As the tour bus rounded a corner to Saxman Village Totem Park in Alaska, the guide directed us to look at a pile of gray logs with splashes of color.
Those are totem poles left to return to the earth, he said. Laying on the ground were several broken totem poles left to die naturally – according to native tradition.
I was visiting Alaska for the first time recently on a cruise ship and was on a tour to the park, said to have the largest collection of totem poles in the world. I’d seen totem poles before, probably during an earlier visit to the Northwest US, but those were bright and shiny and new. In this new environment, I was hoping to see some poles from an earlier period.
Saxman Village is about three miles outside of Ketchikan, a town that looked like a tourist had designed it for tourists. There didn’t seem to be much authentic about it, mostly the ubiquitous diamond jewelry stores that dotted each (except for Sitka) Alaskan port we entered (cruise ships get hefty fees when you buy from those stores).
Saxman Village was somewhat of a breather, but it was clear that the town knew how to put it on for tourists, too. But it did offer more: an up-close look at totem poles and their history, and a peek into the culture they represent.
A sign near the totems drew my attention. It briefly recounted the history of the village. What I found just as intriguing, though, was that many of the totems were restored starting in 1939 as part of a federal work-relief program. (Alaska was a U.S. territory at the time; it became a state in 1959.)
I was familiar with the Depression-era programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that were designed to create jobs for Americans during a very difficult time. This restoration project came under the Civilian Conservation Corps, which focused on the country’s natural resources, such as national parks and rural areas.
In Southeast Alaska, totems were restored, refreshed and newly carved by native peoples, including the Tlingits in Saxman Village. The village was founded in 1894, and named for Samuel Saxman who was one of three men lost in 1888 while scouting for a new home for peoples of the Tongass and Cape Fox villages, according to the sign in the park.
The park was established in 1938 both to create jobs and preserve the totems, which had been left behind in villages when native peoples migrated elsewhere to find work. The totems that had deteriorated beyond repair were discarded, while others were re-carved, many by a master carver named Charles Brown. Totem parks were said to have been formed to entice tourists to towns and villages such as Saxman.
“The story of our fathers’ totems is nearly dead, but now once again is being brought to life. Once more familiar totems will proudly face the world with new war paints. The makers of these old totems will not have died in vain,” Brown is quoted as saying in a 2002 book about the forest service in Alaska.
In Saxman, Tlingit people were did the carving, gathered the red cedar logs from Tongass Forest, and moved the totems. Master carvers such as Brown trained the younger men with hand-made tools like those originally used. Paint was also made the old way (although some commercial paint was used because the project was so large).
Architect Linn A. Forrest, who photographed the project, led the restoration of 103 totem poles and the construction of three clan houses in Southeast Alaska. One site noted that there were roughly 25 totem poles in Saxman Village today.
Saxman Village Totem Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Today, the village is the home of about 400 people, some of whom put on a show in the clan house for cruise-ship tours. During our tour, a cute little boy in native dress roamed sociably among us. Also, we witnessed master carver Nathan P. Jackson at work on a new totem. Nearby was a drawing of a totem he had completed for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, in 2004.
No one seems to have kept track of the restored poles. Few are said to be still standing, others were removed because they were in bad shape or replaced, and others are being restored, according to one site.
Totem poles were not always revered by outsiders. Early on, they were perceived by such people as government officials and missionaries as representative of the “backwardness” of the native peoples. Also in the late 1800s, Canada outlawed the traditional ceremony of potlatch that was held when a pole was erected. As a result, some peoples stopped carving totem poles.
These works of art were first carved by the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples. The practice reached its peak in the late 1700s to early 1800s when the fur trade, among other things, brought wealth to the groups. It gave them time to focus on their art.
Totem poles are more than just logs in the ground. The images of animals, people and symbols tell the history of a family or peoples. Eagles appear to be quite common on the totems and in nature. Tour guides readily pointed them out perched on treetops, atop protruding tree stumps and on wetlands to us poor tourists who only get to see them in books or on nature TV shows. During a rainforest tour, a guide pointed to an eagle’s nest (which can be as big as 6 feet wide) in a tree, but I saw nothing.
Here are some of the totem poles at Saxman Village:
