Totem Poles of Note
The title of "The World's Tallest Totem Pole" is or has at one time been claimed by several towns along the coast:
- Alert Bay, British Columbia — 173 ft (53 m), Kwakwaka'wakw
- McKinleyville, California — 160 ft (48.77 m), carved from a single redwood tree by Ernest Pierson and John Nelson
- Kalama, Washington — 140 ft (42.6 m), carved by Chief Lelooska
- Kake, Alaska — 137.5 ft (41.9 m), Tlingit
- Victoria, British Columbia (Beacon Hill Park) — 127.5 ft (38.862 m), Kwakwaka'wakw, carved by Mungo Martin with Henry Hunt and David Martin
- Tacoma, Washington (Fireman's Park) — 105 ft (32 m), carved by Alaskan Indians
- Vancouver, British Columbia (Maritime Museum) — 100 ft (30.5 m), Kwakwaka'wakw, carved by Mungo Martin with Henry Hunt and David Martin
There are disputes over which is genuinely the tallest, depending on constraints such as construction from a single log or the affiliation of the carver. Competition for making the tallest pole is still prevalent, although it is becoming more difficult to procure trees of such heights.
The thickest totem pole ever carved to date is in Duncan, British Columbia, carved by Richard Hunt in 1988, and measures over 6 ft (1.8 m) in diameter. It is carved in the Kwakwaka'wakw style, and represents Cedar Man transforming into his human form.
Standing a total of 173 feet (53 m) tall, the world's tallest totem pole is composed of two pieces of 168 and 5 feet (51 and 1.5 m). This one is in Alert Bay, British Columbia.
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Famous quotes containing the words totem poles, totem, poles and/or note:
“Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Now defined as art, the totem has lost cult, taboo, and custom.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
Man in his maggot’s barren.
And boys are full and foreign in the pouch.
I am the man your father was.
We are the sons of flint and pitch.
O see the poles are kissing as they cross.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded.... He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)