So I have been working on a project that requires fairly historically correct Upper Great Plains arrows. With that in mind, I have been contacting a number of museums and private collectors asking for access to their collections in order to document the real thing, not the tourist trade drek.
So far, I have had positive response from museums including the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum in Cody Wy, the Missouri College of Anthropology (home of the Dr. Charles Grayson Collection!), Museum of the Fur Trade, Museum of the Mountain Man, and even interest in cooperation from National Museum of the American Indian/SMITHSONIAN!
But who turns me down? The Journey Museum right here 3.2 miles from my own front door! I simply cannot stand this travesty of a "museum". There were 5 museums here in Rapid City, including the Black Hills Native American Museum, that were arm-twisted into donating their entire collections to create this one "super" museum. A quarter of a billion dollars went into this monument to stupidity, and all five museums individual collections were packed away and hidden from the public. Instead, the whole operation is a boondoggle celebration of what happens when you give a lot of money to a bunch of politicians. Their displays are almost totally dedicated to large plexiglass signs with pictures and incredibly inaccurate descriptions....and very few actual artifacts on display!
It's all show and no substance. For example, they have a wall of deep shadow boxes. In the back of each of the shadow boxes there is an item. The glass front is smoked glass and unless the light comes on in the box you cannot see what it contains. The lights come on randomly and are only on for a few seconds, no time to take in or study the item in the shadow box. I remember the first time I saw this. There was a copy of the original map of the Custer Expedition of 1874 to the Black Hills. I was trying to determine the route the Expedition took after the burial of the soldier that accidentally shot himself. The grave is easy to find, but on private land. But of course, there was no way to get a good look at the map to figure that out. How nice! They spent tens of thousands of tax dollars on a crappy bunch of blinking lights! Another feature is the original entrance to the museum...a set of double doors that block ALL light from entering the long hallway that is carpeted floor to floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling with BLACK CARPET. A sensor registers the presence of visitors and after interval pinpoints of light appear in the carpeting - supposedly simulating deep space and distant stars. It is supposed to invoke a feeling of what it must have been like when the universe was new. What actually happened multiple times daily is that people would become disoriented and lose their balance. Well, one of the features of the newly spawned universe is gravity. Yup. Multiple injuries, including an elderly person that shattered their hip and subsequently died in the hospital.
I gave them a chance. I really did. But despite how I speak three languages and have accumulated a broad lexicon of foul language in at least a dozen others, I simply ran out of words to express what I feel about this dump.
I thought the purpose of a museum was to collect historically important items and use them to educate people about the value of the items and what stories they can tell us. Maybe they are just there to gatekeep and prevent that from actually happening.
