Around 9:30 we decided to go visit the two First Nations museums in nearby Teslin.
First, we stopped at a rest area/photo viewpoint to take a picture of the Nisutlin Bay Bridge. The "bay" is actually the Nisutlin River where it flows into Teslin Lake, and the bridge is the longest water span on the Alaska Highway at 1,917 feet. Teslin Lake is 86 miles long and averages about 2 miles across.
At the viewpoint is a display explaining how the chinook salmon are endangered and what the Tlingit are doing to address the problem. One significant thing they did was vote as a community to not fish AT ALL for salmon in 2010.
The first museum we stopped at is the George Johnston Museum.
George Johnston (1884-1972) was a Tlingit known for his trapping, his photography, and his 1928 Chevrolet. With his camera he took hundreds of photographs that documented the lifestyle of the Inland Tlingit people of Teslin and Atlin between 1910 and 1940. Many of those photos are on display at this museum, along with a very interesting video documenting his life, his people, and his work.
One of the first stores in the Teslin area.
This is a wooden bowl, in which soups were cooked by adding hot stones from the fire pit.
The canoe on the left of this display was made using one moose hide.
This is George Johnston's 1928 Chevrolet, the first car in Teslin. When he brought it, the Alaska Highway had not yet been built, so George built a 3-mile road for it, and drove around Teslin. In winter, he put chains on the car and drove it on frozen Teslin Lake.
These are beaded sewing kits.
This was radio building used to assist pilots in navigating the route from Fairbanks to Whitehorse to Edmonton.
Our next museum will be in the next post, as it's difficult to upload lots of photos at once.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment