Pratt Museum

Visitors to the museum can view live footage of seabirds at Gull Island

The Pratt Museum is a regional museum located in Homer, Alaska concerning Kachemak Bay in South Central Alaska. The museum's mission is related to the "science, art and culture of Kachemak Bay."[1] The museum focuses on subjects like early homesteading, Native Alaskan traditions, local contemporary art, and an exploration of the marine and terrestrial life around Kachemak Bay.

Exhibits

The main gallery's exhibit at the Pratt Museum is entitled Kachemak Bay: An Exploration of People & Place," which explores the cultures that have existed in Kachemak Bay and contemporary life in Kachemak Bay,[2] from early Native Alaskans to the homesteaders of the 1930s and 40s to the current fisheries that sustain the Kachemak Bay area, including Homer, Kachemak City, Seldovia, Halibut Cove, Anchor Point, and additional villages around the Bay.

One major attraction for visitors is a live-feed wildlife camera set up to view seabirds such as puffins, cormorants, and murres on Gull Island in Kachemak Bay. The camera is controlled at the museum, with a touchscreen below the main screen for visitor use. The SeeBird Camera (or Gull Cam) is also available online during the summer months, although it is controlled by the visitors at the museum and not the online visitors.[3]

The museum also hosts a number of interactive activities, from fish-feeding on Tuesdays and Fridays[4] to tours of the harbor on the Homer Spit on Fridays and Saturdays during the summer months.[5]

Expansion

Current museum building as seen from Bartlett Street

The Pratt Museum is, as of 2010, working to build a new facility on its 9.8 acres of property, due to a lack of space and inadequate storage space for its collections. The new building would also be on one level, eliminating the need for staircases and elevators that use up space, and would have other efficiencies not possible with the current building.[6] The Pratt Museum's Board of Directors has decided to support the creation of a new museum building, and started on the design of this building in 2010.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Pratt Museum Home Page
  2. ↑ Homer Tribune Events (Meetings) July 21, 2010
  3. ↑ Live Gull Cam Feed
  4. ↑ Homer Tribune: Events Calendar for May 19th
  5. ↑ Homer News: Announcements, July 7 2010
  6. ↑ Homer News: Pratt Holds Meetings on Expansion Options
  7. ↑ Pratt Museum Website: Museum Expansion Plan

External links

Coordinates: 59°38′42″N 151°32′58″W / 59.64500°N 151.54944°W / 59.64500; -151.54944

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, June 25, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.