NEW BEDFORD, MA--A delegation from New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and the New Bedford Whaling Museum will travel to Anchorage and Barrow, Alaska, May 11-18 to foster ongoing programs and cultural exchange between the Whaling Museum and the National Park Service, the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage, and the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow. The delegation will include Anne Brengle, Executive Director, and Lee Heald, Director of Programs, of the New Bedford Whaling Museum; and John Piltzecker, Superintendent, and Jennifer Gonsalves, Chief of Visitor Services, of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. Representatives from the National Park Service Alaska Regional Office will join the delegation for the Barrow portion of the trip.

The connections between New Bedford and Alaska are historical and contemporary. During the mid to late nineteenth century, New Bedford's whaling fleet traveled progressively further away to hunt whales, bringing New Bedford whale ships through the Bering Strait to the Arctic Ocean. A number of whaling stations were established in communities along the Alaska coast, including Barrow, and many whalemen found themselves wintering over in the Arctic waiting for the ice to break up in the spring. Throughout the 19th century over 2,000 whaling voyages sailed to the western Arctic.

In 1996, Congress established New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park to help preserve and interpret the history of the American whaling industry and its influence on the economic, social and environmental history of the United States. In order to ensure that the contribution of Alaska natives to the history of whaling would be fully recognized, the law establishing the historical park in New Bedford also established an affiliation with the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow. The National Park Service and the New Bedford Whaling Museum have been working collaboratively with the Center on a variety of projects. Most recently, an Iñupiat dance troupe traveled to New Bedford to perform at the Whaling Museum in May.

In 2001, Congress established the Education Through Cultural and Historical Organizations (ECHO) Act as part of the No Child Left Behind Education Act. ECHO has brought together partners from Alaska, Hawaii and Massachusetts based on shared whaling and maritime heritage. The ECHO institutions include the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the New Bedford Oceanarium project, the Alaska Native Heritage Center, the Iñupiat Heritage Center, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, and the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. All of these partners have come together to foster cultural exchange and programs.

The first leg of the delegation's trip will include meetings with staff from the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) and the National Park Service's Regional Office in Anchorage. The Alaska Native Heritage Center, founded in 1999, serves as a gathering place to celebrate, perpetuate, and share all eleven of Alaska Native Cultures-the Athabascan of interior and south central Alaska, the Yup'ik and Cup'ik Eskimo of southwest Alaska, the Iñupiat and St. Lawrence Island Yupik in northern Alaska, The Aleut and Alutiiq from Prince William Sound to the end of the Aleutians, and the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian of southeast Alaska. The ANHC provides programs in both academic and informal settings, including workshops, demonstrations, guided tours of indoor exhibitions and outdoor program sites. In March, the ANHC high school dance troupe performed in New Bedford at the Whaling Museum and local schools.

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The second leg of the delegation's trip will include meetings with staff from the North Slope Borough and the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska. Barrow, with a population of about 4,000, is the northernmost community in the United States and is located 300 miles above the Arctic Circle. The Iñupiat Heritage Center, which opened in 1999, is dedicated to revitalizing and preserving the Iñupiat language. Through education and outreach, the Center fosters an atmosphere of cherishing and respecting the Iñupiat way of life. A New Bedford delegation traveled to New Bedford for the Center's dedication over three years ago, and in 2000, a traditional dance troupe from Barrow traveled to New Bedford for Summerfest and the dedication of the Jacobs Family Gallery at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The Iñupiat Heritage Center includes an exhibit about commercial whaling that was presented in time for the Center's dedication by the National Park Service, the New Bedford Whaling Museum and the New Bedford Free Public Library.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum holds the world's largest and most outstanding American whaling and maritime history collections. Highlights of the museum include a half-scale replica of the whaling bark Lagoda, a re-creation of a whale ship foc's'le, a 66-foot blue whale skeleton, and extensive collections relating to Arctic whaling. The whaling museum collection embraces over 500 whaling implements; 2,000 paintings, prints and drawings; 35,000 original photographs and negatives; 2,000 scrimshaw items and carvings; thousands of ethnographic objects; hundreds of ship models; and an extensive collection of ship's logs and records of international voyages.

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park is the only National Park Service area addressing the history of the whaling industry and its influence on the economic, social and environmental history of the United States. The National Park Service, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior, preserves 390 nationally significant natural and cultural resources throughout the United States for the enjoyment and inspiration of this and future generations. The Alaska Region of the National Park Service includes vast areas with extensive mountains, glaciers and wildlife, including Denali National Park with North America's highest mountain, Mount McKinley. The Alaska trip will include signing a formal agreement of cooperation between the National Park Service, the North Slope Borough and the Iñupiat Heritage Center.

For more information on the New Bedford Whaling Museum, call (508) 997-0046 or visit the museum's website at www.whalingmuseum.org. For more information on New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, call (508) 996-4095 or visit the park's website, which includes a link to the Iñupiat Heritage Center, at www.nps.gov/nebe.

Prepared May 7, 2003