Museum of the North

The museum's signature treasure is Blue Babe, a steppe bison that roamed Interior Alaska roughly 36,000 years ago and was preserved in the frozen ground until gold miners uncovered it. The animal's hide, and even signs of the ancient lion attack that likely killed it, survived the millennia in the permafrost, making it one of the most complete ice-age animals ever found.

Its nickname comes from a blue mineral crust, vivianite, that formed on the carcass, giving the bison a bluish tint. Displayed today, Blue Babe offers a rare, direct look at a creature from the last ice age, when Interior Alaska was part of a vast grassland roamed by mammoths, lions, and great herds of bison and horses.

That deep-time story runs throughout the museum's natural-history galleries, which trace how Alaska's landscapes, climate, and animals have changed across immense spans of time, from ancient seas and dinosaurs to the ice-age mammals and the wildlife of today.

A central strength of the museum is its representation of Alaska's Native peoples, whose cultures are living and thriving across the state. The galleries bring together objects and artwork from every region, Iñupiat, Yupik, Unangax, Alutiiq, Athabascan, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and more, from finely carved ivory and intricate baskets to ceremonial masks and clothing.

The museum works with Native communities and artists, and its collections are treated as connections to living cultures rather than relics of the past. Contemporary Alaska Native artists are represented alongside historic pieces, showing traditions that continue to evolve.

The fine-art gallery gathers two centuries of art inspired by Alaska, from early expedition painters to modern Alaskan artists, giving visitors a sense of how the land and its peoples have been seen and portrayed over time.

The museum's architecture is a landmark in itself. Its curving white forms were designed to evoke the natural features of Alaska, alpine ridges, glaciers, breaking sea ice, and the shimmer of the aurora, and to sit like a piece of sculpture on its ridge above the valley.

Inside is a work called The Place Where You Go to Listen, a sound-and-light installation that draws on real-time data from Alaska's environment, the position of the sun and moon, seismic activity, and the aurora, to create an ever-changing composition of tone and color. It turns the rhythms of the northern world into something you can sit with and experience.

As a research museum of the University of Alaska, the institution is also a working center of northern science, its collections used by scientists studying everything from ancient climates to modern wildlife and the changing Arctic.

Summer brings long, bright days, warm Interior weather, and the peak visitor season, an easy and comfortable time to explore both the museum and Fairbanks.

Fall cools quickly and the light softens, and by late in the season the aurora begins to appear on dark, clear nights.

Winter is deeply cold and dark, but that darkness is exactly what makes Fairbanks one of the world's great aurora-viewing destinations; the museum is a warm counterpoint to nights spent watching the sky.

Spring sees the return of daylight and the thaw, with lengthening days and the last good chances at the aurora before the bright nights of summer wash it out.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.