40-year-old totem pole finds new home at Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center

A totem pole was raised at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau over the weekend. Though it’s new to the building, the Porcupine and Beaver Kootéeyaa is almost 40 years old. 

The totem pole was carved by late master Lingít carver Amos Wallace. For decades, it lived inside the U.S. Forest Service office in Juneau. But on Saturday it was rededicated to its new home inside the visitor center. 

Amos’s son Brian Wallace was at the ceremony on Saturday. He said it means a lot to him to know that his father’s work will now live where thousands — perhaps millions — of visitors will see it. 

“It was kind of a homecoming,” he said. “So now tens of thousands of people who visit the glacier center are gonna be able to visit it, and it’s not going to fade away — it’s going to have an indefinite lifetime.”

The pole was raised just before Monday’s Orange Shirt Day, an international day recognizing the effects of boarding schools on Indigenous communities. Amos was one of many Alaska Native children removed from their families and forcibly assimilated at government or church-run institutions. The practice lasted from the 1800s through the 1970s in the U.S. and Canada.

Wallace said the trauma from that experience deeply impacted his father, who found healing through his art. Wallace said he hopes it can do the same for the people who will look at the totem pole in the years to come. 

“I have great pride that my dad did his part to keep the artwork going, even though it was oppressed,” he said. “It just shows the world that the Lingít, Haida, Tsimshian — they had a rich heritage, but they are still vibrant. We’re still here. Despite everything that happened, there’s still artwork here.”

The pole also signifies another step toward tribal sovereignty, according to the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The tribe helped make the move possible and hosted the rededication ceremony. 

A year ago, the tribe and the U.S. Forest Service signed a memorandum of agreement to co-manage the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area together on order to better educate visitors about the Indigenous history of the area. 

The tribe hired 10 tribal members this summer to work as ambassadors at the visitor center, sharing their personal connections to Lingít culture and how Lingít people are connected to the land.