SITKA Administrative History

Chapter 4:
SITKA NATIONAL MONUMENT, MIDDLE YEARS (continued)

Totem pole preservation

Concurrent with the expanded interest was a feeling that the totem pole preservation problem had finally been brought under control. Early in 1940, B. Frank Heintzleman, Regional Forester for the U.S. Forest Service, was able to advise the National Park Service that the Sitka totem pole work begun in 1939 was almost done. All "sixteen" poles had been restored, treated with preservative, and reset in their former locations. As required in the National Park Service approval to go ahead with the work using CCC crews, a photo record had been made of all poles before work was begun. [257]

Successful completion of the CCC totem pole project left the originals of newly recarved poles lying on the monument grounds exposed to the weather. When Mrs. Robbins (first name unknown), the wife of an officer assigned to Sitka Naval Air Station, suggested that the discarded originals might be protected there, protracted correspondence ensued. She thought the poles could be housed in the station's recreation building. Comdr. J.R. Tate, commanding officer of the station, followed up her spoken comments with a letter to Been. He offered to house the poles in the corners of the navy gymnasium. [258]

Pole preservation remained a continuing problem. Pressure treatment, which appeared to be the most effective means of preservation, was difficult with such large objects in any case and almost impossible in a remote location such as Sitka. One alternative, suggested by a park service engineer, was to cut the poles into manageable lengths so that they could be treated at Sitka. This would eliminate the necessity of shipping them in tact to the West Coast where it was possible to treat them in their original size. [259]

Been agreed that moving the original poles to Japonski Island was a good idea. Demaray, temporarily acting Director of the National Park Service, responded that the poles "have no proper place at Sitka National Monument...." He preferred, however, that they be offered to the Territorial Museum at Juneau. When the museum declined to accept the discarded originals, Demaray approved their relocation to the naval air station. [260]

Although he finally had approval to move the discarded originals, Miller foresaw difficulties. He requested permission to destroy poles that he believed too rotten to preserve. He would salvage those figures from the poles that could be re stored. Been endorsed Miller's request, but it provoked a quick refusal from Washington. "Original specimens always have scientific value which duplicates . . . could not possess . . . . they are not to be destroyed as surplus." After this, the discarded original poles were moved. When Been reported on his next visit to Sitka, made on an inspection trip to Glacier Bay and Sitka between August 12 and September 4, 1942, he was able to record that the poles "have been nicely utilized by the navy." Restored sections of the poles stood at entrances to the air station's administration and recreation buildings. Several sections had also been placed inside the recreation building. [261]

Discarded original poles came up again in 1947, when Grant H. Pearson had succeeded Miller as the custodian at Sitka. By that time the navy had turned its Japonski Island facilities over to the Alaska Native Service (ANS). ANS operated them as Mount Edgecumbe boarding school for Alaska Native children. One of the school's staff, George W. Fedoroff, advised Pearson that a former navy building would be converted to a museum. He suggested that discarded original poles not moved in 1942 could be housed in the museum. This received National Park Service approval and on November 21-22, 1947, Mount Edgecumbe officials took delivery of the remaining old poles from Sitka National Monument. [262] After this, as Mount Edgecumbe officials came and went, some parts of the old poles were taken for souvenirs and other parts were discarded and burned in Sitka's dump. George Hall retrieved the last full pole in 1961 and placed it at Sheldon Jackson Museum. [263]

Other than routine maintenance, no new major projects were taken in connection with Sitka National Monument's totem poles until the 1970s.