Saxman...No Charlie Parker

I was originally going to write this entry about a place I visited in Skagway, Alaska, but I see for some reason the photos from that city were not uploaded onto my Facebook photo album. I'll look into that later, but in the meantime I wanted to get an Alaskan entry onto the blog.

Charlie "Bird" Parker, Picture from Wikipedia
Just in case some poor soul doesn't "get" the title of my entry

Saxman Native Village was my only tourist stop in Ketchikan, Alaska. It was important to me to spend at least part of my trip learning about the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. I was especially interested in learning more about totem poles, and this port offered the most options to do so. Carnival offered several excursions to visit the handful of parks that had totem poles (some authentically made by Native Alaskans, others reproductions made in the 1930s during Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration). The problem I had was that I wasn't sure I wanted to pay that much money, with prices starting at $40 and up. Good ol' Trip Advisor came through and several of my fellow travellers gave advice that there is a bus that costs $1 each way to many of the parks, and that admission at each park ranged from free to $10 depending on which one you decided to go to. $2-12 bucks sounds a lot better than $40+, so as the Queen of Public Transportation, I convinced my godmother to hop on the bus with me! The buses run on time and only every hour or so, and we'd missed the bus going to Saxman by about ten minutes, so we caught a cab for the three miles or so trip there. We paid a man in a booth $5 to enter the site, and I paid an additional dollar for a "guide" to the meanings of the totem poles.

If you choose to catch the bus to Saxman, look for this eagle statue.
The bus stop is right next to it.

First, I wanted to point out that the totems at Saxman are all Native made- no reproductions- and were carved at different points between the early 1800s and the 1940s. You can read a description of them here but hope you will still buy a guide on site as the money goes towards helping preserve the poles and the village. My favorites were the bird poles, because to me they looked more serious than some of the other shapes (such as frogs, beavers, and random people- oh yeah- and Abraham Lincoln).

One of the bird-shaped guard poles

The view walking towards the Village

For $5, we got the privilege of walking around, taking photos, and shopping at the gift shop. We were not permitted to enter the Clan House to watch dancing or into the carving station to learn about the traditional tools and methods used to create the poles. We were told that even though the Natives own the land, they lease out tourism rights to various companies and have agreed to not let non-excursion paying guests participate in activities other than taking photos. While I understood the rationale, I was a little bit disappointed.

The Clan House

Looking down to the gift shop and lake from in front of the Clan House

Unrestored beaver totem inside the gift shop

While not bad for less than $10 (if you don't count the cab ride which only totaled $15 with a generous tip), I would have been extremely upset had I paid $40+ to come here. There simply wasn't THAT much to do. I really wanted a mini bird totem to take with me, but the gift shop on site was even more overpriced than the shops near the cruise ships. One highlight, that only a few people who know me personally would understand, was a magnet of a bear totem image decorated in orange and brown. See, my high school (which is now sadly closed) had the brown bear as a mascot, and our school colors were orange and brown. Even though I graduated in 2001, I still have love for my alma mater!

David B. Oliver High School February1925- June 2011
Bears For Life!

Well, things are slowly coming together back at home. Again, I'm 99% sure I am done traveling for 2013, but plan to have a very active itinerary for 2014 and 2015 (it will be August 2016 before you know it!).

Thank you everyone for following along. More entries to come, and I will see you on the next adventure!