Considering both emlueders and shuraiya have requested Alaska’s Hammer Museum, I will cover it again because I’m nice like that and also I’m lazy as hell (I’ve repeated museums before…don’t tell anyone, please). Who doesn’t love a gigantic hammer? I know I do. And what better way to greet visitors as they enter a museum dedicated to the world’s oldest tool? No, the oldest tool is not the 20x great-grandfather of the founder of Abercrombie and Fitch, it’s the hammer, which dates from around 2,600,000 BCE. This object became on obsession for Alaskan longshoreman, carpenter and blacksmith Dave Pahl (don’t mess around with this dude) who began restoring old tools as a hobby and then turned it into something bigger when his museum opened in 2002. Located in the town of Haines, which is somewhere between here and nowhere, the museum has over 1500 hammers on display, ranging from ancient times to the present. Donated by archaeologist Ken Ostrand, the oldest is a dolorite ball used around 2500 BC by ancient Egyptians in the construction of the third pyramid at Giza. While the newest hammer is on loan from NASA ’s deceased space shuttle program. And this museum is truly a labor of love as the whole operation is run by volunteers and a five member board. But the best part? You can buy a t-shirt from the gift shop that says, “I got hammered in Haines, Alaska.”
Alaska’s Hammer Museum
