| Summary: | Caption: Loon Tree Totem at Saxman Park, near Ketchikan. Originally from Cape Fox Village, this Totem symbolizes the experiences of the ancestors of the Kats House people. Pictured at the top is the Loon, below it, three Bear Cubs, and then the Bear wife of Kats holding her human husband. The pole was carved by four different artists, three Tlingits and a Haida. -- Pacific Northern Airlines photo Clifford 359 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. This totem pole is a copy of an original from Cape Fox Village carved by four different artists: three Tlingit carvers and a Haida carver. The Tlingit carvers each were assigned one of the three upper figures while the Haida carver was responsible for carving Kats and his bear wife as well as the bear cub immediately above them, which are done in a characteristically Haida style. (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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