Searching For Our Heritage - Yukon Artifacts and Natural History Collections Around the World

Searching For Our Heritage: http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/papers/charlie/charlie.html

This article explores an ongoing project by the Government of the Yukon to create a digital resource of all of the natural and cultural objects that were collected from the Yukon and are held by museums outside of the territory.

Initial Thoughts:
-I was impressed by the dedication to cultural heritage that this project demonstrates, and was interested in how a community is chosing to define digital information in a way that makes it comprable in significance to the physical objects themselves.
-I've heard talk recently of people beginning to wonder how a system like NAGPRA could work internationally, where you have almost every museum possessing objects from other cultures. One of the largest arguements against a sort of "international NAGPRA" is always that to return every object to its country/region of origin would leave many museums very empty. I've also heard people argue that objects shouldn't be returned to countries/cultures that are not in a position to protect, exhibit, and even appreciate (although how you would define that I have no idea) them. This seems as if it could be an interesting solution, and one that has a lot of potential to grow and develop in interesting ways.
-The article mentions the exhibit "The Bishop Who Ate His Boots" currently online at the Virtual Museum of Canada. I had an opportunity to see a version of this exhibit, and it's quite interesting.
Check out the link: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/BishopStringer/english/fullstory.html
and explore the Virtual Museum of Canada: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca, especially the "MY Personal Museum" component (an interesting extension of some of the interactives we looked at earlier where you get to create your own personal museum based on your selections from their collections).