A small museum on the outskirts of Wasilla is making a big splash. It has a 40-ton fin whale to thank for it.
Fin whales are the second-largest animals on Earth. Only blue whales are bigger. Fin whales can reach up to 80 feet long and weigh up to 80 tons. So, when one washed ashore near downtown Anchorage two winters ago, it was impossible to ignore.
Its final resting place is at the Museum of Alaska in Wasilla.
The Museum of Alaska has been part of Alaska’s story for nearly 60 years. It started in Anchorage in 1967 as the Air Progress Museum. It grew into the Alaska Museum of Transportation and Industry before moving to Wasilla in the early 1990’s.
Museum director James Grogan rebranded it as the Museum of Alaska. Grogan is a retired Air Force veteran. He started as a volunteer at the museum about a decade ago. He serves as curator, painter, grant writer, and janitor as well as museum director. He’s all in one.
Grogan moved to claim the deceased whale. He led volunteers through the permitting process with state, federal and Alaska Native agencies.
Then came the hauling the massive, flesh-covered bones from the tidal mudflats of Anchorage to the museum in Wasilla. Grogan says the whale’s cranium weighed about 2,000 pounds. The mandibles still had flesh all over them, and they weighed about 1,000 pounds each.
Fellow drivers on the Parks Highway got quite a surprise. If theydrove up behind him, they didn’t stay there.
Today the bones are buried on the museum grounds under 20 tons of donated horse manure. That’s not a prank. It’s a process called maceration. Bacteria break down the remaining tissue and clean the bones. They’ll then be bleached, sealed, and reassembled for permanent display.
Grogan says rounding up the manure was the easy part. They started calling horse farms to see if they had extra manure, and boy, a lot of people came forward.
The story caught the attention of theguardian.com. They ran a lengthy feature on the project. But Grogan says the whale is one part of a broader effort to revive the facility.
He says, “Museums just aren’t making it today by just being a sleepy little museum. We have to have something else to get people in.”
The Museum of Alaska is open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 3800 West Museum Drive in Wasilla. General admission is $10, $8 for seniors, and free for kids under five. You can reach them at 907-376-1211 or online at museumofalaska.org.
The whale skeleton will fully reassembled and on display sometime next year. But Grogan says there’s plenty of reason to visit the museum now.
He says, “Everything you can imagine Alaska is out here.”
This summary is based on reporting by Matt Tunseth in matsusentinel.com
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Photo courtesy of the Museum of Alaska