Always Getting Ready

Enjoy this illuminating conversation with several members of the Friends of the UA Museum of the North: Ron Inouye, Tim Doran, and Dave Norton. The Friends are a group of engaged community members whose purpose is to build a bridge of understanding and knowledge about the museum's collections—and the research and other work the collections support. They do this through spending time with the staff and the curators, engaging with exhibits, and taking on special projects.

The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples.

Transcript

Roger Topp: 0:00

So I'm here today -- Cut. Hello, and welcome to The More You Look, your behind the scenes journey into museum collections, research, exhibition, and public programming from Fairbanks, Alaska. I'm Roger Topp, Director of Exhibits Design and Digital Media at the UA Museum of the North, and host for today's episode. The Friends of the UA Museum of the North are a group of engaged community members whose purpose is to build a bridge of understanding and knowledge about the museum's collections and the research and other work that collections support. They do this through spending time with the staff and the curators, engaging with exhibits, and taking on special projects. By my definition, the Friends are a group of Alaskans who can derail -- or redirect a well planned day and week in the best of ways. They are not shy about knocking on your door, or stopping you mid-rush through the lobby. In this episode, I speak with three members of the

Friends: 1:12

Ron Inouye, Dave Norton, and Tim Dorn -- and full disclosure, I likely speak with some members of the Friends more than some members of the museum staff. And I've never had to be the one to seek out them or their ideas for the museum. I'm here today with three members of the Friends of the

University of Alaska museum: 1:37

Ron Inouye, Tim Doran, and Dave Norton. And I'm sure you'll tell us a lot about yourselves as well as your involvement with the Friends over the years. And I know we have at least one founding member of the friends at the museum here with us. And that's Dave Norton. So, I expect you to tell us how this all got started. But first, I want to ask Ron to introduce what the Friends are and what their relationship with the museum is today.

Ron Inouye: 2:04

Well, the Friends are a group -- it's been in existence for quite a number of years. And it was a way to try to initially get some action going so that there could be a museum created. And it was a group of people who actually got together with this grand idea that there had to be a building someplace that was proper for storing and displaying materials. So they worked and finally established a nonprofit with the help of Grace Schiable and pushed for legislation. And were successful in actually getting that whole dream going. There are a number of people who have been continuously working on the board and others who have sort of come in and out periodically.

Roger Topp: 2:50

And when you say get a museum created, we're talking the 1970s here, getting into this current space on campus, not the initial Museum in 1926.

Ron Inouye: 3:01

Well, the initial legislation, I think, was that there would be a museum someplace on the campus. And so it was theoretically there, but there was no there there. There were just objects in Signer's, what's now Signer's Hall. And then Otto Geist, I guess was one of the first people assigned to start gathering things. And they were being collected. But there wasn't really a single place to put them until they had a place on lower campus. And eventually, they needed more resilient building.

Roger Topp: 3:28

A building for galleries and for collections.

Ron Inouye: 3:31

And for proper storage. Because there are so many conditions that you have to meet in order to store and display and allow people to research things. And that certainly wasn't easy in some of the pre-existing buildings. So they had to have a custom built building. And that first came to the West Ridge. And then there's been a subsequent addition to it, which has been the architectural vision that we look at now.

Roger Topp: 3:57

2006 or so we opened the new wing, as it were, which is more than double the size of the the old building. Dave, tell us about that--in those those early days, and the idea that friends came together to want to make the museum be a thing, be a building on campus.

Dave Norton: 4:14

Right. The museum had its momentum for years on lower campus. It was growing and growing and finding growing pains. And in about the mid 70s ideas developed about moving and finding new quarters, or building new quarters. And in 1978, Jerry Smith, who was then head of the Fairbanks Town and Village Association, and I were collaborating over a glass of wine at the old Ivory Jack's place and in Goldstream. We said gee, you know we really need to found a group that can push for the legislation, or the roundup of funds otherwise, then legislation for funding for the the new enterprise and its move envisioned to be to the West Ridge, but not not fully designed yet. We did. And as luck would have it, after we'd sort of decided that there had to be this outside group that was independent and full of vim and vigor at the time. Governor Steve Cooper, who was I think he was a legislator, not yet a governor at the time, I'm not sure if the dates of his becoming governor said, I'll take this on. And we were relieved of the heavy lifting of putting the the big funding together. But we did decide to keep it going as a group that we labeled the friends. And it grew and, and prospered and stayed active continuously, at various levels ever since 1978. So it was it's kind of a courtesy for people to refer to me as a co-founder of the Friends group. I spent 10 years away from Fairbanks in between, but I've come back to the Friends. So it's got a draw. It's like no other. It's got its own purposes. My colleagues will tell you here.

Ron Inouye: 6:42

But I think the education program that you have with docents has been a really, really big part of what the Friends support because it's very obvious that it really reaches the community. And that's Tim's forte, for sure.

Tim Doran: 6:59

I'm a relatively new member of friends. Officially joining in 2014.

Roger Topp: 7:05

Yeah, but I've worked with you since 1999.

Tim Doran: 7:07

You know, in terms of for myself, as a principal in town, worked with the museum. We've had lunches to gather pennies, lunch auctions, lunch basket auctions, to help contribute to the new addition. Those types of things, but then working together on projects, as you mentioned, in essence the 90s in getting the the museum resources into the classrooms, and having teachers in the classroom working with museum staff to see how we can do that collectively. But I think that's also one of the big things with friends for me, is, yes, there's a bit of fundraising. And that was a big piece of the initial, you're getting funding for the museum, which is still part of it. But it's supporting the whole mission of the museum. And the outreach, as well as I'm gonna call the inreach. It's it's not only bringing people in and helping support different things, whether it's some of the activity centers that have worked their way into various galleries and exhibits, but also how do we get that outreach, whether it's kids going out to schools, going out to villages, whether it's getting something online, you know, and that has certainly, we we started working originally on that journey. Northern Journeys. Yeah. And, you know, it's taken on new things. So I think the responsiveness of Friends is one of the things that has struck me in figuring out how, as, as a body of Friends, how do we support the museum? How do we advocate for the museum? And then how do we help some of these things to come into fruition?

Roger Topp: 9:05

Yeah, it's interesting, because we both worked together when you were principal of Denali Elementary, and I was in the Education Department. And I moved over to exhibits since and you've retired from that role, but is very active in the Fairbanks community on the school board, and as part of the Friends and so still working

Tim Doran: 9:24

a docent as well

Roger Topp: 9:25

Cool. Of course, that's why I see you every week.

Tim Doran: 9:28

Here is incredible.

Roger Topp: 9:31

You want to be part of so many things, to be a part of it, if you want to be a part of it in different aspects. So. when you--when the given-- The Friends meet regularly, you have a lot going on, which I probably don't know about. And so I'm interested to hear what's -- what has happened? What was what other friends doing?

Ron Inouye: 9:57

We're organized around four different committees, and those are sort of in the process of being reformed again. But it's always to try to bring some support to the museum whether to a particular project that we're trying to help fund, or generally to try to get money into the museum itself. It's quite a process because as a nonprofit organization, we really don't have very much that we can offer to our membership, except the fact that they're helping the museum itself. And so we've had fairly good success with a challenge grant, whereby we use our own monies and challenge the community to match it. And over the years, I think there were some statistics, it's there been $183,000 raised for the museum, just using a match concept. And we're a small organization, we don't have a lot of income coming in. But we're finding that there are people who are very interested in helping the museum. And they will donate to us as a mechanism to get matching or other opportunities to sort of parlay what money we do have.

Roger Topp: 11:07

So, on one level, just being another set of voices who can speak for the needs of the museum is valuable. But also, there must be some things that the Friends can do that the museum can't itself or whether it's staffing or just mission.

Ron Inouye: 11:23

Yeah, I think the most interesting thing was when we were working to get the funding for the second edition. And Friends have several times had groups go down to Juneau to do some lobbying at the state level. And we were very fortunate to have a lot of students aboard with some of the Friends. And it was really a lot of fun going to Juneau with that motley crew of people. Because everyone knew, well, Mary Binkley, everyone had to stop and talk to her. And the same thing with, well, the big banker in town, who was very generous in helping with a lot of projects, including the whale here. So Bill Stroeker, and Mary Binkley were known all over the state. And when they called on legislators, people paid attention to them. What was really wonderful were to have the young students that we sponsored to go down there. And we had one gal who I knew from the library, but she was working with Native dolls. So she had this little rolling suitcase and she wheeled her dolls, she went to talk to people on the Senate Finance Committee. Well, one of them happened to be her uncle. And these little funny things that you never think about. They're there. They're hiding in plain sight. But little things like that some of the Anchorage legislators were really charmed by the fact that they had this gene bank, they had no idea that that kind of thing was even happening. They were just blown away. And so it's a matter of getting real projects in front of people with primarily people from their own constituencies. And then they start paying attention. And that's the kind of thing that really is wonderful when it happens. But it takes so much organization until you're into a campaign of some sort, to focus it and then to make it happen. But I think the students are our best ambassadors, just getting them to talk about what they do here and how exciting it is.

Roger Topp: 13:23

I had a great conversation with our development officer recently. And of course, we talked about the idea of fundraising. But most of our conversation, the exciting part of our conversation, that was just the idea of building relationships. And that so many, so much the work that Aelin does as development officer isn't going out there and saying, 'Do you have half a million dollars.' It's finding out what people's interests are in the museum and what they're excited about being more involved with, having that relationship with a museum. And that generates interest, generates support, sometimes in the form of objects, sometimes in the form of cash. And so can we talk about how the Friends in terms of I imagine the advantage, of course, having some luminaries in the Friends like Binkley and Stroeker that help just communicate -- maybe people are drawn to them, because everyone knows them. But it's also about about being out in the community, talking to people. And being able to talk to people about what the museum is and tell stories about the museum and get them excited about what the museum -- how they can be more involved with the museum.

Ron Inouye: 14:35

That's why I think the museum tours are so dynamic, and particularly for people who are in public office or who have responsibilities for care and maintenance of artifacts. Once they see the depth of collections here. There's going to be something in this building that's going to charm them. And you just have to be attentive to what it is that they're interested in and then help them learn more about it because everyone has something they're interested in. It's a matter of finding it and then linking it.

Dave Norton: 15:04

To me, one of the really exciting things about the Friends is it can lend help to what universities don't always do without, without a museum. And that is the interdisciplinary stuff, the getting of seemingly disparate or distant subjects together to tell a fuller story. I can think of example after example, where people getting the whole story is kind of difficult without an organization like a museum, and a little help from people like the Friends of the museum, who can see these bridges between fish studies and climate change, or things like that, that seem perhaps distant, we can help, being elders at times, we can help knit these subjects together and help you see the connections. Does that make sense to you, Tim?

Tim Doran: 16:02

Yeah, I think it ties into the Friends is like a stakeholder group. And what I appreciate being on the Friends for is it's not a fundraising group. Though, yes, money is a player. We support that. But our main focus that I have experienced is exchange of ideas. It's kind of making those connections. But both ways that for the museum, and the museum administration can come to the Friends and toss out an idea and say, Okay, we come from all different corners of the community, and backgrounds. How does this resonate with you? Or does it at the same time, I've watched in our Friends conversations, it's ideas come up that we can share with museum staffing, that might just open that door to say, Oh, this would be good. You know, I do go back to how we're trying to connect, partnerships connecting with things in school classrooms. It's a two way exchange, and you can't do one without the other. So I see it, as you know, it is making those connections, it is prompting that thinking. It could be as simple as saying,'Oh, we're thinking of this display. Give us a read.' And the Friends can can get, you know, but yet we're focused on I'm thinking the eventual gallery. refreshment, if you want, that. It's going to take advocacy. It's going to take solicitation of funds, there will be groups that will form directly around that and do the big things, the big dollars, if you want. And that's has to be their focus, where Friends can be that support group, and different advocacy, that builds the relationships that lead to those contributions. That leads to people just walking in our doors. And I am always impressed. And I'll finish this point with --pause after this one is with the docent program, and school tours, the number of chaperones who come and say, I have never been here. Oh, and they are just absorbing a lot. And then they go off into their neighborhoods, their groups and spread that word. And in a sense, they're an extension of Friends. Though, they may not be that official group. We we do that on a more thoughtful mindset to do that, but they take it.

Roger Topp: 19:01

The advocacy for in this case, you know, a new gallery of Alaska doesn't start with we need X amount of money for a new gallery of Alaska. It's the stories that make it up and your connections to what's there now. That generates the excitement about what it can become. Basically, talking about the friends having coming from all different backgrounds. I'd love to hear. I know, Tim Doran's principal and teacher out in Alaska and as a school board member, but I'd like to hear also what your backgrounds are Dave and Ron, but also some of the backgrounds that people are not with us today. Just give me kind of overview where people are in the Friends now. Where they where they've come from, what where are they in the community?

Dave Norton: 19:55

Well, I spent my undergraduate years on the East Coast. I was working for a museum at Harvard University and became thoroughly engaged with the idea of the responsibilities of maintaining a museum, in cultures in intellectual walks of life. And then I came to Alaska as a graduate student, and was even more impressed with how important our museum is to us as university people, and grew on from there. And I've never lost the sense of it's the essence of museum them, if you will, what are the functions of museums. And so, being in on the ground floor founding, the friends sort of came naturally, and stuck with that, as long as I had a livelihood in Fairbanks. And then I mentioned that I spent a decade out of Fairbanks and not functionally involved with the friends but came back more and more convinced than ever to be involved with the the museum and with the friends, because I'd seen things from a totally different culture, living on the North Slope for 10 years and involved with a peripheral activity of the university up there. So when, for example, a couple of years ago, the bowhead skeleton, which is kind of a big focus here in the foyer of the museum, was coming together, I knew a little bit more about bowhead whales for having lived with their relationship to the people of the North Slope. And I could see things that maybe people who were coming from the south more recently than I had, couldn't see about the relationship between people and in this case, bowhead whales. So you'll remember that through the the Friends, and with help from people museum help from North Slope, I put together this series of articles that that helped amplify and sort of knock your socks off, I hoped. Wow, that bowhead whale was a really big feature of Northern history that, along with the bowhead skeleton year, makes quite an impact, I hope.

Roger Topp: 22:23

Yeah, it made it pretty clear that it's a big feature of the UAF, and the origins of UAF and the museum. And it's connected in all ways to here in the Interior as well.

Dave Norton: 22:32

And the continuity of the thing. I mean, that whale was harvested in 1963. And it was put in the foyer here all assembled in 2021.

Roger Topp: 22:43

The skull sat on exhibit since 1980.

Dave Norton: 22:46

Yep, so there's a long term fascination. And it was a lot of people's effort went into that.

Ron Inouye: 22:55

And I grew up in this little town in Colorado, which was pretty barren. We didn't have a lot of stimulation. So I got involved in using libraries and going to the museum just to learn things. And that's where I really learned more about the world was through places like that. When I came to Alaska, I ended up teaching in Ketchikan and I had no idea what the hell I was doing or where I was, but it was a community college position. So my learning curve just went very, very steep. And I had to depend on libraries and museums, to get myself up to speed to feel comfortable doing the teaching that I had to do. And I learned so much about Alaska being in that community that was not documented. And that was the real key was to see what wasn't there. That should be. So through that very slow process, you realize that those two institutions have libraries and museums are the continuity through time. And it's only if we can capture that and preserve it in some fashion with the stories that go along with them, that you have some some way of looking and interpreting what you see. And I'm so grateful that I had that opportunity to work with Nathan Jackson. He lived down the road and he used to come use my shower. And we made the first bentwood box trying to figure out how to do it. And then he went back to the traditional way of doing it, because if that's the way you do it, and Selena Peratrovich, that wonderful Haida Weaver would have me over to her house every Saturday and she would weave and tell me the story that just went on and on and on. And it was always in the present tense. And after about five or six Saturdays, I started seeing the same kind of pattern of a person who would weave itself into those storylines, but it was always in the present. And then I realized that she was telling me a heck of a lot about current life and a past life, but it was in the present tense. And I had never really thought about time and how you think about continuity. But people like that were really very important to me, just to acknowledge that things are not what you know, and you better be open to learning it because it could be really critical for your life. And that's what we're learning now through climate change and what continuity is.

Roger Topp: 25:21

You need to seek out the information, not wait for it to come to you.

Ron Inouye: 25:24

Yeah, sometimes it will come to you. Sort of be ready for it when it comes, because otherwise you disregard it. Yeah, it's not a good idea.

Roger Topp: 25:35

Othes on the Friends? Who are some other folks, your colleagues in the Friends, and what do they --

Ron Inouye: 25:44

Well, let';s see. We have quite a number of people who have different kinds of interests. Many of them are teachers by training. So it's a mnatural aggregation. But we have some people who are in the from the mining community, very generous to the museum, my goodness, and the history of mining is so critical to this area. And so that's really one of the important things that I think we need to be emphasizing more is the role of that. The part that's fascinating to me that we really haven't captured very well is the role of the military. Because Alaska has always lived on the cast offs of military technology, whether it's just telegraph or the well, radar system. And it's really fascinating that we always benefit from that after the fact. And with so much focus on the Arctic, now, there's so much technology that's been around us. And I just think that this is a time for us to be thinking about where are we relative to the evolution of this technology. And I think we're in a very interesting place, economically because of the role of the Native corporations through the land claims process. And they're becoming the economic drivers. For us. It's not resource extraction. Now, it's shifting into tourism. And so we're at a very golden spot to try to look for trends and see where what we're doing, as a museum can harmonize with what those groups are doing for whatever purposes, they need to do it. But I think we're in a very interesting time period. And I don't know how you can even conceptualize it, except that there are opportunities. And I always love that book that Jim Barker and his wife put together called Always Getting Ready, because he took the pictures, and she took the captions. But it shows Yupik culture, when people are always repairing their nets, they're always thinking about how are we getting ready, because you never know when the fish are gonna run, or when the animals are going to come by. But if you ain't ready, you're out of the picture. It's interesting. And that's the key is you should always have an A and B and C, at a different price point. Because when they need to give their federal money back or their state money back, they don't want to do that. But if you have something in their price point that's shovel ready, they'll probably get it.

Roger Topp: 28:19

Interesting that those words all always getting ready, is potentially sensitive topic. But you know, one of the impacts of budget cuts to university or any institution is that you start to lose parts of generations, it becomes difficult for institutions to bring younger people on board. You always bring someone on board, but can you bring them on board so that they're not 20 Next week, but they're already in their 30 --, bring different generations regularly, so that you can pass on information so that you you invest in the institutional knowledge, and the museum's no different than many institutions that you do run the risk of times that you don't you're not bringing enough new blood into the building. And so just what kind of efforts does the friends recommend the museum unto itself, of course, in terms of bringing people on what kind of invitations you have to bring people into the organization to try to keep new people getting involved?

Tim Doran: 29:24

It talks to that investment in public institutions. And the things that stand out at this museum and strikes me is one of the things is the difficulty of bringing staff on making sure we can fund them that they have a future with it. Along with that is making sure we don't lose generations in terms of the items that might be collected. Because we could eat easily miss, create gaps that way. But the excitement of this museum is that it's a research museum. It's not just the past, it's current. And that's where we need to make sure our exhibits, do highlight some of the past some of the present, and the linkages that go across Oh my, I love when I've come in here over the decades, with somebody, and especially having been out on the village myself for a while, and you come in and you say, Oh, that's so and so's grandma, that that piece was done by their grandpa, or kid comes in, that's my dad's art, or my mom's art those those, we have a lot of personal connections here. And I think in terms of how do we help people get involved for friends. The joy of being on Friends, is we get some of the presentations, from curators from the director of the museum, we get current information, some from among friends, like David's up, who have done a lot of research and studies and stuff that wind up here, right at the table, sharing that? Well, we get to learn about the museum. And I'll link that to other volunteer opportunities, whether it's the docent school tours program, whether it's helping out when their family programs or the open house at the museum, volunteers from the community to come and see it for themselves, and then see what their involvement and supports are. So I'm kind of making that linkage, but the excitement of being on there. And we have as Friends really tried to reach out and continue to, to provide more diversity within our group, and try to make connections that even if they don't stay in, I'm thinking of those students who come here, who may not stay here. But they bring a better understanding of Alaska to other places. And hopefully, that then returns the circle keeps going. Because we know, their exhibits, I grew up in New York City, we go down the Museum of Natural History, and the Alaska section was not quite accurate.

Roger Topp: 32:36

Or it was never accurate.

Tim Doran: 32:38

nIt was not only dated, but it was. But as we get that, you know, we help students go from here are other staff members who, you know, we're educating not only our community, and this museum is central to that education, and that promotion of the cultures across our state, but also through that contributing to a much bigger community.

Dave Norton: 33:07

And you know, whether or not we're unique at it, we may not be unique, but at least I think we do contribute to to making this experience of being in Alaska, seem terribly unique. There just aren't many people who get here. And I just had an experience today that opened my eyes to a new possibility for the museum. I was finishing up a course for old folks that dealt with weather and climate and wildfires or forest fires. And the lead instructor on that course was fantastic at showing motion pictures of satellite imagery that would show the different regimes of weather that promoted wildfires, and that these things were on my fairly big computer screen, pretty impressive. And I said where where do you show these things? Well, there's no very good place. We have so many agencies cooperating. And I suddenly thought, you know, maybe if this museum should ever get serious about a planetarium, they could specialize on making a weather, portrayal and forest for fire portrayal come alive, the way planetariums make star formations and planets come alive for people of all ages. And wouldn't that be a challenge? I mean, the technology is mind blowing that that might might contribute to that but it's worth exploring.

Roger Topp: 34:50

A planetarium at this museum. Novel concept. We're taping this in November of 2023. And we don't know what's gonna happen when this airs, but it might be very precient.

Dave Norton: 35:06

Well, you might get more agencies involved, raising money for you.

Roger Topp: 35:11

But this is the thing that I love about the Friends and you're pulling a Ron on me here -- and Ron stops me the corridor and says, 'Hey, have you ever thought about this,' or 'Here's an idea for you.' And you're actually touching on, you know, there's wildfire images, you know, some of the MODIS satellite imagery that gets used to get those pictures, we now have a platform and lobby, which might be great at showing some of that. So let's talk more about that. And maybe you could send me a link to if you have a link to some of the stuff shared with you. And we could pursue that. Because I've long thought that one of the things we're missing several things from the lobby, one nice map with a range. So when the mountains are out, people can see where the mountains are, right. And secondly, I thought that when you have these tremendous weather events, like smoke, bad season or something in Fairbanks, that you know, we should be able to go -- boom map, There's where the fires are. Here's where we are. You see the smoke plume. That's why it's smoky. And that's how far are we away, and it changes daily? What is your pitch to people who might might be interested in joining the Friends, besides be able to hear what the museum does?

Tim Doran: 36:31

Well, I mean, that's one of the things that I think is a real benefit that we have is because you do you get an inside look at the museum, you also get a preview, and you get to stimulate ideas. I am impressed sitting around in a Friend's meeting, and the ideas that come up, and from different viewpoints, different backgrounds, but somebody will Yeah, did you ever think of this? Or what if we did this? Or they've reached out to other museums and seen some things there? And they're bringing it back to oh, What could that do to enrich our experience here? So I think that is really one of the things in terms of the museum, that being on friends. The other thing I'm gonna say is that it's an opportunity for voices we might otherwise miss, who could bring some of their things forward?

Roger Topp: 37:34

Yeah, it's a great opportunity to tell the museum what is important to you, as individuals as representatives of institutions of the community.

Tim Doran: 37:41

Besides it being a nice group to hang out with,

Roger Topp: 37:43

it's always good to have a nice group to hang out with and, you know, the snacks and cookies. And thank you all for that wonderful lunch we had just not so long ago in it, you know, as we got through our accreditation process, and you guys put up for us. It's fantastic.

Ron Inouye: 37:57

What I wish we could do is have more of those occasions where people could really spend an extended period of time talking to the curators and to the students, because we tend to sort of not do that very well.

Tim Doran: 38:17

Just a connection that I think is important, and this podcast is one of the example of those are involvement as Friends with that. But I think that understanding that as being part of Friends, you see some of those connections, that's opportunity to really support the staff and the student researches in the museum within the museum. It's not just a collection, it's an active place. And they're looking at and bringing together things that impact us in the community. You know, whether it's talking about the salmon runs in figuring out how do we get a better handle on that, whether it is, you know, climate things and wildfires that impact us impact other places in the country. But a lot of what happens here does have a connection to us out there. And the fact that our students, our children can come through here, make the connections, they can learn. And they have made tremendous discoveries as one side mentors, professionals and others. And really, as a friend member or friends, or as an otherwise volunteer in the museum for different things that you get that opportunity to see it. You see it in action. You get to go behind the scenes.

Dave Norton: 39:55

One other one other observation about the friends is when you stick with them long Enough, you get to see the enormous improvements made in the the planning and the execution of what makes a museum not only great, but essential to the community. My eldest daughter is about your age. And she went off to school after graduating from high school, she went off to Oregon to go to the university there. And I think she had been there maybe a week when her roommate had laid on her so many questions about Alaska. She was impressed with what she didn't know, Mom and Dad, why didn't you tell me some of these things turned around, came back to Alaska to go to the University of Alaska and all that always impressed me. And now I don't hear that so much from my younger kids. They're not complaining because they got better, better introduction through things that Tim and the educators here did with the museum. And I think it's been improving. And it's been a pleasure to watch this interaction with the community improving. And one of the things is, it's a lot of fun to watch. People with this southern prejudices come here, Southern prejudices in the sense of not thinking that the the North is very important. And they're blown away by how important it is. And they they're just changed forever, once they visited, made a single visit to this museum.

Roger Topp: 41:28

Just a word in defense of your daughter. You know, I grew up in Philadelphia, and I'm always asking, oh, yeah, I grew up near to from this town. I'm like, I have no idea where that is? Or how to get there. Because when I lived there, I didn't have a car, I didn't travel anywhere. What do you -- What are the museum's greatest needs, from the perspective of the Friends?

Ron Inouye: 41:50

Well, for me, I think it's sort of an administrative bureaucratic issue. This is a repository for the entire state and for the entire country for that matter. But yet it is part of an administrative unit of UAF. And so it's merged into that bureaucracy. And to try to get it higher into the university recognition is really, really difficult, because of all of the ways that they have to administer the the university itself, but more broadly, you know, we have state resources here, they should be more willing to help pay for these things. Because it's, it's a national collection for not just the state, but for the feds, and internationally as well. But you never -- people never know that their maintenance costs, they have no conception of that. So I think it's matter of building an awareness that this is a responsibility of everyone everywhere. But how you get the funding to do that is the tough part

Roger Topp: 42:55

It's both a difficulty but also a great advantage that we're ensconced within the University of Alaska Fairbanks. There are things we do not have to worry about, because of where we are, because the organization we're embedded in. And that's true, that keeps us afloat. And so they kept us afloat through COVID. But it also does create complications in terms of our awareness and what our scope is, I mean, even the University of Alaska Museum of the North, big long name, doesn't really do it justice, what the reach the collection is, and the connections between the collections and researchers throughout the world.

Ron Inouye: 43:31

I think that's always an issue for every place. But the tentacles reach out so many ways, you know, they're probably more international than they are national. And that's the part that just is interesting to me, because of the technology. And the fact that you're doing the podcast, you know, we're having fewer teachers, and they're going to be probably more desperate to get information out to students. And I think technology is going to be the route to get information out. So thank goodness, you're doing things like this. But those pipelines are, they reach very, very wide. But we don't have a lot of content there for them. And that's what I think is so critical is to feature the content that we have. And that needs to be spread out a little bit further, but also to show the obligations of those who collect and deposit things that they have a responsibility to, to help maintain the facility and keep it going. It's tough.

Roger Topp: 44:29

The inception of the podcast really is derived from this idea that one there's so much to talk about in this museum, across all fields, but also that it's, I think, more generally important for people to understand museums, any museum, wherever you might be living where you are, right now, listening to this, that there's museum near you. And there's a lot of complexity. There's a lot of reach both inward and outward from that museum, that most people are aren't aware of, and whether or not you want to get involved with that institution, it really benefits and understanding that the purpose of museums and the position they play within the community.

Ron Inouye: 45:11

I think we're at a very interesting decision point in terms of how we want to operate as a as a group that doesn't really have any staffing, versus bumping it up to some next level, where there would be a necessity to hire someone on some kind of a regular basis just to take care of the routine kinds of things. There have been some interesting models that the Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska Community Foundation have used for by -- they will allow you a part time person for a set period of time, however, you have to eventually be able to fund that position on your own. So start it. That's right. And that's a very interesting model. Because if you get the right person, they can accomplish a heck of a lot for you. And particularly when we talk about memberships, and trying to get more people involved, takes more coordination. And so that is time consuming, but it's very necessary. Fortunately, we have some great board members who are very good at taking care of those things. But when they get tired and sort of bummed out, you've got to have a transition way to ease into that next iteration.

Roger Topp: 46:26

I always throught that ad hoc is sort of the Fairbanks way though.

Ron Inouye: 46:29

It is.

Roger Topp: 46:32

Thank you to Ron Inouye, Dave Norton, Tim Doron, and all the Friends at the UA Museum of the North for this and all the conversations, for their fresh perspectives, the novel ideas, and the of. Thank you for celebrating what's happening at the museum and helping to spread the word. My chat with Ron, Dave, and Tim went on quite a bit longer than we had time for here. Of course, it did. Keep an ear out for the forthcoming bonus episode, Beyond Survival, where we continue the conversation. The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the ancestral lands of the Dena people of the lower Tanana River. UAMN illuminates the natural history and cultural heritage of Alaska and the North through collections, research, education, and partnerships, and by creating a singular museum experience that honors diverse knowledge and respect for the land and its peoples. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe, share, and rate the program. This helps other listeners discover more about not only the work of this museum, but quite possibly other museums in their neighborhoods. The more you look, the more you find.