In another topic in this board, it was suggested that I was unaware of the existence of the Balto Scrapbook which the Carrie M. McLain Museum of Nome, Alaska has made available to visitors wishing to have, allowing that they would be willing to pay $100.00 for it. (I will not detail the suggestion in the other, now locked, topic in order to avoid an argument in this topic...but sharing information about the scrapbook itself is something everyone could benefit from.)
It, as described, consists of newspaper clippings, some photographs, and other items. They had a sample copy they showed me when I visited there in May 2008, and I recall that the cover was black. Because I had done some hours of research in there, and spent time not only photographing (and taking video of) the museum but also exchanging information and engaging in long discussions with both the employee there at the time, but also Laura Samuelson (the director) and Cussy Kauer, a descendant of Nome's famous late historian Carrie McClain (for whom the museum is named). She and her family lived in Nome most of her life, and she was the daughter of a gold prospector (as were many of the American and European children who lived in Nome during the early 1900s).
Cussy is the town's "controller" (chief financial officer), or at least was back when I visited, which I discovered when I asked a museum staffer about her, and she offered to meet me in town and drive me out to Discovery Claim on Anvil Creek (at the base of Anvil Mountain), where gold was first discovered by the "Three Lucky Swedes" in 1898, thus giving birth to the (then) gold rush boom town of Nome. She drove me right out to the claim location, showed me around, and we had a nice discussion about it, Nome's history, the cemetery (which contains many citizens from the gold rush era and some from the diphtheria epidemic), and so on. She took time off from work to do this for me, for which I was grateful. She is an amazing woman!
I didn't purchase the book, though it was offered to me for purchase. I explained to them that, after spending nearly $1,800.00 on my travel costs at the time for the entire trip, I hadn't the extra cash to make the purchase, and probably would at a later date. And I will, too.
In the meantime, if anyone would like to consider contacting the museum about the scrapbook, or for any other purpose, here are some links you can follow to get in touch with them (the first, from Nome's Convention & Visitors Bureau website, has a virtual photographic tour of the museum for those with Flash enabled on their computer):
http://www.visitnomealaska.com/nome-businesses/museum/museum.htmlhttp://nomealaska.org/museum