| Summary: | Caption on verso: Bears at entrance to Saxman Park (near Ketchikan.) Eagle and Beaver Pole is on the left, then the Dogfish Pole and on the right the Owl Memorial pole. -- Pacific Northern Airlines photo Clifford 358 The village of Saxman is located about 3 miles south of Ketchikan, Alaska. Saxman was a Tlingit village that was founded in 1894 and named for Samuel Saxman, a school teacher. During the 1930s, many totem poles in Southeast Alaska were physically deteriorating. In 1938, the Civilian Conservation Corps worked with the U.S. Forest Service to organize Tlingit and Haida men into teams to relocate, restore, and replicate totem poles. The U.S. Forest Service desired that the totem poles be more centrally located in order to allow tourists in Alaska to easily access them. Many of these restored totem poles were sent to the Ketchikan area, particularly to Saxman Village and Totem Bight. The totem poles included at Saxman Village are Tlingit carvings collected from the abandoned towns and cemeteries of Tongass, Cat Village, Pennock Islands, and Cape Fox Village. (Source: Discovering Totem Poles: A Traveler's Guide by Aldona Jonaitis; The Wolf and the Raven: Totem Poles of Southeastern Alaska by Viola E. Garfield and Linn A. Forrest; and Dictionary of Alaska Place Names by Donald J. Orth)
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