Today in Ketchikan we stopped into a carving shed at Saxman Totem Village. Lee Wallace, a well-known native carver, was working on a twenty-foot totem pole of western red cedar. He had completed his first outlines of the eagle and wolf figures that made up the pole and was refining their form with the repeated cuts of his adze. As he worked, he paused to talk with us.
The northwest coast Native American art of today is still practiced within the same structure and general design principles as in historic times, yet each artist makes his own interpretation of the form. The shed was pungent with the fresh scent of cedar, Ketchikan liquid sunshine rained down on the roof overhead. We watched as he carefully worked his log, each of his cuts more clearly bringing out the shapes of eagle and wolf.
