Burke Museum

“A weaver’s hand to a drummer’s beat, what is it the ancestors keep?

Stories of Thunderbird, laughs while clamming, or the burden of a light load.

Together, past, present, future - we carried each other.
Healing Together.”

- Calvin Smith (Grand Ronde/Yakama), Burke Museum Tribal Relations Manager

Our basket collections were started when the museum was founded in 1885. Today, the collections hold more than 10,000 woven belongings, including containers, fans, mats, fish traps, and even giant body masks.
The collections cover the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. We host community members, artists, weavers, and researchers to study and visit the basketry collections.

In this video we show a selection of North American baskets from largest to smallest.

“What the average person calls spider season isn’t spider season to me. These people see giant house spiders running around in their basement and their bathroom and they also see the non-native cross orb weaver suddenly seem to appear all over their yard and garden, and because they see these two species that aren’t even native to the Northwest, they assume it’s spider season. But actually, the main season for native spiders doesn’t begin until mid-October. There’s another similar spider season in the spring as well.” - Rod Crawford, Burke Museum curator of arachnids.

So, what are these two spider seasons and why do they happen?

In homes and gardens in August and September, giant house spider males out looking for love, and cross orb weavers reaching maturity.

In wild spaces in October and November, hundreds of species of native spiders that were born in the spring and summer are becoming full-grown. 

Why does this happen in the fall? Northwest summers are dry, and spiders are thirsty creatures, so native species may have adapted to mature when the rain comes back.

How should you handle spider season in your home and garden?

Giant house spiders get trapped in sinks and bathtubs because they’re thirsty (the inside of a house is basically a desert). You can relocate them to basements, garages, or woodpiles.

If cross orb weavers keep making webs across your path, the best solution is not to simply destroy the web (which can be rebuilt in around 20 minutes) but to relocate the spider to a different area.

We get so many great questions from kids who come to the Burke via field trips and other programs hosted by our Education department that we decided to answer some of our favorites in a new series of short videos where experts from the Burke answer questions from kids.

Every year our Education department serves a staggering 90,000+ students from pre-K to 12th grade through their programs!

Kelsie Abrams (on screen) has worked at the Burke as Fossil Prep Lab Manager for the past eight years. She has led dinosaur digs for 16 years and has prepared hundreds of fossils.

Last year when giant sunfish were washing up on Oregon beaches we spoke to Katherine Maslenikov, our fish collections manager. She was more than happy to talk about this bizarre “pinnacle of fish evolution.” A longer version of this video can be found on our YouTube channel!

In the early 1980’s, we began preparing separate spread wings to help illustrate features of birds that had never been accurately drawn. It turns out that wings preserved spread open in this manner are useful in ways traditional specimens are not, including being able to study wing shape, aerodynamics, molt, coloration, and more.

Today our collection of spread wings is the largest in the world, preserving more than 40,000 specimens. Scientists and artists alike use these wings to learn about and show the world the beautiful avian biodiversity of our planet.

To view thousands of images of our collection visit the link in our bio.