This is a decent exhibit; I don’t think it’s nearly as good as The Ancient Americas, but it does have the advantage of sticking with a very specific area and shows a variety of areas of life: art, spiritual, society, fishing/hunting/gathering, and the environment. It is best for upper-elementary and middle-school with an interest in American Indians.
Since the Ancient Americas is very direction-dependent (you should enter from the main hall), I recommend starting with that one—the two exhibits lead into each other, and you can walk through Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples in either direction.
For most of the exhibit, Northwest Coast Indians runs along one side and Arctic People run along the other, which makes for interesting comparisons because the same section (for example spiritual) will show information from the groups in the same room. The Southeast corner (art if you’re following the in-exhibit map) has a large number of totem poles from the Northwest Coast Indians, and is definitely the highlight of the exhibit.
TOPICS AND EXHIBITS