Project 49: A tour of UAA's archives

Arlene Schmuland, an archivist, is almost always elbow deep in papers and photographs of historical significance. She's head of the UAA/APU Consortium Library Archives and Special Collections and jokes that if she gets around to writing a book someday, it'll either be a memoir called Falling in Love with Dead Men or a novel about a rather specialized serial killer who preys on archivists, a unique breed of professionals who are forever tempting fate when they dash off to go check out a collection in some off-the-grid basement or attic.

Thanks to Arlene and her staff, the UAA/APU Consortium Library is chock full of collections available to researchers.

This series, "Project 49: A tour of the archives," is our chance to tap into the expertise of the archivists and revivify some of the stories from the Last Frontier. Look for us each month as we step back in time to introduce you to the Alaska legends living a carefully curated and temperature-controlled existence on the archive shelves.

• Fred Fickett was first dispatched to Sitka in 1882 by the U.S. Army and returned for a second expedition of Interior Alaska with Henry Allen in 1885. Diaries and journals of his adventures (and misadventures) live in the archives.
• Henry Kaiser Jr. contracted tuberculosis as a teenager and spent three years at the Seward Sanitorium, 1950-1953. Kaiser brought a camera with him and the photos he took of his fellow patients are now part of the Alaska Digital Archives. He later hitchhiked his way to the Mayo Clinic and talked his way into a life-saving heart surgery.

• A more contemporary collection, the Lynn McConnell papers, detail just what life was like as a contracted showgirl in 1970s Anchorage. Rather than submit her photo album and memory pieces to the Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame, McConnell called up archivists at the Consortium Library to see if they might be interested in her collection. We think you'll be glad she did.
• Gov. Walter "Wally" Hickel's papers live in the archives here on campus. A search is currently underway to hire a dedicated archivist to curate the extensive collection over the next two years. We'll be checking in with the new hire in the coming months to see what stories he/she can tell us.

• Benzie Ola "Rusty" Dow was Alaska's first woman trucker. We'll take a look at her diaries, photos and the blackjack she carried for safety on the back roads of the Last Frontier.

Alaska is only as interesting as its characters. Luckily we have some good ones. We'll be revisiting these stories and more throughout the year.

If you would like to learn more about the collections available for research through Archives and Special Collections, call (907) 786-1849, email archives@uaa.alaska.edu or visit their website.