The Saturday after Thanksgiving, most of Sacramento is either still at the table, wandering a parking structure, or watching football. There is a quieter alternative: a two-day arts market held at the California State Indian Museum on K Street, where Native California artisans sell handcrafted work directly from their tables.
The Native Arts & Crafts Market returns November 28–29, 2026. It runs inside and around the State Indian Museum, a California state historic park that sits right next to Sutter’s Fort in East Sacramento. The market is one of the few places in the Sacramento area where shoppers can buy authentic Native California art directly from the people who made it — no aggregators, no online markups.
What the Market Is
The State Indian Museum is a small but serious institution. Opened in 1940, it holds one of California’s most significant collections of Native California cultural objects: baskets, ceremonial regalia, tools, and textiles representing dozens of tribal groups. The permanent collection alone is worth the five-dollar admission on any regular weekend.
The Native Arts & Crafts Market layers a live vendor component on top of that baseline. Artisans set up their tables with contemporary and traditional work for sale: hand-woven baskets, beadwork, pottery, jewelry, carved items, and clothing made using materials and techniques rooted in Native California traditions. Because the vendors are the makers, conversations about the work tend to be substantive rather than transactional. If you want to understand what you’re buying and where it comes from, this is the place to do it.
The market runs both Saturday and Sunday, which makes Thanksgiving weekend a reasonable two-visit scenario — or a single relaxed morning with time to explore the adjacent Sutter’s Fort grounds.
Practical Details
The museum is at 2618 K Street, just off 26th Street in East Sacramento, on the same block as Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park. The neighborhood is walkable and easy to navigate on foot once you’ve parked.
Parking works out differently depending on which day you come. On Saturday, November 28, metered parking applies on 26th and K Streets — bring quarters or check whether the meters accept card payment. On Sunday, November 29, parking is free. If you’re driving from outside the neighborhood and want to skip the meter question entirely, Sunday is the easier day.
Admission follows the museum’s standard rates: five dollars for adults, three dollars for youth ages six through seventeen, and free for children five and under. That covers both museum access and the market. Call ahead if you have questions about what’s in stock or want to know about specific artisans who will be there: the museum’s number is (916) 324-0971.
Worth Pairing With Sutter’s Fort
Sutter’s Fort is open separately and charges its own admission, but the two sites are functionally next door to each other. A visit to both takes most of a morning. The fort offers a reconstructed 1840s outpost with costumed interpreters and self-guided audio tours; the Indian Museum offers a very different lens on the same geography and the same era. Together they make one of the more complete historical sites in the Sacramento area, and neither one has a line out the door in late November.
Also worth noting: the museum holds a California Basket Weavers’ Day on November 14, 2026 — two weeks before the market. If you want to see basket-making demonstrated before shopping for finished pieces, that event is the earlier on-ramp into the same space.
The Details
- Event: Native Arts & Crafts Market
- Dates: Saturday, November 28 and Sunday, November 29, 2026
- Location: California State Indian Museum, 2618 K Street, Sacramento, CA 95816
- Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Admission: $5 adults / $3 youth ages 6–17 / free for children 5 and under
- Parking: Metered on 26th and K Streets (Saturday); free on Sundays
- Phone: (916) 324-0971
- Also nearby: Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park (separate admission)
Bottom Line
The Native Arts & Crafts Market is one of Sacramento’s lower-key Thanksgiving weekend options. Admission is five dollars, parking on Sunday is free, and the work on the tables is one-of-a-kind in the literal sense — you are not looking at mass production. If you are shopping for a meaningful handmade gift, or if you simply want to spend a quiet morning somewhere that is not a mall or a football broadcast, this is a reasonable place to put on the calendar.
For more on what to do around Sacramento this fall and holiday season, see the guide to Acorn Day at the State Indian Museum, the roundup of the best holiday craft fairs and artisan markets in Sacramento, and the full calendar of Sacramento Thanksgiving events for 2026.
