I carved a 4 foot high totem pole in 4 days

Day1:

Along with 5 other people as well as our instructor Lloyd, I spent eight hours at the Lee Valley Toronto East store in late June starting to carve a four foot high totem pole out of an eastern white cedar log. Although the cedar is eastern, all the traditions we are following are those of the First Nations of the north-west coast of North America. Here is a photo of my log:



The log is resting on a jig attached to one of my old Workmate benches.

The first order of business was to select two of the many options for totems to carve into the pole. I chose two that are quite representative of the Lake Pivabiska region because the pole’s home will be on Pellow’s Island.

I chose:

Beaver –Skilled leader in industry and construction who strives for peace but will fight if he has to, Creative, artistic, and determined. Know to dig underground tunnels that cause earthquakes and landslides.

Raven –One of most important spirits, she/he is the trickster and is credited with bringing mankind to the world. Symbolizes creation, knowledge, is ever hungry, ever curious, deviant, compulsive, crooked, deceptive, but somehow always likeable.

I also chose to carve the Raven carrying the moon in her beak both because that is one of the legends I like and because of the great views we get of the moon rising over the lake at Pivabiska.

By tradition, a bird is always higher on the pole than an animal.

Here are then two patterns that I chose:



The first step was to draw a grid onto the best side of the log:



Then, I drew portions of the two patterns onto the log:



Finally, it was time to start the rough carving:



All the work today was done with a small hatchet and a rubber mallet.

Here is photo taken a few hours and several chips later:



Here is my log as it was at the end of day 1:

What a cool idea

Third circle up from the bottom, is that you frowning??
Now this is an ambitious project, but I forgot, it is you, done yet Frank?

You just don't have any fun do you Frank!

Great project. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
BTW, on a TV show recently (and you know, if it was on TV, it has to be right ) a character said the most important person on a totem pole was the leader and he was placed on the bottom as a show of support of the rest. He was carved first as a sign of respect.
So "bottom man on a totem pole" doesn't mean (according to the TV character) anything disrespectful. Or does it?

Well, it does add new meaning to the words, "carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders!".

Frank Fusco said:

Great project. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
BTW, on a TV show recently (and you know, if it was on TV, it has to be right ) a character said the most important person on a totem pole was the leader and he was placed on the bottom as a show of support of the rest. He was carved first as a sign of respect.
So "bottom man on a totem pole" doesn't mean (according to the TV character) anything disrespectful. Or does it?

Click to expand...

Thanks Frank.

That may be true about the most important figure being at the bottom, I certainly respect the beaver (the figure on the bottom of my totem pole) because, over the last five years, beavers have taken down every big poplar tree on Pellow's Island.

I do know that, often, the rookie carvers are assigned the top figures and the experienced ones the bottom figures. This way, any mistakes that the new carvers make, are not as easy to detect.

Day 2:

Today was all about shaping and smoothing. I didn’t add any new features or any details, rather I just worked extensively improving the features that I chopped out yesterday.

Before getting into that, I will show a photo of the simple but very effective jig used to hold a log on a Workmate:



The jigs were designed and built by Jennifer at the Toronto East Lee Valley store.

The first step today was to use chisels to smooth the rough hatchet cuts:



I also used the chisels to further shape some features, such as the raven’s beak:



Further smoothing was done with a wood file and with a 40 grit paper on a small sanding block:



And, finally, everything was hand sanded with Festool Granat 120 foam-backed sanding pads:



The First Nations people would not have used sandpaper. They are skilled enough with hatchets and chisels that there is no need for it. Another important point is that the Haida carve their poles so that there are no cavities in the pole where water can gather. I am making sure that I take the same precaution.

Here is a photo of the pole at the end of day 2:

Day 2.5:

We got the day off on Thursday but I cheated and brought the totem pole home with me Wednesday in order to add a special “Frank designed feature”.

Traditionally a beaver is carved holding a log that he is chewing upon –as pointed to with the arrow in this partly carved beaver:



I drilled a hole through the spots where the paws would be grasping something:



Then carved out the spot where the stick would normally be. Then I inserted a stick:



I’m very happy with this modification, and I think that no native carver would mind the change.

Day 3:

I spent today carving details into my totem pole. First a detail was drawn onto the appropriate spot and then carved. Most of the carving is simply a V gouge as seen in this photo where I am working on the tail of my beaver:



The small tool shown cuts these groves very well when going with the grain but, when going across the grain, I often had to resort to the use of a small very sharp carvers knife and chisels.

We learned that almost all the details on totem poles are carved using variations of these five shapes:



Lloyd has made and collected several small templates that can be used when drawing on a pole:



In this photo, I am using one of the templates:



Sometimes one does a bit of carving between uses of the same template as in this case where I am flattening a portion of the moon’s face:



After flattening, I redrew the parts that I had chiselled off.

I didn’t realize before just how many special purpose carvers tools there are. A case in point is this gouge that I used to hollow out the beaver’s nostrils:



I used no power tools at all my totem pole. Everyone but me used powers sanders. Only one person resorted to power carving:



And she only used to tool for about half an hour in order to carve some small difficult cross-grain grooves.

Here are a couple of views of my pole taken at the end of day 3:

That is taking shape quite well and very rapidly Frank!!!
I also really like the beaver holding a real stick, what did your instructor think of your idea?
Now this isn't your first foray into carving is it?

Jonathan Shively said:

That is taking shape quite well and very rapidly Frank!!!
I also really like the beaver holding a real stick, what did your instructor think of your idea?
Now this isn't your first foray into carving is it?

Click to expand...

Thanks Jonathan.

My instructor liked the idea of the hole for the stick and said that he remembers having seen one other pole somewhere that used a similar technique.

I have done a little bit of sign carving in the past and have carved small parts for projects and for repairs, but have never carved and figures before.

Oh, almost forgot to ask, how are your arms and back as well as legs? You must be getting quite the workout regime on this project.

Jonathan, I had no problems at all but most of the other class members were complaining about stiffness and soreness.

Day 4: (post 1 of 2)

The course is finished and my pole is complete. I had a really good time both working on the pole and talking to my fellow carvers and am really going to miss the activity, the place, and the people.

You can see that a bit of unused space remained at the top of the pole as it was after day 3. I had a feeling that the pole was incomplete and that it needed an addition. I did quite a bit of research on the internet on the evening of day 3. Early on, I found this description of the meaning of the Loon symbol:

The Loon symbolizes tranquility, serenity and the reawakening of old hopes, wishes and dreams. The Loon relies on water and water is a symbol for dreams and multiple levels of consciousness, therefore Loons teach us to pay attention to our dreams, wishes and hopes. A Legend says that to see a Loon is a symbol of a dream come true or an answered wish.

This is perfect! Lake Pivabiska is the home to many loons and my feeling about the Lake itself is much like above words about the loon.

So, I knew right away that, somehow, I needed to add a loon to the pole. The problem was that nowhere could I find a photo of a loon stylized for use on a totem pole. I did find pictures of a couple of poles that had loons represented on them but, on those poles, the loons were depicted as women –something that I now understand was common. So, I ended up drawing my own pattern:



Showing a side view is probably cheating but I did make use of an ovid, a circle, 2 trigons, and 3 S shapes. One can recognize a loon but it doesn’t look very lifelike and that’s what I wanted.

This morning, after checking with Lloyd to see if he thought it would be OK to do so, I carved the loon onto the spot on the pole that would normally be occupied by the raven’s forehead and eyebrows. In this photo, I have drawn the outline and am starting to carve it in:



It’s OK, but in retrospect I would extend the bottom part of the loon so that it would look more like that part also served as the raven’s eyebrows.

The carving finished, I applied a coat of Varathane Golden Pecan oil-based stain, first with the pole upside down, then right side up in order to catch all the projections:



This brings the colour closer to what one good get using western red cedar.

Of course, I had remembered to carve my initials and the year into the pole (near the bottom at the back):



The stain dried very quickly in the hot sun and, soon, I could start to paint some of the features.

Day 4: (post 2 of 2)

I restricted myself to the use of the four pre-contact colours that the First nations carvers achieved using natural materials combined with salmon eggs and saliva. These materials were charcoal (to get black), iron oxide (to get red), copper oxide (to get turquoise), and ash (to get white). The paint was “mixed” by chewing the material together with the salmon eggs.

Not having a ready supply of salmon eggs, I resorted to the use of fast-drying acrylic paint:



I found the painting to be a lot of fun in that it brought out the humour in the figures that I had carved. In the photo below, the painting has almost been completed:



The last step was to conduct a ceremony where the poles are awakened. In this ceremony, the poles lie horizontally in the middle of the room, the carvers with some of their carving tools dance slowly around the poles accompanied by the beat of drums. Three circuits are completed and each carver blows onto each totem on each pass in order to blow life into the totems:



Here, the six students are gathered with their totem poles together with Lloyd (in the middle) and the pole that he, somehow, managed to find time to carve along with us.



Not all the poles are quite finished, but I guess all but Lloyd’s pole (which missed the ceremony) are alive.

Here is another photo, just showing the totem poles:



After taking the pole home, I added a coat of Helmsman Spar Urethane (again oil based).

Here are two photos of my (almost) finished pole:

Your totem came out looking great, Frank. Thanks much for documenting the process.

I am a bit disappointed, though. I was looking forward to hearing how salmon eggs and charcoal tastes.

Hooray!!!!!! Frank, thanks ever so much for taking us along on this journey of yours! I have learned a lot through your thread on totem poles. It looks wonderful. I am amazed and humbled by carvers and all craftsman, this forum provides me the opportunity to witness so many projects that otherwise I would never know existed. Thank you Frank, now the question, what's next?

ok frank, where was copper oxide and iron oxide found naturally? and how does gray ash and salmon eggs make white? not doubting you just dont see it coming out that way.. all salmon eggs i have seen are yellow to orange.