Lelooska Foundation & Cultural Center Museum

The Lelooska Foundation & Cultural Center Museum is open Thursdays & Fridays from
1 to 5 pm.

The Lelooska Museum was built in 1972 to provide a more permanent location to share the art and artifacts that were primarily collected and used by Chief Lelooska and his family. Other items in the collection were given to Chief Lelooska and his family by close family friends that wanted to ensure that their treasured pieces were shared with others. Chief Lelooska recognized the value of being able to share the great diversity of First Nations cultures and additional items were added as the family traded with other artists over the years to complete the collection. In more recent years some items, primarily carvings by Chief Lelooska and dolls by his mother Shona-Hah have been donated to the Lelooska Foundation Acquisitions Committee.

The Lelooska Museum and the adjacent Gathering Hall holds an immense collection of artifacts from many regions: the Northwest, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and the Arctic. These items are many and varied including baskets, parfleches, corn husk bags, dolls, spoons, cradles, moccasins, tomahawks, pipes, pipe bags, dresses, a 15 foot birch bark canoe and an entire replica fur trade store fully furnished to the period.

Chief Lelooska passed away in 1996 but bequeathed one third of his collection of artifacts and carvings to the Lelooska Foundation in his will. As he wished, his collection has remained on exhibit continuously since his passing. His hope was that the remainder of the collection would also become part of the Lelooska Foundation Permanent Collection, allowing this immense cultural resource to remain intact for generations to come. To help achieve this goal, the Lelooska Foundation Acquisitions Committee was created by non-Lelooska Family Board Members interested in preserving and adding to the Lelooska Foundation Permanent Collection. Over the course of two decades they raised funds to purchase these artifacts from his estate. In 2024 with the final gift from his brother’s family, and the financial support from our donors, all of Chief Lelooska’s remaining collection became part of the Lelooska Foundation Permanent Collection.

The Lelooska Foundation uses this collection to share the great diversity of our Native Peoples of North America with the students and adults who attend our living history performances, educational programs and activities and visit our museum