Miniature dioramas show Native subsistence lifestyles prior to European contact.
Collections of Aleut, Eskimo, Tlingit, Haida, and Athapaskan materials portray themes such as housing, clothing, transportation and celebrations. European contact is presented chronologically as each new wave of people came to Alaska seeking riches, with special emphasis on Russian American, American whaling, gold mining, the Alaska Railroad, fishing, timber, World War II, statehood and contemporary Alaska, including the oil pipeline. The exhibition includes works of art by a diverse group of artists who have drawn and painted the landscape and people of the Far North since the time of the early European and American explorers to the present. The galleries feature themes such as exploration, landscape, lifestyles, animals, portraits, and a gallery with works by Sydney Laurence, Alaska's best known landscape painter.