Kasaan, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.

May, 2008

Kasaan is a tiny town at the end of the road on Prince of Wales Island. We has heard there were some amazing totems there and we drove the bone jarring road in all hast to find them. A local woman responded poitedly to our questions "why dont you just go talk to the major?" So we went through town (10 houses) to on with all the blinds pulled and knocked. A loud voice summoned us inside and we kicked the jammed door open. Inside was an immense part native man surrounded in comic books with a Stars Wars movie playing, projected on the wall. He was indeed the illustrious major so we sat down to have a word. He was deeply commited to the tourism future of the town, even though the entire mountain behind the town had recently been clear cut by another local whom we met later. He had grand plans for multi million dollar lodges in the peaceful little bay and eco tourism activities. Few in the town shared his views. He also wanted the road to be paved, to which many townspeople would say simply, " if you want cement, go to seattle." Once we waded through the politics and came out the other side only partly soiled, we were told how to get to the totems and we set out on a lovely trail through a clear cut that was cut 70 years ago and has grown back supprisingly well. We would not have known it we had not been told. After seeing a number of somewhat bland totems parks, we were thrilled to suddenly come across these ancient and rotting totems nestled amongst the trees on the sea. A massive clan house stood in the middle and around it were many fierce and lovely carved characters.