The World’s Largest Collection of Standing Totem Poles Keeps Getting Bigger | Travel

According to Tlingit mythology, long ago a Raven wished to marry Fog Woman, the daughter of Chief Fog-Over-the-Salmon. The chief granted his permission, and Fog Woman and Raven lived happily for two seasons. But in the winter, a food shortage left the couple hungry every night. Raven struggled to bring home food, so Fog Woman wove a basket that she filled with water. After washing her hands in the basket, Raven could see salmon—the first salmon ever created—swimming inside.

Fog Woman continued to produce salmon, and for a time, the couple lived happily once again. But eventually they began to fight. Raven’s anger took hold and one day he hit Fog Woman on the shoulder with a piece of dried salmon. Fog Woman would not stand for the disrespect and left the house with Raven chasing after her. Every time Raven attempted to reach out and grab her, his hands went right through her, as if she were made of fog.

Fog Woman ran into the water, and all the salmon she’d dried followed her. Raven never saw her again—but every year, salmon come rushing back into the water in Ketchikan. She feeds the community all these years later.

Today, this legend is memorialized in the most prominent totem pole in Ketchikan, Alaska: the 55-foot-tall Chief Johnson pole. The current iteration of the pole, which is a replica built by Tongass Tlingit carver Israel Shotridge in 1989, sits outside the former home of Chief George Johnson, beside Ketchikan Creek, the ancestral fishing grounds of the Tongass Tlingit. The original pole (carved by an unknown person and now in storage at the Totem Heritage Center) was raised in 1901 and stood until 1982, when it was removed to make room for the replica. Johnson was chief of the Gaanaxadi clan in the Tongass tribe from 1902 to his death in 1938.

Chief Johnson’s is just one of the more than 80 standing totem poles, the world’s largest collection of them, scattered around Ketchikan in southeastern Alaska—and more are added every year as artists carve and erect them to honor respected community members. Indigenous peoples have…