Valdez museums

I spent a few hours in three museums in Valdez.  Great displays, lots of information.

Here are some photos, I enjoyed the information and displays, but also the design and colors.

In case you can't tell what this is, here's another part. 

Or maybe this is needed for identification.

 
Hinchenbrook Lighthouse's light.

On the the cultural and nature's museum. 

Western culture has defined fine art as free from function, "art for art's sake" and there were some fine examples here. 

Carved from fossilized whale bone.
But sometimes art is combined with function, here seen in the beauty of the beading and design of long fur mixed with designs sewn on leather on these mukluks. (I have to think of quilts!)

There were also displays on the earthquake that destroyed Valdez. Part of it dropped into the water, the fjord tipped, destroying homesteads and some villages on islands nearby also.  The town was moved to a new location, on firmer soil.  Of course the oil spill was covered, with very careful wording in the explanations.  There was a great model of the town the day before the earthquake-in eight cases.  Quite an undertaking to construct. Miniture building were three inches high, people, one-half inch-and in detail.  Here's a corner of one.

Helen