Anchorage Museum of History & Art

Pardon all the dust. The museum is undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation that will almost double its size when finished by 2009. Until then, this is still Alaska's best cultural jewel in a rough-and-tumble state.

The first floor is devoted to the arts and includes the Art of the North Gallery with entire rooms occupied by Alaskan masters Eustace Ziegler and Sydney Laurence. The Alaska Gallery on the second floor - the best way to learn your Alaskan history - is filled with life-size dioramas that trace 10,000 years of human settlement from early subsistence villages to modern oil dependency.