Basket and Iglu

Right up front, near the columns puzzles, is the quiz show. You can test your knowledge of Native history and culture against your friends or against the computer. This has proved super popular with adults as well, and is nearly always occupied. It's really great. And someday we'll get all the questions on there!


Installing quiz show.


And the basket activity is getting there. We still have the prototype basket, but the new one is coming. The panels look great, although those are the temporary versions too. But the baskets that show the different styles of weaving and the different stages of weaving are really beautiful. And in a few weeks, we'll also have the interactive game with baskets from around the hemisphere that people can touch.

Come weave on our giant basket!

The new panels and example baskets.


We also received this fun sculpture as a donation. It now greets people at the craft room.


Then there's the iglu. This really is great. We have a wonderful Inuit drawing of the interior of an iglu, complete with Inuit words. We have a really charming 3-minute video of a dad teaching his son how to build an iglu that a very surprising number of people watch and truly empathize with. And we have a build-it iglu activity. It's intergenerational, crowd-pleasing, and basically three-hand. However, it's having some structural integrity issues, as I like to call it, and so this version in reality is a prototype, and we'll eventually get another one. But damn it's fun.

The iglu arrives! Yes, it rained that day, of course. Yes, it went down our in-repair loading dock ramp backwards on a forklift. Fun times.



However, how cool is this?