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Journey With Us
Today, I invite you into a small Alaskan village to share in the raising of a totem pole. I had the opportunity to witness this rare event in 1999 when Taki Telonidis, Teresa and I were producing a series called “The Open Road” for The Savvy Traveler on Public Radio International.
Please take a listen to a 3 minute excerpt from that day.
If you have time to listen to the 8 ½ full story you can CLICK HERE to see the entire Open Road series. Scroll down to the “Raising the Totem” story to listen. Thanks to the Western Folklife Center.
Alaska Marine Highway
By the time we boarded the Alaska Ferry at Bellingham, we had been working with Savvy Traveler for a while. Usually our feature, “The Open Road,” was a single segment among others on the hour-long show. But this time they gave the whole hour over to us for stories on the Inside Passage, the water highway that extends from Puget Sound north across British Columbia through southeastern Alaska. The ferry is the most egalitarian way to travel and It’s not fancy but we liked the mix of travelers. There were backpackers pitching tents on the upper deck. There were horse owners feeding and exercising their horses on the vehicle deck. There were singers and people hungry for conversation with their unlikely fellow travelers. This was definitely not a cruise ship.
As we found our berths on the ferry, we had vague ideas for the radio stories we wanted to make, but we purposefully set out with no well-defined plans. We wanted this to be a voyage of discovery. This is my favorite way to work, heading out without a specific agenda in the faith that the universe will throw out possibilities we wouldn’t find in a travel brochure or encyclopedia article. Of course we’d done our homework, but we wanted to be open to surprise.
38 hours after cast-off, we docked at Ketchikan. The next morning we visited the Totem Heritage Center. There we found master carver Nathan Jackson carving in his workshop. He told us that the next day, in a tiny Native American village on a remote island called Hydaburg, there would be the first totem pole raising in more than 60 years.
It was an amazing stroke of good fortune, and we hurried back to our hotel to book a flight for the next morning. There were only two seats available and it seemed most practical for Taki go to cover the technical aspects and I would go as the folklorist and host. Even though it was a quick day trip out and back, we were nervous as we boarded the tiny float plane and said goodbye to Teresa and Taki’s wife Jacquie.
Haida in Hydaburg
The village Hydaburg is located on Prince of Wales Island and is a mere 70 miles from Ketchikan as the whale swims. 85% of the nearly 400 people who call the place home are Native American. The town was formed in 1911 by the consolidation of three Haida (indigenous) villages on Cordova Bay. We were told early in our visit that even though most of the town is made up of Haida people the place has never been particularly cohesive. 111 years ago. Native people were rounded up from their small villages and resettled here. It has always been, to some degree, an artificial home provided by the government rather than a natural home, a place of family and clan.
Hydaburg Totem Park
In 1939 the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) was charged to gather up old Totem Poles from the former villages around Hydaburg and create a park for their preservation, an act intended to engender cohesiveness among the Native people and also to create a tourist attraction to help the economy. We learned that totem poles hold great meaning for the local people. I suppose that is why everyone in the community showed up to move the 3000 lb. totem pole carved near the water’s edge up to Totem Park on a bluff above the village.
When we arrived, the artist who carved this pole, Stan Marsden, was shouting orders to the crowd and soon this gigantic sculpted tree was on the move. Later we interviewed Stan and learned about the passion that drove him to undertake the project. He had lost his son to a cocaine overdose, and the village helped him heal. Now he wanted to honor the elders of Hydaburg. With every knife stroke, his intention was to bring together the eight disparate clans of this artificial community. He wanted to give something back.
In Haida, totem poles are called gyáaʼaang. They are monumental carvings usually made from huge cedar trees. It is said the word totem comes from an Algonquian word meaning, “kinship group.” They serve a number of purposes, but for many they symbolize clan lineages. I remember Tlingit master carver Nathan Jackson telling me that “raising a totem pole is putting something in place, leaving a mark, saying who we are, what we are, what we’ve been born with.” Whether it is a frog, beaver, owl, double fin killer whale or raven, each animal holds its own spiritual meaning that is translated into the identities of Alaskan Native clans.
There are a lot of misunderstandings in popular culture about totem poles. Plains Indians never carved them though they appear in many old ‘B’ western movies or are found at Indian rip-off tourist traps. Totem poles have great significance to Northwest indigenous people, who have carved them for centuries, but they are not inherently religious. “Low man on the totem pole,” is a strange term since animals mostly grace the poles, and the bottom figure is often foundational to the meaning behind the totem.
The Gift
When the ceremony was over, we were invited to stay for a traditional Haida feast but we had a plane to catch. As Taki and I boarded the float plane we were exhausted but giddy. We knew we had witnessed something rare, something important, but I don’t think we understood the gift we’d been given. When I revisit this radio story now, 23 years later, it seems as fresh and pertinent as it was that day.
I’ve not had the chance to return to Hydaburg so I don’t know how effective the new totem pole was in helping to bring the community together. Stan Marsden, the carver, died in 2015. I will never forget his words, his intention, and how his pain and desire to heal not only himself but a whole community manifested in the way he carved this totem pole, a pole I was privileged to help carry.
I have always wished that I were part of a culture that had something like a totem pole, but I don't want to be guilty of appropriation so I am happy to appreciate the art form with all its beauty and the meanings you have helped me understand here. I listened to the short recording and enjoyed it very much, especially because "Nothing Lasting" played right after. I was not able to listen to the longer one. I could listen to all the other Open Road recordings, but no amount of clicking would let me listen to the 8 minute version. The arrow would turn into double lines, but there would be no sound. I was able to read a transcript of it on The Savvy Traveler. I may not have a Totem Pole, but through your stories and songs, you have helped me recognize that we are from the same tribe.