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Sheldon Jackson Museum November 2025 artifact of the month is an Iñupiaq cribbage board

The Sheldon Jackson Museum November 2025 artifact of the month is an Iñupiaq cribbage board complete with pegs (SJ-2025-7-1). The cribbage board, along with several other pieces, was recently donated to the museum by Paul McGregor. The cribbage board is unsigned with no record of its maker, but the style is reminiscent of Iñupiaq carver Aloysius Pikonganna.

Lola and Bob WilliamsIn September, McGregor generously donated several pieces that he inherited from his great uncle Robert “Bob” Williams and his wife Lola. They collected the pieces during and after WWII while Bob was in the Coast Guard in Alaska. Besides the cribbage board, items include an ivory carving of a polar bear on its hind legs, a baleen basket by George Omnik with an ivory finial depicting a polar bear and a man, a letter opener made from a harpoon point, and an ivory carving of man with a fox (?) on his shoulders.

The cribbage board is made from walrus ivory. A polar bear head forms one end of the board, complete with carved ears and teeth, a removable tongue that stores the board's four pegs, and black scrimshaw eyes and nostrils. The top features a scrimshaw design of ice floes with two seals. At the far left of the scene, the head of a polar bear with an open mouth emerges from the water, lurking behind the seals.The opposite end of the board tapers to the natural form of the walrus tusk. The board rests on a base comprised of two spotted seal carvings. The seals have three spots above each eye and little black nostrils.

There is a very similar cribbage board by the Aloysius Pikonganna, an Iñupiaq carver from King Island, in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian (catalogued as 256729.00). It was originally purchased by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and then transferred to NMAI in 2000. Although the artifact of the month has a different style base, the incised seals and ice floes and the polar bear head design with removable tongue are very simillar.   

Pikonganna was born in 1909 and raised on King Island. He was notably one of the region’s most talented ivory carvers and a well-like leader among King Islanders. Despite being born with limited use of one of his legs, he was an “outstanding hunter and family provider.” He and his wife relocated to Nome in the 1960s after the closure of the King Island government school led to the forced relocation of the island’s inhabitants. According to a Senate Congressional Record dated March 16, 1965, Pikonganna participated in the Manpower Project, studying vocational design and crafts along with “basic education” after relocating to Nome. In addition to maintaining his subsistence lifestyle and studying, Pikonganna, helped to raise numerous grandchildren and worked nights and weekends carving ivory items to sell to offset expenses.

The Sheldon Jackson Museum cares for eleven other cribbage boards. All the cribbage boards are in the form of a traditional walrus tusk. None, except for this newly acquired artifact, have a polar bear head at one end or a base comprised of carved seals. The museum also has no other boards that appear to be made by Pikonganna. For all these reasons and more, the gift of the November artifact of the month is laudable.   

Visit the museum to see the November artifact of the month. Except for holidays, the Sheldon Jackson Museum is currently open Wednesday–Saturday, 10 am–4 pm. Admission is $7, $6 for seniors, and free for ages 18 and under and active military and their families.