6/8/18 – George Johnston Museum

We hit our first bad construction on the way to Teslin.  When Yukon Province gets serious about bad holes and rough patches, they tear it all out to rebuild the whole road.  Then they water the softened dirt to make a muddy, mucky mess for the tourists.  By the time you get to your destination, your truck and trailer are beyond filthy.  (Apparently they need all the water for the water trucks because the RV parks won't let you use their water to wash your vehicles.)

Although Teslin has a population of fewer than 500, there are a couple of museums right on the highway, starting with the George Johnston Museum.  From the highway you see the back of the museum building, much more impressive than the front. 

George Johnston was an Inland Tlingit man who had quite a history.  He was skillful in snowshoes making, hunting, trapping, boat building.  He bought a mail order camera, and took it everywhere, making a record of daily events in Inland Tlingit life, and developing the film in his home.  The mural below is one of the photographs he took.

George went to Whitehorse and bought a 1928 Chevrolet.  After a 15-minute driving lesson on an airfield, he had the car barged to road-less Teslin. For winter hunting, he painted it white, parked it on the frozen lake, and waited for the wolves.  He used it for a taxi service too, repainting it black, for 80 miles of frozen lake and 3 miles of summer road.  

I love the beadwork on these exhibits.

Embroidered wall pockets

Beaded Octopus bag and gloves

There are some exhibits that show how a trapper lived, with realistic animals in the dioramas.

More hunter/trapper stuff hanging from the ceiling.  I thought this was a sled—George told me it’s a fish trap.  And the thing behind it is a bear skin in a stretcher. Took some pretty strong string to stretch a bear skin after it was tanned because no one wants a curly rug!

A Teslin woman tanned the hides from 100 trapped lynx, sewed them to a Hudsons Bay blanket, added a scalloped caribou border dyed with mossberry juice for a rare and warm 400 lynx-paw blanket! I have no idea how old it is, but it’s pretty impressive and I'll bet really warm!  I’d forgotten lynx grew a white winter coat.

Across the parking lot is another small building.  It has displays from the 1942 Aeradio Navigation Range Station that guided planes from 1941 to the late 1960s.  Check out the old radios.

 

Same pictures, plus a few more here:  George Johnston Museum