For the last decades, nothing has marked South Douglas as traditional Taku and Auk Khwaan land.<\/p>\n
That will change next year with two healing totem poles: A raven pole will rise in front of Gastineau Elementary School to mark Tlingit burial grounds discovered during the school\u2019s expansion in 2012<\/a>, and an eagle pole will rise in Savikko Park in 2018 to commemorate the Douglas Indian Village. The village was the winter residence for the Taku Khwaan, who fished on the Taku River each summer. It was burned down by Douglas city officials in 1962<\/a> to make way for the Douglas harbor, an act and a legacy that still brings pain today.<\/p>\n Project<\/strong><\/p>\n Mick Beasley has been the lead carver for the raven pole, with the help of Fred Fulmer. Apprentice carvers are Herb Sheakley, Jeffrey Isturis, and Elijah Marks. (Beasley joked that they are \u201cHerb the Great, Jeffrey the Great and Elijah the Great. They\u2019re all related.\u201d) Renowned carver Nathan Jackson designed both poles.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a challenge interpreting someone else\u2019s design, but also a learning experience, Beasley said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also been a challenge \u2014 and fun \u2014 working with apprentices who haven\u2019t carved poles before, Fulmer said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, in a way, we\u2019re all learning,\u201d Beasley said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m learning stuff on here where it\u2019s like I\u2019m a brand new student,\u201d Fulmer said. \u201cEverybody here is being challenged.\u201d<\/p>\n [Native ceremony honors dead at Gastineau<\/a>]<\/p>\n The totem poles were originally the idea of Kevin Allen, a 2016 Thunder Mountain High School graduate who suggested them at a tribal membership Douglas Indian Association meeting a few years ago, said Goldbelt executive director Dionne Cadiente-Laiti. The raven pole will likely be complete in November; the eagle pole will be carved in 2018.<\/p>\n Design<\/strong><\/p>\n The design of the 25-foot raven pole features a woodworm and the woman who raised it, an image from a Klukwan Gaanaxhteidi clan story. Above that are a frog, a diving raven, two baby ravens, and another raven at the very top. On the sides are a leader\u2019s staff, a red coho, and a black dog salmon. The big dipper also represents the Auk Khwaan.<\/p>\n The frog also represents the Ganaxh.ad\u00ed, who migrated down the Taku after the great flood, according to oral histories. The coho, said Goldbelt language and cultural specialist and DIA council member Paul Marks, represents ancestral grandchildren.<\/p>\n The log is a Sealaska log \u2014 western red cedar from the Craig\/Klawock area.<\/p>\n