Chugach Alaska Corporation

The Chugach Museum, on behalf of the Chugach Alaska Corporation, will improve preservation of their collections and support the continuation of traditional kayak-building knowledge. Project activities will include completing a foundational conservation survey, addressing the needs of high-risk materials, increasing emergency preparedness, and building institutional capacity for staff by providing hands-on opportunities to learn from a contracted conservator. The project will result in a completed general conservation survey that assesses the 16,000-object collection, 60 detailed condition assessments of culturally significant organic materials, development of storage recommendations for 34 burial planks, seven rehoused NAGPRA-repatriated burial masks, a completed Emergency Operations Plan, and documentation of kayak construction knowledge to support a kayak-building curriculum.