Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository

The Alutiiq people are one of eight Alaskan Native peoples. They have inhabited the coasted portion of south central Alaska for over 7,500 years, where they lived in coastal communities and hunted sea mammals from skin-covered boats.

At the time of European colonization, there were distinct regional groups of Alutiiq people, each speaking a slightly different dialect of the Alutiiq language.

The Alutiiq Museum grew from the Kodiak Area Native Association's Culture and Heritage Division (KANA). In 1987, the KANA board decided that the exploration and celebration of Native culture was essential to the well-being of Alutiiq communities. KANA established island-wide programs to teach Alutiiq arts, study the Alutiiq language, and investigate Alutiiq history, with the vision of one day developing a museum for the Alutiiq people.

Following the tragic 1989 EXXON-Valdez Oil Spill, KANA secured $1.5 million from the oil spill trustee council to build a state of the art repository, a place to care for artifacts from the spill area. Construction for the facility began in the spring of 1994, in collaboration with Natives of Kodiak, Inc. The Alutiiq Museum opened to the public on May 13, 1995, under the governance of the Alutiiq Heritage Foundation. It is tribally governed.

Founding, Alutiiq Museum. Accessed June 18th 2020. https://alutiiqmuseum.org/learn/history-of-the-alutiiq-museum.