The Iñupiat Heritage Center is a museum in

Utqiaġvik Utqiagvik ( ; , ), formerly known as Barrow ( ), is the borough seat and largest city of the North Slope Borough, Alaska, North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located north of the Arctic Circle, it is one of the List of northernmost ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. Dedicated in February 1999, it is an affiliated area of

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Partially owned by several entities and maintained by the National Park Service (NPS), the park commemorates the heritage of ...

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. At the 2020 census, New Bedford had a population of 101,079, making it the state's ninth-l ...

, and recognizes the contributions of

Alaska Natives Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tli ...

to the history of

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

. It houses exhibits, artifact collections, a library, a gift shop, and a traditional room where traditional

crafts A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

are demonstrated and taught. The

North Slope Borough The North Slope Borough is the northernmost borough in the US state of Alaska and, thus, the northernmost county or equivalent of the United States as a whole. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,031. The borough seat and largest cit ...

owns and manages the Heritage Center on behalf of the whaling villages of the

North Slope North Slope can refer to: * Alaska North Slope, a region encompassing the northernmost part of the U.S. state of Alaska * North Slope Borough, Alaska, a borough in Alaska whose boundaries roughly coincide with that of the region * North Slope, Taco ...

. The Heritage Center is one of several associated partners that participate in telling the story of commercial whaling in the United States. Park partners operate independently but collaborate in a variety of educational and interpretive programs. The Iñupiat Heritage Center (IHC) brings people together to promote and perpetuate Iñupiat history, language and culture. This dynamic interaction between the Iñupiat and their environment fosters the awareness, understanding and appreciation of the Iñupiat way of life from generation to generation.

History

In the late 19th and 20th centuries, more than 2,000 whaling voyages set out from New Bedford bound for the bowhead whaling grounds off Alaska's

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

coast. The whalers developed the following route for their voyage of over 20,000 miles: to the Azore islands off the coast of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, around

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

and the southernmost tip of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, to the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands () are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the Hawaii (island), island of Hawaii in the south to nort ...

, and finally to the

Bering Sea The Bering Sea ( , ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre, p=ˈbʲerʲɪnɡəvə ˈmorʲe) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasse ...

and

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

. They were often gone for years at a time, and processed the whales on board. Many Alaska Natives, particularly

Iñupiat The Inupiat (singular: Iñupiaq), also known as Alaskan Inuit, are a group of Alaska Natives whose traditional territory roughly spans northeast from Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the northernmost part of the Canada–United States borde ...

Eskimo people, participated in commercial whaling. In addition to crewing on the American ships, they hunted for food for the whalers, provided warm fur clothing, and sheltered many crews who were shipwrecked on the Alaska coast.

External links

Iñupiat Heritage Center
official website

National Park Service {{authority control Inupiat culture Natural history museums in Alaska Native American museums in Alaska New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park Whaling in the United States Museums established in 1999 1999 establishments in Alaska Whaling museums Buildings and structures in North Slope Borough, Alaska Tourist attractions in North Slope Borough, Alaska