By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka History Museum curator Nicole Fiorino says it’s a strange time to be new in Sitka – a “hunker down” resolution went into effect just a month and a half after she moved here.
Although the museum is currently closed to the public in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Fiorino is surrounded by the museum’s 50,000 artifacts and photos, and she’s finding plenty to do.
“It’s nice to have a job for what you went to school for; it’s a competitive field and a large percentage don’t find a job in the museum sector,” said the 26-year-old former Bostonian. “I feel privileged to have found this, even if it meant picking up and moving across the country.”
Nicole Fiorino works on the Sitka History Museum archives in Harrigan Centennial Hall today. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
Sitka Historical Society director Hal Spackman said the nonprofit organization also feels lucky to have found someone with Fiorino’s education, expertise and personality.
“We’re super-excited to have her here,” he said.
Fiorino graduated from Westwood High School south of Boston, and started her college studies at Westfield State University before transferring to Seton Hall University, in New Jersey. She earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and history in 2016, with a study abroad stint in Rome her sophomore year.
For a year after graduation, she worked at a pharmacy call center, while thinking about what she wanted to do with her life.
When she was in college she and her parents recalled a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston they made when Nicole was a child. They all remembered she was fascinated by the Egyptology wing.
“My parents said, ‘you spent over an hour in that room, and were not satisfied until you had seen everything. We could’ve left you there,’” Fiorino said. “That came back to me when I thought about, ‘what would you enjoy doing?’”
She was pleased when research led her to learn about the “people behind the scenes” in museums.
“I thought, that sounds like fun, and it has been,” she said.
She found a cheaper option abroad for museum and heritage studies, earning her graduate degree in 2019 from the University of Sydney, in Australia. During her studies, she had an opportunity for an elective course, working in the Sydney Jewish Museum, and also spent time working in the archives of the Australian Museum, producing a master’s thesis on museum governance and exhibition development.
Her position as curator at the Sitka History Museum is her first paid museum job.
Although the museum is closed to the public, Fiorino said she and Spackman are getting a lot of work done. On tap at present is a project to capture the history of the Alaska Pulp Corp. mill, and they are asking Sitkans to come forward with their stories and any artifacts they have to share.
“Right now I’m doing my research and plan to call people in a few days,” Fiorino said today. “This kind of a project is about community, community curation, and we want to hear from people.”
Those interested in sharing stories may email Fiorino at nicole@sitkahistory.org, or call her cell 617-365-0924. A questionnaire is also available upon request. Those with artifacts to share may donate them to the museum, or loan them for the duration of the exhibit.
“We’re hoping to get an in-person exhibit or at the very least do a virtual,” Fiorino said. “We’re trying to take it one day at a time. We’ll be sure to update the community.”
