Thread: Alaskan Indian woodcarver revives extinct totem art

Thanks: the BBC are trying to revive their failed research abilities. Nothing "dead" about totem pole or story pole carving in the entire Pacific Northwest.But, it's still a good promotion.
Of the so-called "traditional tools" in the picture, the key items are the adzes that you see in the back on the left. I hardly think that the Wood-Is-Good, 30oz lead core carver's mallet (green head) while useful, sure ain't traditional.

There's almost always a pole of some sort under construction in the pole carving shed at the University of British Columbia. BTW, you can access the UBC Museum of Anthropology collection on line and search through more than 44,000 images.
.
Charles Edenshaw's grandsons from Haida Gwaii finished and erected a story pole at the railway station in Jasper National Park, just this past July. There's video of the ceremony on Youtube. Must be raised by hand. I live just 2 hrs west of there by highway. Quite an occasion.

Mortuary poles, totem poles and story poles all express quite different information.

There's hardly one western red cedar log in a hundred which is solid to the core. That's a rare find. In the past 10 years out here, I've only seen three. There are basically two regiuons of WRC running sort of North/South: the trees in the west coastal mountains and here at my place, the trees in the wetter belt up agaoinst the west-facing slope of the Rocky Mountains. Both run many thousands of miles.