This is a Tlingit totem pole cast in bronze by artist Saat-Kaa, Fred Fulmer


About the artist

My name is Saat-Kaa, Fred Fulmer TLINGIT

Hot cast bronze

My mother is Tlingit from Hoonah, Alaska. I am Ealge-Brown Bear. Chookaneidee Clan, Ice Berg House. I've been creating tlingit style carving for 28 years. I carved a small model Totem pole out of yellow cedar and had bronze replicas made of my clan affiliation Ealge-Brown Bear. I remember seeing a couple of model Totems on a fireplace mantel that a relative made decades ago. They were a very rich dark color wood. I used a black patina to replicate that color, which looks a lot like argillite*, a material used for small totemic carvings, that comes from Queen Charlotte Island.

*Argillite is a dense, black, carbonaceous shale known as kwawhiahl in the Haida language. It is found exclusively at Slatechuck Creek (Tllgaduu randlaay) on Graham Island, the largest and most northerly island in the Haida Gwaii archipelago (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands.)

Among other representations, totem poles are symbols of clan and family wealth and prestige.