Native Heritage Preservation



Totem Bight State Historical Park



Clanhouse

 We spent another day touring Ketchikan and rode the city bus to the Totem Bight State Park located north of downtown Ketchikan.  In 1938 the U.S. Forest Service began salvaging abandoned Tlingit and Haida totems.  By using Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) funds, skilled Native carvers were hired to duplicate totems that had been left in the woods.  Fragments of old poles were laid beside newly cut cedar logs and every attempt was made to copy the totems.  Hand-made carving tools modeled from the past were used to carve the totems.  Samples of Native paints were created from natural substances such as clam shells, lichen, graphite, copper pebbles, and salmon eggs and then duplicated with modern paints.  The totems plus a community clanhouse were completed prior to WWII.  At statehood in 1959, title to the land passed from the federal government to the State of Alaska; and in 1970, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.  We walked along the trails and boardwalks through the lovely park viewing the totems and entered the clanhouse through a low, narrow doorway - designed so as to put an enemy at a disadvantage.  A large clanhouse could hold 30 to 50 people.  Every Tlingit and Haida belonged to a designated group called a “moietie,” the Raven or the Eagle moiety for example.  At birth, they became the same moietie as their mother for the rest of their lives.