A new summer exhibit at the Haines Sheldon Museum packs the history of the Chilkat Valley into 50 objects, ranging from prehistoric fossils to the saw John Schnabel brought to town when he established the mill here.
“The Haines 50: Objects of Our History” is inspired by the British Museum’s “A History of the World in 100 Objects,” said museum community coordinator Madeline Witek.
An opening reception for the exhibit is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, May 13, in the museum’s new East Gallery, former location of the museum gift shop. It will remain up through Oct. 31.
Witek said putting together “The Haines 50” was different than curating an exhibit on a single artist or subject. “Normally, you’re telling one story with one narrative, whereas with this, each object tells its own individual story while contributing to the overall history of the area. It’s been challenging to put it together, because each object requires an incredible amount of research,” she said.
The project gave Witek license to rummage through the museum’s archives and storage, looking for pieces that haven’t been on display or were otherwise forgotten.
The exhibit generally moves forward chronologically, Witek said. The first object is a Halobia fossil found near Three Guardsmen pass, on loan from Pam Randles. The presence of the clam-like creature fossils proves Alaska was once part of the same continent as Australia, Witek said.
Also on display will be gold prospector Frances Patchen Allen Noyes Muncaster’s black seal skin coat. “She was a very beautiful woman,” Witek said. “She had been an actress in the East and she met her husband and they moved to Alaska to escape a guy who was so obsessed with her he attempted to stab her and was stalking her.”
After a winter in Skagway, Frances and husband Tom Noyes moved to Nome to prospect for gold. When Noyes died, she married Bill Muncaster, who left the territory in 1927. Bored living alone, Frances Muncaster traveled with a group of Natives to Squaw Creek, B.C., near present-day 75 Mile Haines Highway, where she staked a number of claims and mined for nearly 25 years.
“She was a no-nonsense, goldminer-prospector, but she was also the height of fashion,” Witek said. “She had all of these elegant clothes that were not the kind of thing you would expect someone to wear in the Alaskan frontier during the Gold Rush.”
Other items on display will include: John Schnabel’s two-person saw, the wetsuit Steve Vick wore when he swam from Skagway to Juneau, iron excavated in Klukwan from Iron Mountain, a drum painted by artist Gil Smith and a war helmet made by Wayne Price.
Witek will speak about objects from “The Haines 50” every other Tuesday at 8:45 a.m. on KHNS’s “History Talk,” beginning Tuesday, May 10.