Maps have long helped people understand the relationships between places, communities and events. Today, geographic information systems (GIS) expand that role, offering new ways to explore history, connect stories to landscapes and make complex information accessible to broader audiences.
At the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC), a new exhibit opened in 2025 titled Education in Alaska: Disruptions to Our Traditional Teachings, which examines the history of boarding schools that operated across Alaska during the late 19th and 20th centuries. As part of the exhibit, visitors can explore an interactive GIS map and online version of the map documenting more than 100 boarding schools and assimilative day schools across Alaska.
R&M supported the exhibit by helping develop the GIS framework and Esri’s online StoryMap platform in collaboration with ANHC staff, who led the research and interpretive work behind the project.
Seeing History Through Geography
Historical narratives are often presented through photographs, artifacts and written accounts. Mapping adds another dimension by placing those stories within a geographic context.
The boarding school era in Alaska extended across a vast landscape — from coastal communities to interior villages and remote mission sites. Visualizing these locations on a map helps visitors understand the statewide scope of the system and how it impacted communities across great distances.
GIS can reveal patterns that are difficult to grasp through text alone. Where were schools located? How were they distributed across regions? How did school administrators use geography to influence how and where Western schooling systems were developed in Alaska?
By connecting historical information with geography, the digital map allows visitors to explore the story in a spatial and interactive way.
Each location on the map opens a pop-up window with additional information about the school, a photograph when available, and historical context developed through ANHC’s research. Additionally, the user can swipe between layers depicting a Native language map developed by University of Alaska Native Language Center and UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research and the historic Comity Map. These layers of information allow visitors to move between the statewide map and the individual places connected to this history, adding depth and perspective to the geographic view.
Building the Maps
ANHC provided the historical research, photographs, videos and geographic coordinates that form the foundation of the dynamic map. That research was essential to the project — without it, the map would simply be a collection of points on a screen.
R&M’s role was to translate that research into an engaging GIS platform that allows the Heritage Center to present and manage the information themselves. Rather than serving as long-term custodians of the data, the goal was to create a tool that ANHC could update, maintain and expand over time.
This approach allows ANHC to remain the steward of its own information, while continuing to build on the map as additional research and stories emerge.
Connecting Historic and Modern Maps
One component of the project involved co-registering a historic 1880 Comity Plan map so it could be aligned with modern geographic data and incorporated into the interactive platform.
Historic maps were not created using modern coordinate systems, so they do not align with today’s digital maps. Through geometric correction in a GIS environment, the historic map was adjusted and aligned with modern geographic data, allowing it to be viewed alongside contemporary mapping information within this story map.
This allows visitors to explore historic cartography within the context of Alaska’s modern geography.
Designing for Flexibility
From the beginning, ANHC envisioned a platform for this work that would meld with the Native tradition of learning through stories and interaction. The team hoped to incorporate videos of Alaska Native Elders sharing their perspectives and lived experiences connected to the boarding school era.
At the outset of the project, it was unclear whether video content would be available or feasible to incorporate into the platform. Because of that, the online content needed to be designed with flexibility in mind. The Esri’s StoryMap platform allowed the project to begin with the core map and written content, while leaving room to expand. As the exhibit evolved, the project was able to incorporate video content alongside maps, images and historical context.
These additions bring a personal dimension to the exhibit, allowing visitors to hear voices and experiences connected to the places shown on the map.
GIS as a Tool for Public Education
Museums and cultural institutions are increasingly using GIS to expand how visitors engage with information. User-driven maps allow audiences to explore connections between places, stories and historical events in ways that static displays cannot.
In Alaska, where communities are spread across a vast and varied landscape, GIS provides a particularly powerful way to visualize relationships between geography and history.
The Education in Alaska: Disruptions to Our Traditional Teachings exhibit demonstrates how GIS can support public education by making historical information accessible in new ways while allowing institutions to maintain stewardship over their own data and narratives. The exhibit is scheduled to remain at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage through at least 2028 and maybe beyond in a traveling exhibit. The story map is available online on ANHC’s website, reaching wider audiences with hopes of serving all for many years to come.
Supporting Community Storytelling Through GIS
At its core, GIS is a tool for understanding relationships between communities and place. When used thoughtfully, it can help illuminate histories that span generations and geography.
For this project, the Heritage Center conducted the research and storytelling that shaped the exhibit. R&M’s role was to develop the GIS framework that allows those stories to be explored through an engaging spatial platform.
By combining historical research, geographic information and multimedia storytelling, the interactive map offers visitors a new way to explore this important chapter of Alaska’s history — and provides a flexible tool the Heritage Center can continue to build on in the future.
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