ABOUT PAY DIRT

Pay Dirt! Alaska’s Golden Landscapes
May 30 through Aug. 2

Alaska’s gold rushes were the most important late 19th century events affecting the development of the state. Gold opened up the territory — physically, economically and politically — and placed Alaska in the consciousness of the American public.

Pay Dirt! Alaska’s Golden Landscapes, an exhibit created by the Anchorage Museum, is a companion exhibit within the American Museum of Natural History’s “Gold” exhibit, also on view May 30 through Aug. 2.

Historical photographs and objects demonstrate the role gold played in Americanizing Alaska and solidifying the state’s larger-than-life reputation as the Last Frontier. Almost overnight, Alaska’s notoriety as an icebox was replaced with an image of a land of vast natural wealth.

Throughout, the exhibit highlights the unsung gold miners, those who didn’t get filthy rich – just filthy.

Contrary to popular fiction, their lives were anything but romantic and quaint. “I have a great deal of respect for Alaska’s early miners who forged, fought and froze their way across Alaska’s rugged topography,” said Curator Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth.

These miners formed the nucleus for permanent, non-Native settlements and brought technological innovation, from bicycles to canned pork and beans. They introduced civil government and an infrastructure for communication and transportation.

Gold rush era objects on display include a walrus tusk engraved with a map depicting the Seward Peninsula mining districts and the Yukon River; a pocket watch with gold nugget chain and fob; and a fur coat with beaver trim, worn by Swedish miner Axel Nelson during Nome’s gold rush.

Historical photographs from the Anchorage Museum, Alaska State Library and the University of Alaska Fairbanks show how miners re-created their American hometowns – including everything from opera houses to fruit stands – in a completely foreign environment. Images convey both the miners’ reverence for Alaska’s landscape, and their alterations of it.

The exhibit theme is inspired partly by writer Jack London, who introduced American readers to Alaska’s untamed landscape. Like London’s characters, the thousands of miners who rushed north saw themselves as pioneers in a primitive and daunting wilderness. Pay Dirt! establishes that gold miners carried the 20th century American way of life with them into the heart of Alaska, changing it forever.

About the curator Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth of Eagle River, Alaska, holds a doctorate in history from Washington State University, where she specialized in American, public and environmental history.

She is the president of the Alaska Historical Society and a contract historian for Lake Clark Katmai National Parks in southwestern Alaska, assessing sites for eligibility to the National Register of Historical Places. She is the author of three books and has taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage.