Tongass Voices: Conservator Ellen Carlee on preserving the Alaska State Museum’s collection

This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.

The Alaska State Museum in Juneau houses a collection of tens of thousands of objects, from canoes and plants to the state’s last publicly accessible theater organ . But how do you maintain all of those items? That’s conservator Ellen Carlee’s job. https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TVCarlee_WEB.wav

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ellen Carlee: I could actually talk about what’s in this lab for hours on end. As we go past here, I’ve got these pH strips. They measure the alkalinity or acidity of surfaces. You just get these damp and you press it gently to the surface, and in that way, we’re able to understand if we