Local kids will soon be able to learn about the Chilkat Valley and play in the Sheldon Museum’s new children’s room, set to open in early October. 
The museum will also host a lineup of interactive programs to teach regional and cultural history in the hopes of educating more local families. 
The children’s room, which used to house some of the Museum’s archives, is being transformed to look like the Chilkat Valley. 
Haines High school students Alexandria Habra and Aurora Alten-Huber and museum assistant Aly Zeiger glued small pieces of blue and brown paper to the floor to create a mosaic-like portrayal of the Chilkat River, which will be varnished over to protect against foot traffic. 
Museum director Helen Alten said the room will feature a “fish camp” play area with a play smokehouse and blueberry bushes for picking. There will also be a boat, a model clan house, a historic map of Haines, a round table and chairs for activities, a puppet theater, doll house, various educational toys, and possible murals of the region’s mountains and ocean. 
Teenagers who will participate in the museum’s junior curator program this fall will add artwork to the walls and create trees to look like local alders. 
“There are a lot of options for this space,” Alten said. Alten said. Alten said she is thinking about moving two taxidermy eagles, currently on display near the staircase to the gallery, to the children’s room to better represent the valley’s wildlife. 
Alten said the gallery and the children’s space will be home to new two-hour workshops called “Saturdays at the Sheldon” held about once or twice a month starting this fall. The workshops are interactive and will include hands-on activities for kids, at a fee for each. 
Future programs include “Let’s Trade,” about 19th century Tlingit trade networks; “Australia to Alaska,” about fossil making and how the Chilkat range was formed; and “The Pull of the Past,” about how cargo was transported in early Haines history.
Other future programs include “Who are You?” about how you identify and what represents your family; “Becoming a City,” about Haines changing from a settlement to a city; and “Art of War,” about engineering flexible yet strong armor. 
Alten said she hopes the children’s room might also be used in the future during the morning for Tlingit immersion preschool classes or other Haines Children’s groups. 
“This is a good space for children to get information,” Alten said.