Downtown Anchorage: The Anchorage Museum (Smithsonian Arctic Collection), Alaska Native Heritage Center & 4th Ave

To understand the 10,000-year human and artistic story of the 49th State, Anchorage pairs the two finest museums in Alaska, linked together in summer (mid-May to mid-September) by a complimentary shuttle bus departing from the museum doors and Downtown 4th Avenue.

1. The Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center (625 C Street, Allow 2 Hours)

Spanning a full block in Downtown Anchorage, this glass-and-granite museum combines four collections under one roof (check admission rates on the official website):

• 2nd Floor, The Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center: curated with Native elders from across Alaska, interactive touch-screen cases hold 600 Indigenous masterpieces from the Smithsonian Institution, including Yup'ik transformation masks, waterproof seal-gut parkas, walrus-ivory carvings, Tlingit Chilkat robes and Unangax̂ hunting visors.
• The Alaska Exhibition (3rd Floor), Art of the North & Discovery Center: walk through history galleries covering Russian America (1741 to 1867), the 1898 Gold Rush, the 1964 Earthquake, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a marine touch tank and the Thomas Planetarium, which screens an Aurora: Lights of Wonder Northern Lights film.

2. The Alaska Native Heritage Center (8800 Heritage Center Dr, 15 Mins Northeast)

Alaska is home to 11 distinct Indigenous cultural groups speaking 20 languages (including Iñupiaq, Yup'ik, Unangax̂, Alutiiq, Dena'ina Athabascan, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian). At the 26-acre Alaska Native Heritage Center, you experience living Indigenous culture first-hand:

• World Eskimo-Indian Olympics (WEIO) Games & Dance: on the Gathering Place stage, young Native athletes demonstrate Arctic survival sports, including the One-Foot and Two-Foot High Kick (leaping to kick a suspended seal-skin ball and landing on the same foot), alongside traditional drumming and dancing.
• 1-Kilometre Lake Tiulana Village Loop: step inside six full-scale traditional Native houses staffed by cultural hosts from each region, and see hand-carved Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian Totem Poles.

3. Stroll Historic 4th Avenue Downtown: Log Cabin Visitor Center & Resolution Park

On West 4th Avenue downtown, visit the sod-roofed 1936 Log Cabin Visitor Information Center (at 4th & F St, with its jade boulder and mileage signpost), admire the Art Deco 1947 Fourth Avenue Theatre, and walk to the Captain Cook Monument overlooking Cook Inlet at Resolution Park.