Jensen Arctic Museum

The Paul H. Jensen Arctic Museum was a museum focused on the culture and environment of the Arctic in Monmouth in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located on the campus of Western Oregon University (WOU), the museum opened in 1985 with 3,000 artifacts collected by its late founder and namesake. The museum housed 5,000 artifacts and had exhibits on the wildlife of the Arctic along with displays that demonstrate the culture of the Inuit and Eskimo peoples of Alaska. The museum was one of only two museums focused on life in the Arctic located in the lower 48 states, and the only one on the West Coast. In 2013, WOU announced that the Jensen Museum would close its doors and the collections would move to the Museum of Natural and Cultural History (MNCH) at the University of Oregon in Eugene, which also has substantial Arctic collections.HistoryJensen Arctic Museum was founded in June 1985 by Paul Jensen with artifacts he collected from Alaska. The artifacts were collected over 25 years while he was a researcher and teacher, with most items in the collection coming from gifts from native Alaskans. Jensen, a then retired professor at Western Oregon, served as the curator and director of the museum until his death in 1994. By 1993 the collection had grown to 3,000 artifacts and the museum had 7,000 visitors annually.