Activitiesforkids - Anchorage

This Anchorage museum offers an in-depth look at Alaskan Native life—with a big focus on Alaska Natives. Watch dancing, listen to stories, meet carvers and explore recreated winter dwellings. The setting is so small and intimate that visitors are sometimes even invited to join the dancers on stage. You'll see how Alaska Native history is not a collection of artefacts behind glass: this is a living, dynamic culture that you can experience firsthand. Of course, you can also see plenty of crafts and handiwork: beautifully adorned moose hide boots, birch bark baskets, and tunics made from seal hide. Outside, you can check out the life-sized traditional native dwellings—like a Supiaq, a semi-subterranean home built by the Alutiiqs to shelter themselves from the harsh Alaskan climate. Or, enter a Southeast Alaska Longhouse—large wooden constructions with no windows and only a smoke hole at the top—that generally housed several families. Inside you will find four beautifully carved posts that each represent a different culture. Each post is carved and painted with a different theme of respect; respect for family, environment, culture, and self. Aside from the beauty of the ornate posts, it is very unique to be able to experience four cultures in one house. https://www.alaska.org/detail/alaska-native-heritage-center

At the 200-acre Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, jaws drop in awe-even those of longtime Alaskans who've studied grizzlies and other animals up close. AWCC's mission is to preserve Alaska’s wildlife through conservation, research, education and quality animal care. The center, which opened to the public in 1993, also educates visitors about Alaska's wildlife. Coyotes peer out from behind the brush while a bald eagle swoops in on the salmon remains left by a grizzly bear. Wood Bison plod through 65 acres of tidal flat terrain, as part of a program that will one day restore the species to the Alaskan wilderness. Animals that cannot be released into the wild are given a permanent home at the center. Come be a part of these exciting programs and watch these animals display their natural, “wild”, behaviour. Set on the shores of Turnagain Arm, surrounded by mountains and hanging glaciers, the center is the perfect setting to learn about Alaskan wildlife. The animals are located in different areas grouped around several road loops. Perhaps the best way to view the facility is to first drive around to get your bearings, then park by the gift shop and walk. Each habitat area has a sign explaining the history and habits of the particular animals. https://www.alaska.org/detail/alaska-wildlife-conservation-center

Alaska's largest museum, the Anchorage Museum tells the real story of the North. The twisting story, the unsuspected story, the many-faceted story- a story that weaves together social, political, cultural, scientific, historic and artistic threads. Explore the full diversity of Alaska Native cultures, including masterworks of Alaska Native art and design from the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. The Art of the North galleries in the museum’s new wing present the museum’s art collection from the perspectives of American art and an international North. Paintings, sculpture, photography, video and other media offer varied perceptions of the Northern landscape and wilderness through historical and contemporary depictions of both land and people. The new Alaska Exhibition tells the story of Alaska through multiple voices and perspectives reflecting the ingenuity, technology, ways of knowing and intimate understanding of the landscape that have allowed people to survive and thrive across the North. The exhibition is organized by 13 themes reflecting essential aspects of life in Alaska, both today and throughout the state’s rich history. These themes reveal the identity of Alaska and its people. Discover Alaska and the Arctic through science. In the 11,000-square-foot Discovery Center, visitors of all ages are introduced to Alaska and the Arctic through technology, interactive installations, artwork, marine-life tanks and more. Space is divided into several distinct areas, each providing an opportunity to learn about our Northern environment. https://www.anchorage.net/listings/anchorage-museum/36698/

The Alaska Zoo started in 1969 with one baby elephant named Annabelle that was won in a contest. Since then, it has expanded to include 100 animals across 25 acres of the Anchorage hillside. The zoo has the widest variety of animals native to the state of Alaska as well as a handful of exotics that are part of a great center for education and research that focuses on wildlife conservation and animal rehabilitation. For 50 years, the zoo has been a nonprofit organization serving the wildlife and people of Alaska, as well as visitors to our state. We rely on admissions, donations, gift shop sales, coffee shop purchases and memberships to operate and care for the animals as we receive no city or state funding. The wooded hillside setting allows visitors to get close-up views of the many animals of the north along the naturally wooded boreal forest with gravel pathways. The staff takes pride in maintaining a natural setting for both zoo animals and visitors. https://www.alaska.org/detail/alaska-zoo