The Alaska State Museum is the official repository of Alaska's history and culture, and one of the best state history museums in the Pacific Northwest. It holds an outstanding collection of Alaska Native art and material culture — Aleut basketry, Tlingit and Athabascan carved objects, beadwork, bentwood boxes, and Russian-American colonial material. The natural history section covers the geological and ecological forces that shaped the state. The centrepiece of the ethnology gallery is a life-sized eagle tree populated with bald eagle specimens, installed whole in the atrium.
The museum is located at 395 Whittier Street in downtown Juneau. Summer hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; winter hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Monday and Sunday. Admission is around $12 for adults; children under 18 are free.