Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Photo: Tlingit master carver Tommy Joseph paints the Totem Heritage Center’s Eagle house post. (Hunter Morrison / KRBD)

If you visited Southeast Alaska’s Totem Heritage Center this fall, you may have noticed something missing from one of its outside walls.

That’s because three carved posts, which were made by students and master carvers, were temporarily removed for much-needed restoration work.

As KRBD’s Hunter Morrison reports, the house posts were reinstalled in November.

Inside a workshop at Ketchikan’s National Guard Armory, Tlingit master carver Tommy Joseph is hard at work. He’s slowly shaving a block of wood into the shape of a dorsal fin with an oddly shaped knife named Charlie.

He then trades Charlie, the reverse bentknife, for a tool that looks like a sickle, but works like a hammer. Large wood shavings fall to the floor.

The new dorsal fin will later be affixed to the Heritage Center’s Killer Whale house post, which is like a small totem pole.

It’s a small piece of a larger project to restore three of the museum’s house posts.

Historically, house posts are carved to honor events, clans, or tribes.

Joseph says the three he worked on were cracked on the outside due to decades of wear.

“It’s time to take care of them, treat them a bit and clean them. Clean them, then treat them. And hopefully, you can give them lots and lots of life and a future here.”

The Totem Heritage Center’s Raven house post is reinstalled last week. (Photo: Deborah Mercy / Ketchikan Museums Department)

The three posts were carved in the mid-1980s as part of the Heritage Center’s Native Art Studies Program.

Students worked alongside Indigenous master carvers to create five posts for the museum’s exterior.

But like totem poles, house posts traditionally aren’t restored. They’re meant to last the lifespan of a person, about 80 years, then returned to the Earth for decomposition. But these house posts have only been around for about half of that time, and museum staff say they still have life in them.

Museum Director Samantha Forsko says the house posts document the museum’s history and relationships between students and instructors.

“They tell the story of the Totem Heritage Center in a way that is not just about the totem poles inside of it.”

This is one of a handful of totem restoration projects Joseph has been a part of in Southeast Alaska. He says each one is different from the last.

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