The Alaska Film Archives holds more than 10,000 Alaska films and videos available for viewing and use by patrons and researchers.
Items in the collection span from professional productions to amateur home-movies, made in and about Alaska from the earliest days of filmmaking through today. These moving images unveil transformations that have taken place across the state during the course of the past century, covering such topics as Alaska Native cultural and subsistence activities, gold-mining, hunting and fishing, aviation, dog-mushing, floods and fires, landscapes and wildlife, earthquakes, the military, political debates, Statehood celebrations, the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, parades and festivals, and family life in communities large and small from across the state.
Since its establishment in 1993, the goals of the Alaska Film Archives have been to locate and collect film and videotape pertaining to Alaska through donation, to document the regions and dates of each item, to catalog and make items available for viewing, and to store original materials under controlled environmental conditions.
Notable films and videos in the collection include:
- The Chechahcos (1924)
- Through Alaska with A.A. Humfrey and Red Can (1925-1930)
- Will Rogers and Wiley Post in Alaska (1935)
- We Live in the Arctic (1947)
- People of the Tundra (1956)
- Alaska 49th State (1959)
- “Pioneer Pete” Collection (1960s)
- Alaska Review Collection (1976-1987)
- KTVF Television Collection (1960s through 2000s)
The majority of collected items have been cataloged and made searchable through the Library Catalog. Hundreds of representative clips are viewable online. DVD copies of thousands of archival film and video holdings are available for checkout worldwide. All original materials are stored in climate-controlled film and media vaults.
The Alaska Film Archives is a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives, located in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Contact: Angela Schmidt, Film Archivist, at ajschmidt@alaska.edu or (907) 474-5357.
Check out our Alaska Film Archives' YouTube Channel