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From the moment visitors arrive in Anchorage, they are surrounded by Alaska's cultural heritage. It doesn't require a visit to one of the community's excellent museums to get a taste.

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is adorned with hundreds of pieces of traditional and contemporary artwork. The pieces represent the five major indigenous cultures in the state.

The airport is joined by the Alaska Native Medical Center and the Heritage Library Museum in the Wells Fargo Bank building as unusual places to find historical artifacts and artwork.

And all three venues are free.

The Heritage museum, 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., houses thousands of artifacts -- some more than 2,000 years old. It also has an extensive art collection, including works by famous Alaska artists Sydney Laurence, Fred Machetanz and Rusty Heurlin. It's one of the largest privately owned public displays of Alaska's history and Native cultures in the world.

"We've got an awful lot of history represented right here," curator Gail Hollinger said.

"We want to show all the cultures," Hollinger said. "Who the people were; what they had; what they did with what they had."

A stroll through the museum is truly a walk through history.

Most of the items are displayed in large, glass-topped cases. The cases are grouped according to culture, and they feature plaques explaining the culture and the items displayed.

The collection includes a wide range of artifacts including household utensils, hunting weapons and articles of clothing. There is a large basket collection that allows visitors to compare the various weaving techniques and materials used throughout Alaska.

"You can learn so much just looking at the baskets," Hollinger said. "Some of the baskets have little pieces of bird leg skin on them for adornment. You have Aleut grass baskets and Eskimo grass baskets. They are completely different -- a different style, even a different use.

"Then there are spruce root baskets from the Tlingit or Haida. Again, completely different."

Hollinger said her favorite piece in the collection is a hand-carved wooden basket made by a Yup'ik Eskimo. It wasn't for display; it had a purpose, she said.

"It was probably used to collect berries or something," she said. "It's just so beautiful. The craftsmanship is something to delight in. It took a special measure of detail to match the wood up just right.

"Even the handle -- it was a curved branch, just the right shape and size."

While Hollinger is drawn to some of the smaller items, visitors are likely to first notice the huge woolly mammoth tusk in the middle of the museum.

Also attractive to many visitors is the seal-gut parka, a raincoat of sorts for Alaska Natives. Hollinger said Yup'ik and Aleut people made the parkas, which weigh just 3 ounces. On one end of the museum is a kayak, and there are dozens of pieces of carved ivory.

The walls are adorned with several paintings. Many of Machetanz's huge, colorful pieces are the first paintings visitors will see -- perhaps even from the lobby of the bank.

One of the most unique aspects of the Heritage museum is the 2,600-volume reference library. The noncirculating library contains books on Alaska history, Native cultures, Native arts, geology, exploration, biography and fiction.

Elmer Rasmuson, who at the time was president of National Bank of Alaska, started the library in 1968. It was his goal to remind Alaskans of their rich heritage. Wells Fargo purchased NBA in 1999.

"Before then, if you wanted to do research on Alaska, you had to go to Seattle," Hollinger said. "This all started as a library but then expanded to include all the museum items.

"The nice thing is if you're looking at something and want to do more research on the item or the style, we've got the library right here. You can just walk over and look up more information."

Another unique place to study Native art is the Alaska Native Medical Center, 4315 Diplomacy Drive. The hospital is a community meeting place for Alaskans from throughout the state.

Art is displayed throughout the hospital, including large displays near the elevators on various floors.

The hospital's craft shop is an excellent place for those looking to purchase Native art. The shop began as a service to patients nearly three decades ago. Now it's an excellent place to get art, often from Bush-community artists.

Store manager Jeanne Dougherty said items for sale include masks, whale-bone carvings, dolls, slippers, ivory and baby booties.

"It's a very good selection of things from all over Alaska," Dougherty said. "People from the villages send things in, so these are very authentic."

Anchorage's more traditional cultural highlights can be seen at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, 8800 Heritage Center Drive, and the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, 121 W. Seventh Ave.

The Heritage Center is an excellent place to meet and talk with Natives. The center hosts dance performances, storytellers and arts and crafts demonstrations. The center's summer theme is "Explore the Past, Experience the People." It is a combination of the events from the past three years.

"The real attraction is the people," said Kay Ashton, director of public relations. "The tour guides and the people at the sites are just such a wonderful resource. You'll really see the culture."

The center features five Native village exhibits spread over a 26-acre site. Tickets are $20.95 for adults, $18.95 for seniors and military, and $15.95 for children.

The Anchorage Museum of History and Art is showcasing Native life this year with the "Eskimo Drawings" exhibit.

Janet Asaro, the museum's director of marketing and public relations, said this is the first time the museum has undertaken such a show.

"This is really a remarkable exhibit," she said. "There are more than 200 rare illustrations that offer an intimate view of Alaska Native life from the Gold Rush period to the middle of the 20th century.

"The images all contain details of traditional Eskimo life."

The exhibit, which will include historical artifacts of items displayed in the illustrations, opens May 8. The illustrations come from a number of public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Institution.

The museum has an extensive permanent collection. Asaro said the Alaska Gallery is one of the museum's most popular. It includes dioramas, life-size Native dwellings and a portion of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Tickets to the museum are $6.50 for adults, $6 for seniors and free for children 17 and younger, but a $2 donation is suggested.