RARE NATIVE HERITAGE OBJECTS RETURN HOME

The 10,000-square-foot Arctic Studies Center, which opens in spring 2010, will display more than 600 objects from the Smithsonian Institution's collections in the first arrangement of its kind.

Each of these indigenous Alaska artifacts was selected and interpreted with help from Alaska Native advisers and most have never been on exhibition or seen by Alaska Native people. They include an 1893 Tlingit war helmet and an 1866 Gwich'in Athabascan tunic with dyed quill designs, one of the Smithsonian's oldest objects.

The Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center encourages research through a public library of publications and films, an archaeology laboratory and a space where experts, scholars and artists can access and handle heritage objects. A 3-D sound installation will also immerse visitors in the Arctic by using recordings of everything from howling wolves to cracking ice to Alaska Native storytellers.

Established in 1988, The Arctic Studies Center is a federal research and education program focusing on peoples, history, archaeology and cultures across the circumpolar world. The center is part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and partnered with the Anchorage Museum in 1994.