The More You Look
Welcome to The More You Look, a production of the UA Museum of the North and your behind-the-scenes journey into museum collections, research, exhibits, and public programming from Fairbanks Alaska. Join us as we talk about special exhibitions in development, and changes to look for in the permanent galleries. Not just the what, but the how and why. Learn about new programs and new ways to get involved. Curators will discuss the latest field season and collections managers what new finds have come to our labs to be cataloged, studied, and made available to researchers worldwide. We’ll get a loo...
Behind the Scenes
While we cannot in an episode listen to multiple full tours of UAMN’s Behind the Scenes, we can listen to parts of them and think about how different they are, and how special each one can be. Visitors on a tour of course ask questions, and while we won’t hear much of their voices, what the tour guides say is as guided by the visitors as it is personal knowledge and any script. We’ll hear parts of tours by Patrick Druckenmiller, Museum Director and Curator of Earth Sciences. Sarah Le, graduate student in Ornithology, Nicole Young, underg...
Observations, with Ree Nancarrow
In 2025, the museum held its first open call for artists and community curated shows in the Rose Berry Alaska Art Gallery. The jury selected 6 shows to be exhibited, and Ree Nancarrow’s Observations: Two Decades of Change, is the second in this series. The show opened at the museum on August 15th, 2026.
For this episode, I had occasion to speak with Ree not once but twice. The first was at the museum, where we were joined by friend and fellow artist, Margo Klass. The second was at Ree’s studio wher...
Visitors
This episode is about a three week visit to the museum. It’s about working towards a museum exhibit. It’s about working with one of our collections and looking at specimens to find more specimens. It’s about why this research is important to all of us. Our visitors were biologist and University of Washington Associate Professor Chelsea Wood, Research Technologist and Lab Manager, Katie Leslie, and graduate student, Diana Perales-Macedo.
And what exactly they came to UAMN to do, we’re going to get into – soon enough.
The More You Look is a pr...
Random Birds
Not long ago, we broadcast another episode with the museum’s Birds collection. There, Roger Topp spoke with five of the students about working with the collection, and he spoke with the Curator Kevin Winker and Collections Manager Jack Withrow about the dimensions of the collection. And during that conversation, when Roger asked them to pick their highlights from the collection, Jack challenged him to pick ten birds, by number, at random from the 60,000 specimens on hand, saying that they could tell a story about each and every one. We did that, and these are their stories.
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The Sick, with Kevin Carroll
In 2025, the museum held its first open call for artists and community curated shows in the Rose Berry Alaska Art Gallery. The jury selected 6 shows to be exhibited, and Kevin Carroll’s The Sick, is the first in the series, opening April 11th, 2026.
Kevin stopped by the museum in March to drop off the work for the show and to talk about the art, this project, and the parts of his life that led him to create 45 pieces from 45 stories of addiction in the Fairbanks community. As he wrote in the introduction to the show, “Each piece is a...
We Can Move the Stars
The UA Museum of the North now has a planetarium, and as planetarian Omega Smith said when she first came to the museum in the fall of 2025, “We can move the stars.”
In this episode we discuss the new facility with Omega Smith, Director of the new Walt and Marita Babula Planetarium, about coming on board, building partnerships, and designing programs. We speak with museum director, Pat Druckenmiller and Senior Director of Principle Gifts for the UA Foundation, Emily Drygas about fierce visions and big projects. We speak with the engineering team that have made the construction of t...
Ways of Interaction (with the Birds Collection)
Welcome to the museum’s Birds Collection. In this episode Curator Kevin Winker and Collections manager Jack Withrow discuss the dimensions of the collection, and the way it grows. We talk about Super Pato and remember the stories that come with interacting with specimens. We stop by the Birds preparation lab, where museum graduate students Laney Cardenas, Estephan Fortela, Sarah Le, Morgan Lynn, and Nick Ramsey are busy at work on some very different birds.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the Un...
Creative Continuum
The Native Art Center at UAF has been a cornerstone for the study and preservation of Alaska Native art since its establishment in 1965. Founded by Iñupiaq artist Ronald Senungetuk, the Center was created to bring together artists from rural communities, providing them with opportunities for studying new materials and techniques to incorporate into their work.
The exhibition Creative Continuum, 60 Years of the Native Art Center, celebrates artistic excellence, mentorship, and community at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Present director, Da-ka-xeen Mehner and five of the Center’s students, past and present, stopped by the museum in Feb...
Bus 142: Narratives of Solitude
In planning to exhibit Bus 142 at the UA Museum of the North, we’ve spoken with many people about their experiences with the bus, their perspectives on the story of Chris McCandless, their connections to the bus that go back into the 70s and 80s. In 2022, writer, reporter, and NOLS instructor, Diana Saverin visited the museum and shared some of her stories. She talked about her crazy, what-are-odds-visit in 2011, and her extended stay in Healy in 2013 as she spoke with Alaskans and with the pilgrims, the visitors to the bus, to understand their very different perspectives–and how she felt...
Dinosaurs and Mammoths
As the UA Museum of the North approaches its centennial anniversary, we thought we might talk to each collection about that collection, the collection’s history, and what objects might be in a top ten list to include in a celebratory exhibit. This is the Earth Sciences Collection, and here are museum Director and Curator of Earth Sciences, Patrick Druckenmiller, and UAF professor and paleoecologist, Matt Wooller, recorded in the museum’s media lab and collections range in December of 2025.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on t...
Threshold 32F
The museum’s latest exhibit in the Rose Berry Alaska Art Gallery, Threshold 32 Fahrenheit, is a collaboration between visual Artist Klara Maisch, writer Debbie Moderow, and ecologist Rebecca Hewitt. The exhibit is a multidisciplinary narrative about change in the boreal forest. It is as much about the process of collaboration and the development of community as it is the observance of the world and creation of art. Klara, Debbie, and Rebecca have worked together before, and began their collaborations under the In a Time of Change program. For our conversation, Klara and Debbie joined UA...
Observing Our Dynamic Planet
The museum’s latest special exhibit, Observing Our Dynamic Planet, showcases how synthetic aperture radar data allow us to study earth from space. To follow our last episode, which looked at the Alaska Satellite Facility’s Ground Station, this episode comes from the 20 or so interviews we conducted with ASF scientists and engineers in the process of developing the exhibition. Joining us from various points in 2024, are Heidi Kristenson, Joe Kennedy, Simon Zwiebeck, Forest Williams, Andrew Johnson, and Franz Meyer. We talk about the properties of synthetic aperture radar, and about studying global flooding even...
Ground Station
The museum has opened a new special exhibit in partnership with the Alaska Satellite Facility. The exhibit, Observing Our Dynamic Planet, showcases how synthetic aperture radar data is acquired and how it allows us to study global agriculture, forestry, permafrost, flooding events, volcanoes, earthquakes, sea ice, and glaciers. Joining us in this episode are Wade Albright, Director of the Alaska Satellite Facility and Paul Austin, ASF Ground Station Manager to talk about ASF’s most visible landmarks, the 10-meter antennas on the UAF campus. What are they? How do they work? What satellites are we...
In a Time of Change
Mary Beth Leigh is UAF professor of microbiology and Arts-Humanities-science integration, and Director of the In a Time of Change (ITOC) program. Dr. Leigh's work has influenced exhibits at UAMN and found their way into shows and programming for much of the program's 18 years. The episode covers Leigh's influences, some of the history of ITOC, and its past and present influences on UAMN exhibits.
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...
Tales From the Front Desk
From the very beginning, we knew we wanted to produce an episode where we could hear some of the stories as told by the museum’s attendants, those employees who work the front desk, the store, who open the galleries and see to the needs of solo travelers, families, and large tours. This time, Director of Exhibits, Design, and Digital Media, Roger Topp sits with three of our attendants and UAF students, Sophie Zhang, Grace Hopkins, and Claire Thelen.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on th...
From Leaf Miners to Burying Beetles
In this episode, we continue the conversation with UAMN Curator of Insects, Derek Sikes and UAMN Entomology Collections Manager, Jess Rykken, from the full episode, Of the Ants and the Bees. And we cover so many topics including some of the research efforts at UAF, student work, entomology in exhibits, plans for the summer, and posting in iNaturalist.
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...
Of the Ants and the Bees
The last time The More You Look sat down with museum entomologist, Derek Sikes, he hinted that perhaps at our next conversation, he could share some results on his work on the ants of Alaska. That was more than a year ago – and in pretty much that same span of time, the museum gained a second entomologist – Jess Rykken, UAMN’s new Entomology Collections Manager, and a specialist in pollinators. So, some catching up to do, and the conversation will appear in two episodes. In this first part, we discuss Alaskan ants, bees, hoverflies, moths, collection and curation, first impres...
To Build Connections
UAMN Education & Public Programs offers a wide array of activities and resources for teachers, students, families, community members, and visitors of all ages and backgrounds. Opportunities to learn from, inspiration through museum collections and related research. Through collaboration with UAF departments and the community, this museum department connects the public with Alaska's science, arts, history, and cultures whether through hands-on family programs, school field trip opportunities, workshops, kits to check-out, and more. Here’s our conversation with Jen Arseneau, Director of UAMN Education and Public Programs, and Outreach Specialists: Emily Koehler-Platten, Elisabeth Padilla, and Nan Werdin-Pfisterer.
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The Northwoods Set Book Project
In the Fall of 2024, the museum opened the Northwoods Set Book Project, the first special exhibit presented within the museum’s Rose Berry Alaska Art Gallery, bringing closer together newer community work and the work within the museum’s permanent collections. It’s the first of a growing line-up of temporary shows housed within the museum’s principal art gallery. UAMN Director of Exhibits, Design and Digital Media, Roger Topp met with Northwoods Book Arts Guild members Susan Campbell, Margo Klass, and Corlis Taylor – at Margo’s, around the dining table where they had tea and cookies, and talked about...
Everyone's Grandfather
In September of 2024, Nathan Jackson’s totem pole, “Everyone’s Grandfather,” on the grounds of the museum, was removed from its site of 36 years and brought inside the museum for conservation and future installation within the building. UAF professor of Native Art, Da-ka-xeen Mehner, and UAMN Senior Collections Manager for Ethnology and History, Angela Linn talk about the lowering of the pole and the in-progress work to get it back onto exhibit.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus o...
Stories We Can Tell
Christina parks, the UAMN's Director of Visitor Services somehow finds time for an afternoon chat on September 4th, 2024, what happened to be the busiest non-event day at the museum in years. Not all days at the museum are the same. Like anywhere, some days are down-right rough, and no more so than for the staff in museum visitor services.
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 l...
Opportunities in Fish
Today, a conversation with UAF masters student Sydney Almgren and postdoctoral researcher Laura Timm. We talk about their current research, Sydney updating us on her work following on a prior episode of the show – but they also talk about their varied histories within the fields of fish, the jobs they’ve done, opportunities and advice for students, and the jobs they might do in the future.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska Fair...
Oh the Places We Go
A conversation with Audra Darcy and Haley McCaig, UAMN research archaeologists, and recorded on the cusp of the 2024 summer field season. It's less about science and data analysis and more about logistics, planning, and manual labor in really cool places.
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...
The More You Find
In July 2023, the museum recorded a trailer for The More You Look Podcast, and we think, now more than a year later, we got the direction, the goals about right. Over the years, museum outreach has considered the museum from many angles. What does, not any museum, but this museum look like in terms of a gallery, in terms of a website, a book, a card game? What does this museum sound like when it takes on the form of a podcast. And what can we as a community, and the museum’s visitors, learn from that.
...The Teacher Voice
Museum galleries and programs are brought to life by museum educators and members of the Fairbanks community, who volunteer to teach school children, guide tours, and help during special events. And the UA Museum docent program has been around for more than 40 years, almost as long as the museum has been located on the west ridge of the UAF campus.
Museum docents Tim Doran, Judy Ferri, Avalon Wappett, and David Weissman, speak about how they became involved, how docenting is a team effort, and how the best parts of any museum program are what...
Birds of the Late Cretaceous
Arctic lands today are important breeding grounds for more than 200 species of birds, some of which migrate great distances to take advantage of the abundant summer resources. But this episode is not about them, but birds that lived in Alaska a long-long time ago.
The Prince Creek formation of northern Alaska is the northernmost fossil-bearing Late Cretaceous ecosystem in the world. It possesses a remarkable collection of fossils, including dinosaurs, mammals, fishes, and birds.
UAMN Curator of Earth Sciences, Patrick Druckenmiller and graduated UAF Masters student in Geosciences, Lauren Wilson...
A World of Workplaces
Welcome to season II, where we’ll continue to explore the stories and community of the museum. More from the students, more from the field, more memories of where we’ve been and how we get to tomorrow.Â
And how appropriate to kick off the season with today’s conversation with museum Manager for Administrative Affairs, Emilie Nelson, a.k.a. H.R.
Part of this discussion appeared in the last episode of the first season of the show, and I thought it appropriate to bring it back in the context of a more...
Shared Interests
Museums are places of connection and relationship: visitor to visitor, visitor to object, object to community, community to future research – and there’s not a department within this museum that doesn’t foster and seek to grow all of those relationships. = Today on the podcast, conversations with two such departments, the museum’s offices of development and human resources. Person to person. Person to interest. And Interest to long-term relationship.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the North, on the campus of the University of Alaska...
Bering Sea Herring
Fisheries graduate student Sydney Almgren is studying Pacific Herring in the Bering Sea, their genetic diversity and the structure of the population, because it’s good to know what’s happening in the sea, it’s good to refine techniques and analysis for current and future work, and it’s good to be able to provide a better picture of the ocean to fisheries managers. In this episode a conversation with both Sydney Almgren and UAMN Curator of Fishes, Andres Lopez.Â
The More You Look is a production of the UA...
Seeds of Practice
In the museum’s latest special exhibition, Thinking Made Visible, perception, communication, and invention are explored through nature journals and cartoons, maps and scientific fieldnotes, architectural, art, and exhibit design. Memory and sensory experience are given form by the humble sketchbook.
In the course of developing the exhibit, museum staff conducted more than three dozen interviews and delighted in following those branching conversations, the cross-cutting themes and stories for a museum exhibit as conversation across conversations. In this episode, we hear from a few of the contributing artists and scientists ab...
Bus 142: Hunting Cabin
The stampede trail bus, or Bus 142, saw more than 70 years of use in Fairbanks and then the mining trail west of Healy, Alaska before being flown back across the Teklanika and eventually becoming an object in a museum collection. Before it became a pilgrimage and a touchstone for memory, and well after its life in the military and the Fairbanks transit system, it was a well-used bunkhouse, a hunting camp for those who knew how to get off the beaten path.Â
In the fall of 2022 and the spring of 23, Jerry Freel made three visits t...
We Don't Take One Picture (We Take Five)
In this bonus Up Close episode, we continue our Episode 16 ("The Silences") conversation with UAMN Film Curator emeritus, Leonard Kamerling. We talk about the increasing need to curate our personal photos, the value in being an outsider as a storyteller, and what projects Kamerling envisions on the horizon.
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...
The Silences
In this episode, we talk about how UAMN Film Curator Emeritus, Leonard Kamerling came to filmmaking. What’s changed in the last quarter-century? What is very much the same? And what should we all, as individuals, as families, think about when it comes to the documentation of our own lives.
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...
Bird in the Hand
In this episode of the podcast, a conversation with UAMN Curator of Birds, Kevin Winker, and Ornithology Collection Manager, Jack Withrow about the growth of this museum collection, the vastness of North and how little has been studied in detail, the time-tested value of room temperature preservation, the difference between live mounts and study skins…and so much more.Â
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 low...
Beyond Survival
In this episode, we continue our Episode 14, "Always Getting Ready" conversation with members of the Friends of the UA Museum of the North. 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 research. We pick up the discussion with Ron Inouye, Dave Norton, and Tim Doran.
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...
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 th...
A Taste of Sounds of Place
The UAMN audio guide, Sounds of Place was conceived and first recorded in the year 2000 by UAMN Film Curator emeritus, Leonard Kamerling and sound-recordist Kathy Turco. Twenty-something years later, it has grown into a mobile app with 6 tours and nearly 200 stops encompassing all of the museum galleries. The UA Museum of the North mobile app is free and available on a smartphone near you. This week on the podcast, “A Taste of Sounds of Place,” 20-something eclectic clips for 20-something years.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the Nort...
Humpback Unearthed
On September 21st and 22nd, 2023, staff and students from four UAMN research collections excavated a humpback whale skeleton on the UAF campus. This, of course, is not its usual habitat. This was not an ancient, fossilized animal. The skeleton, salvaged from the beach at Kincaid Park, Cook Inlet, in southcentral Alaska, was brought by museum staff to Fairbanks and buried in sand for more than six years in order to allow for the continued natural decomposition of the remaining soft tissues. Maybe not all the remaining soft tissues. More on that in this episode.
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Birds of Beringia
This week , we interrupt UAMN Ornithology Collection Manager, Jack Withrow, as he installs a small exhibit on the Birds of Beringia. This is the latest edition of Changing Alaska, Changing Collections, a temporary exhibit case near the entrance of the main gallery that highlights recent work from the museum’s collections.
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 ill...
Room to Move
Today we visit two conversations with UAMN Fine Arts Collection Manager Della Hall, both recorded in the last year -- Della’s first year in this position. We talk about the collection, about storage space and how books should be organized on a shelf, about the life of objects, about exhibits and how all museums have art – all of them – bar none. We talk about how art is made to be engaged with – and responded to – this week on the podcast.
The More You Look is a production of the UA Museum of the Nor...
