000, are back in Alaska -- though only temporarily -- and being studied by the descendants of those who left them and by other Alaska experts.

They are at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks, on loan from the Canadian Museum of History, and are being examined, cataloged, photographed and otherwise recorded.

Read more: Barter Island artifacts temporarily back in Alaska for examination, digital preservation