The Totem Pole

A glimpse of color through the mists of Lake Linnea......draw closer.... it is not easily seen through the shroud of green branches.  But yes, it IS a totem pole on the southwestern island.

What does it mean?  Who put it there?  Rumors are currently being investigated.  One rumor about the origin of the totem pole has been scotched.  Katie Kowicki renovated the pole for her Silver Award project. But she was never able to find out who put it up in the first place

But in the meantime, we can check out Wikipedia for some background on totem poles. 
They were usually carved to commemorate some cultural event in an artistic way.  They were not generally religious or spiritual.  The individual totems - or animal figures - could represent a story known to the tribe, or it could represent a family, or a single person or idea.
There was ( and is! ) much artistic interpretation allowed in the carving. Totem poles originated with tribes in the Pacific Northwest . Tribes from this area did not make totem poles!  Ever!

Still, for many of us, totem poles represent the native tribes who lived here first.  They evoke a sense of mystery - of living closely with the land - in harmony with the seasons. 

Honor and appreciation to whatever troop made and erected this totem pole.  We respect your work and whatever meaning it had for you.

For those of you seeing and admiring it at camp now, feel free to imagine your own meanings.  In doing so, you are following the traditions of the native totem builders.

Katie Kowicki's mom, Donna, remembers.  "We had to load all of the equipment into boats and row it across the lake. Scrape the pole and try to determine what the carvings were.  We also had to stablize the pole.  It was a little wobbly.  It was hard to determine the colors, so we did our best.  But she chose to use brighter versions of the colors.  The wings and headress were made by the camp managers and then Katie brought them home to paint.  Once that was done, I believe it was Stan who helped attach them to the totem pole.

"We had no pictures to go by as to how it originally looked, so Katie did the best she could.  Most of the time we took them over in row boats or canoes.  Toward the end Katie decided to fill the boat with the supplies and tie a kayak to it and tow it over.  That was after she went to Maine and learned to kayak.  I don't think it really took that long to do.  We would spend an entire day working on scraping.  Then one day of painting.  The wings and the headress took the longest because we had to wait for them to be done and then had to get together with Stan to put them on."