Saturday, July 26


We awoke to a wonderful surprise: it was not raining! And since Ketchikan has the largest collection of totem poles anywhere, we set out to see them . First stop: Totem Bight State Historical Park, created in 1938 by the U.S. Forest Service with funds from the Civilian Conservation Corps, to collect, preserve, and sometimes replicate totem poles from abandoned villages. This Eagle grave marker is most unusual on account of the Chilkat blanket painted on his chest. We have seen many examples of these woven blankets, always in these colors, in museums -- there is even one at the Peabody Museum in New Haven. But we have never before seen one painted on a totem.


Saxman is a Tlingit village just south of Ketchikan that was founded in 1894 to bring natives of outlying islands closer to employment, schools, and churches. Its collection of totem poles, also assembled by the Forest Service, is said to be the largest in the world. Here we saw a wonderful bear totem; notice that his hands and feet are ovoid faces, whose teeth form his claws. Another bear and eagle at Saxman surround an unidentified totem.


Our final bear and eagle sighting of the day was extremely entertaining. At Herring Cove, eight miles south of Ketchikan, we watched a bear scooping salmon out of the tank of a private fish hatchery as the eagles flew overhead.