The title "Tlingit Traveling Totem Pole" sparks interest in what does that mean. I have been wanting to write the story or history behind this Tlingit Totem pole. I'm going to start this story when we lived in Juanita, Washington back in the early 1990's. I was talking to one of my moms cousins who resided in Xuna/Hoonah Alaska. I wanted a totem pole log from my moms home territory. Yellow cedar trees are the only cedars in that part of SE Alaska. My mom's cousin harvested a 11ft yellow cedar log from an area near Hoonah close to Tennakee springs where my Grandmothers birth place.

So the Traveling Totem journey begins here. The yellow cedar tree is harvested and put on a barge which was shipped to Boyer Barge in Seattle. From Boyer Barge in Seattle the log is put on a delivery truck and delivered to our place in Juanita Washington that we called next to the creek house. A creek ran in front of our front yard (pretty cool place).

At the creek house we had a good sized 2 plus car sized garage and that is where we had the raw log (yellow cedar) placed inside. Now the term raw log means the bark is still on the log, just minus the branches. At this time I was carving in Redmond Washington at a place along the sleugh at a place called the Dudley Carter House or Slough House for short. Ralph Bennet was the Artist in Residence. This place was a nice place to carve at, but King county was shutting down access to it. Too bad, but good while it was open. Anyways I got Ralph to come over to our place and help me work on prepping this log into a Totem pole blank. It was going to be an Apprenticeship pole. Now Ralph is a 6th generation carver and I hooked up with him to learn how to carve. When I first met Ralph at the slough house, he asked me what I wanted to learn. We were outside the carving studio standing next to a totem he was working on at the time. I slapped my hand on the totem and said I want to learn how to carve Totem poles. Well here we were and the opportunity to apprentice on my own Totem arrose. Ralph would come over to our house and first things first. the bark had to be removed and when that was done it was time to find the side of the log that had the most knots and that was the side we cut a slab off the tree to make the back of the Totem pole. Well this process took awhile, so ralph would have a project he would work on while I was prepping the log. A good trade off don't you think?

Once the prepping of the Yellow cedar was complete. Were at the designing phase of making a Totem pole Ralph asked me what I wanted to carve as the design. I thought about it and said; 'I wanted to carve something that would represent my Mom". The Totem had to have an Eagle on the top and a Bear on the bottom. the reason is my mom in the Tlingit way is Eagle/Brown Bear. So that took up 2/3 of the avaliable space. After some discussion we decided to add a Killerwhale in the middle section. Now why a Killerwhale. My thought on this was that Killerwhales are in the ocean waters from here in Puget Sound all the way up to SE Alaska. Incorporating it filled the necessary space. I was happy with the design. Now to draw and space out the figures onto the Totem blank.

Saat-Kaa

Fred Fulmer, Tlingit Cultural Bearer and Elder

Follow along with my journey as a Tlingit artist, carver, and Cultural Bearer — I have documented over 933 videos of my experiences, carvings, and cultural presentations. Watch them on my YouTube channel: Fred Fulmer Tlingit Artist ▶️.