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Rooted in Community: Juneau-Douglas City Museum
- Laurie Craig
- 2 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Compact and comprehensive museum tells Juneau’s history through exhibits, art and stories
By Laurie Craig
Juneau Independent
Stepping into the Juneau-Douglas City Museum the first thing a person sees is the image of a life-size humpback whale tail on the wall of the primary gallery.
It stretches 18 feet from tip to tip, dwarfing a human standing nearby. The splotchy white-and-black tail pattern is recognizable as a well-known female whale called Flame. She has a local reputation as a regular summer visitor to the feeding grounds near Auke Bay. The tail is the backdrop for artist Ed Tussey’s acrylic painting of humpbacks in sun-streaked ocean water. Nearby is Richard Stiers’ bronze sculpture of a diving humpback perched on a fluke tip as the only point of contact for the two-foot-tall realistic statue.
Both the painting and sculpture are part of the Morris Communications Group’s long-term loan collection housed with the city museum. William Morris collected original Alaskan art to enhance the new headquarters for the Juneau Empire building in 1987 when he moved his newspaper to the Channel Drive location three miles from its original site downtown. Today, the SouthEast Alaska Health Consortium (SEARHC) occupies the airy building standing between Egan Drive and Gastineau Channel.
The city museum exhibition of Flame’s identifiable tail is a key element of this summer’s “Critter Trek” created by Curator of Collections and Exhibits Dara Lohnes-Davies. She designed the exhibit to showcase five local wildlife species familiar to residents and sought by visitors.
In the main gallery, Critter Trek features humpback whales, eagles, salmon, Arctic terns and black bears. Each species is depicted in an artistic life-size replica on the walls and surrounding museum collection art pieces. Thematically, the simple yet comprehensive exhibit interprets wild travelers’ navigation, purpose, return journeys, distance and seasonal patterns to tell the story of familiar animal movements. Well-written explanations offer details. The entire exhibit is understandable for all visitors.
That was a key consideration as Lohnes-Davies planned the 2026 seasonal feature. During summer, “the largest audience we have at that time of year is off the cruise ships,” she wrote in an email to the Independent in late May. “I view it as the community’s time to brag a little and shine to the rest of the world.”
“Also because that audience has diverse representation in terms of age, country of origin, first language and knowledge of not only Juneau’s history, but Alaska as a whole, I want to build a program that is approachable and relatable to as many of those categories as possible,” she added.
What defines the Juneau community?
The museum’s presentations reach well beyond seasonal interest. The compact yet comprehensive museum’s displays answer questions often asked by others: Why did people come to Juneau and what keeps them here?
These two questions are asked among local friends and by visitors. Answers vary, but many can be discerned through exhibits at the 6,000-square-foot city museum at Fourth and Main Streets.
The most common answers are adventure, jobs, business opportunities, ocean and mountains, wildlife, natural beauty, cultural ties, friends and family, fishing and hunting, arts, music and theater, education, churches and bars.
The museum tells who we are as people and how Juneau became a community. A perfect example are exhibits about Juneau’s mines. In succinctly-worded explanations illustrations and artifacts, viewers can understand how layers of mine train tunnels inside Mount Roberts flowed toward Alaska-Juneau Gold Mine mill where tons of rock were hand-sorted and processed. An exhibit explains the Treadwell Cave-In when underground — and under channel — Douglas Island mine passages filled suddenly with seawater in 1917. The economic and concise reasons the communities grew around Gastineau Channel are explained in a 26-minute video shown in a separate seating area where people can view “Juneau: The City Built on Gold.”
For other background, observers can study the intricate and complex design of a 500- to 700-year-old Alaska Native fish trap that was discovered in 1989 in the mud of Montana Creek then carefully excavated and restored for display. Visitors can examine a three-dimensional map of the Juneau road system before Egan Drive was built and see the Juneau Icefield prior to Suicide Basin melting into an ice-dammed lake that threatens to inundate Mendenhall Valley homes and businesses. Inquisitive people can smile at the names carved on the rustic wooden door to Juneau’s first ski area at Dan Moller cabin, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, where Douglas Island skiers were told “No skis inside the chalet.”
This is no stuffy showcase only illuminating Gastineau Channel’s past. Some displays are meant to be handled, like the noisy hand-cranked miniature stamp mill unit that lets the imagination understand why people couldn’t sleep when silence fell on July 4 and Christmas as the big mines shut down for those two celebratory days each year: the unusual hush was more disconcerting than the normal continuous noise.
Native culture is revealed with formline art, carvings and tools in addition to the ancient restored fish trap. Renowned Tlingit civil rights activist Elizabeth Peratrovich’s story tells of her speech to the Alaska Legislature that changed discrimination laws. An elegantly dressed handcrafted miniature figure honors the noble woman of Alaska fame.
During winter, the city museum hosts engaging contemporary monthly events, debuting them on First Friday openings. Events have featured local artists such as Tlingit weaver Lily Hope, singer Taylor Dallas Vidic, performer Kelsey Riker, portrait painter Susan Watson and many fine art projects such as the annual 12-by-12-inch juried art show where submissions must be confined to those dimensions. Damon Stuebner’s January 2026 Coffee and Collections presentation brought about 50 participants through the snow on a Saturday morning to attend his talk on North Douglas’s busy beavers along Outer Point Trail.
Museum building history
The small historic building on Fourth and Main Streets was completed in 1951 as the Veterans Memorial Building and designated as a public library. It was a project of the Juneau Rotary Club, proposed within days of the end of World War II in August 1945 as a tribute to veterans of foreign wars. Land was purchased from the Olds family, donations were solicited and contributions were collected to make the building the first structure in Juneau purchased solely through public fundraising efforts.
For several decades the Juneau Public Library was housed there. As the museum collection grew it was shuffled to several locations downtown in a musical chairs rotation. Inaugurated as the Juneau-Douglas City Museum in 1982, the collection moved into the Veterans Memorial Building in 1989 after the public library relocated atop the Marine Parking Garage adjacent to the docks.
Today, online information at the juneau.org website steers readers to collections of local art and history. Researchers can tap into digital resources compiled by historians Bob DeArmond and Betty Miller. DeArmond catalogued news stories and Miller catalogued vital records.
The museum building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Its significance stems from a momentous event in 1959: On July 4 the official raising of the 49-star American flag celebrated Alaska’s statehood with a huge gathering on the front lawn. A plaque near the entrance commemorates that momentous event. Today, the museum continues to fly a 49-star flag in that honor.
The museum was started by enthusiastic citizens in 1976 as they worked to preserve the Last Chance Basin mining remnants housed in the old A-J Mine compressor building and adjacent locomotive repair shop. Access was limited during winter when Basin Road is closed due to heavy snow. Plus, the collection of local memorabilia had expanded to contain certain objects needing a climate-controlled protected environment. The intact A-J Mine compressor building and its myriad mining items remain in Last Chance Basin where the Mining Museum is open seasonally.
The lean museum staff of four doesn’t act alone. The nonprofit Friends of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum (www.fojdcm.org) provides operational and financial support and volunteer staffing. Volunteers provide guided history and geology tours around Juneau, including downtown, Douglas and Evergreen Cemetery, and the Alaska State Capitol, generating additional funds. Donors have created various awards and prizes for artists. Private and foundation grants add money for history and arts projects.
Volunteers are the heartbeat of the city museum, providing hosting services and events. Retired journalists Ed Schoenfeld and Betsy Longenbaugh lead guided tours for the city museum which bring in revenue from tour fees. Some of their tours focus on actual local murders and the context of their circumstances. Longenbaugh has also benefitted from a grant from the museum that kickstarted her first book of local true crime stories. The museum also sponsored the pair’s initial guided walks and presentations. Giving back to the community is important to them.
“The museum is not a static building with a collection of historical items,” wrote Longenbaugh in an email to the Independent. “It is a dynamic group of staff and volunteers who guide visitors and many local residents into the amazing history of Juneau and Douglas. Almost all of our attendees for our historic murder tours are local, and many comment on learning not only about murder, but about the history of the community.”
The Juneau Assembly is scheduled to vote Monday on a city budget for next year that would significantly reduce the museum’s staff and operating hours — with city leaders citing a shortage of funds due to tax cut measures passed by voters later year — which raises alarms for Longenbaugh.
“My concern is that losing these two positions at the museum means losing our ability to educate visitors and residents about the amazingly rich backstory of this area,” she added.
Likewise, Ed Schoenfeld addresses the impact of tours on their guests.
“The city museum tour leaders share a lot of information you can’t get anywhere else," he said. "We help locals and visitors understand what came before us, which you need to know to understand where we’re going. As Capitol tour guides, we find visitors comparing Alaska’s government with their own, which deepens their understanding of how our nation works.”
The city museum is open daily in summer except holidays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, and 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekends. General admission is $7 and $6 for seniors. Children 12 and younger are free when accompanied by an adult. Winter hours are Tuesday-Saturday from 10 to 4 p.m. Admission is free October-April thanks to several sponsors who are listed on the museum website.
• Rooted In Community focuses on unique and historic buildings in Juneau, and the present-day businesses and people occupying them. Laurie Craig, an artist, advocate and avid researcher of Juneau’s historical treasures, can be contacted at lauriec@juneauindependent.com. Disclosure: Three original drawings by the author were commissioned for the city’s 1980 centennial and are in the museum’s permanent collection. She also illustrated the Mining Museum proposal in the 1970s and has volunteered with the museum. No artwork by the author is for sale at the museum.
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