Located on the campus of Western Oregon University (WOU), the museum opened in 1985 with 3,000 artifacts collected by its late founder and namesake.

The museum housed 5,000 artifacts and had exhibits on the wildlife of the Arctic along with displays that demonstrate the culture of the Inuit and Eskimo peoples of Alaska.

[5] Jensen, a then retired professor at Western Oregon, served as the curator and director of the museum until his death in 1994.

Focused on the culture of the Inuit and Eskimos of Alaska, the museum housed over 5,000 artifacts[1] in a former home on the campus of Western Oregon University in Monmouth.

[3][13] An extraordinary feature of the Jensen collection is a 27-foot-long (8.2 m) umiak, an Inuit boat with a frame constructed of driftwood and covered with walrus skins.

[3][6] Other large items include a traditional Inuit home constructed of stones, hides, whalebone, and driftwood as well as an 11-foot (3.4 m) long sled and a sod house.

[13] Other items in the collection include ropes, ivory from mammoth and mastodon tusks, animal bones,[15] ceremonial masks carved from wood or bone, wooden dolls, mukluks, combs carved from ivory, knives, and harpoon heads among others.

[5] Beginning in 1962, he worked to improve the cultural resources of the Eskimo, bringing over 3,000 people to Oregon as well establishing seven libraries in Alaskan villages.