Proud Raven, Panting Wolf

Detail of the Wandering Raven house frontal pole by Charles Brown on the clan house at Totem Bight, 2009. Although the pole has since been restored with new paint, Brown’s original carving is still visible, with the U-forms and other design elements carved in delicate relief rather than simply painted on the surface. Photo by Emily Moore.

Postcard showing CCC carvers restoring the Ebbits pole in the basement of the ANB Hall, Saxman, Alaska, 1939. Carvers from left: Milton Jackson, Charles Brown, Joe Denny, James Starrish, Billy Andrews, David Kashakes, and Robert Harris. Photo by Otto C. Schallerer. Image courtesy of the Ketchikan Museums, Tongass Historical Society Collection, THS 90.1.8.161, page 5, postcard 2.

Klawock Totem Park, 1966. Photograph by Adelaide de Menil. Courtesy the Bill Reid Centre at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.

Henry Denny Sr. with his grandchildren and a Forest Service film crew at the base of the Giant Oyster totem, Saxman Totem Park, c. 1941. The newsreel was intended to teach Americans about the CCC restoration program; due to the outbreak of World War II, however, it was not released until 1949, when it was repurposed for a newsreel titled Timber and Totem Poles. Photo by Joe Yolo for the US Forest Service. Ketchikan Museums, 77.3.5.244.

Raising a new version of the Owl-Human Transformation pole in the Hydaburg Totem Park, July 2009. A painted totem pole that dates from the New Deal period stands at back right. Photo by Emily Moore.