The collaborative partnership between The University of Alaska Fairbanks and the NN Cannery History Project will produce ten interviews that best speak to work activities associated with the cannery’s historic structures to create a “Histories of Fisheries and Canneries in Alaska” Project Jukebox. The joint effort will bring to the fore the stories of the cannery people and how their distinct relationship to work, place of origin, and the salmon themselves, connected the land-based operation to the Pacific waterscape and created a web of cannery culture. This fall, the NN Cannery History Project team traveled to Bristol Bay, western Washington and San Francisco to conduct interviews with former NN Cannery people. Thanks to an NPS Maritime Heritage Grant, all material collected and recorded in this project will be deposited into the Oral History Collection in the Alaska Polar Regions Collections and Archives at Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at UAF to ensure that the information will be preserved and accessible so that cannery peoples’ lives will be better understood and valued.

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Project Jukebox is the digital branch of the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Project Jukebox was originally developed using Hypercard in 1988, with initial support from Apple Computer's Apple Library of Tomorrow program, and is a way to integrate oral history recordings with associated photographs, maps, and text. Their collection features over 50 projects from throughout Alaska, each specific to a topic or an area.

This oral history program is part of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The program was established in 1981 to collect and curate audio and video recordings that relate to various aspects of Alaska's history and the people who have contributed to its rich heritage. The collection contains over 11,200 individual recordings, including interviews with politicians, pioneers, and Native elders.