Over the next two weeks, the Peary-MacMillian Arctic Museum will be entering the final stages of its transition to a new home in the John and Lile Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies.

On Thursday, February 23, the main entrance to Hubbard Hall will be closed as museum staff move to their new offices in the Gibbons Center. Another closure is expected on March 2 to ensure the smooth transport of artifacts across campus. While the front entrance is closed, the museum staff asks that visitors use the east side entrance to access the building.

“It’s getting very, very busy with lots of moving parts and some big challenges,” Arctic Museum Curator Genny LeMoine said.

LeMoine emphasized the difficulty in moving the artifacts—some of which are more than a hundred years old—and is calling on the campus community to ensure the safety of the collection as it moves to its new location.

“[They’re] just so fragile. Anytime you move [an artifact] … you could be breaking it,” LeMoine said. “If there’s caution tape up—believe it. You never know when a polar bear might be coming down the stairs.”

Despite the hectic transition schedule and the daunting task of the moving artifacts across campus, LeMoine is excited for the opportunities offered by the new space in Gibbons.

“We’ll be able to do things in our exhibits that we haven’t been able to do before, which is going to be really nice,” LeMoine said. “It’s always sad to leave a beautiful building like this—but it was never meant to be a museum.”