Beaver Totem Pole
🪵 Part of a Series on Wrangell Totems 🪵
The Beaver Totem Pole was once the tallest structure atop Shustack Point before being moved around the harbor, where an additional front piece was attached. It is now in the Alaska State Museum.
(background image: Killian Booker)
#1. Shustack Point
The Beaver Totem Pole sits near the center of this undated photograph of Shustack Point. The point is named for the Taal’kweidí headman, whose clan built homes, shelters, and graves along the top ridge of the peninsula wrapping in front of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. (image credit: Michael & Carolyn Nore Collection)
This undated photo by Winter & Pond shows the Beaver Totem Pole next to a grave. In the Smithsonian’s 1888 annual report, a writer described “…the grave of Chief Shustack, on Shustack Point, at the south entrance to Wrangell Anchorage, directly opposite the town. It represents a form of aerial sepulture, in that the remains are not actually buried in the ground, but remain above the surface enclosed in a box.” (image credit: Alaska State Library)
ANIMATION. This loop shows a before/after of the peninsula leading out to Shustack Point. A red box has been drawn to indicate the location of the Beaver Totem in the past and today.
Front-piece Carving
This photographs shows a three people gathered around a totem carving inside a traditional-style Tlingit home in Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. This piece would later be attached to the front of the Beaver Totem Pole. (image credit: Steve Brown, Sharing Our Knowledge 2022)
#2. Waterfront
This photograph was taken by A.C. Pillsbury in 1898 around the time of the Klondike Gold Rush. It shows the Beaver Totem Pole in the foreground with the Raven Totem Pole in the distance.
We can estimate the location of the Beaver Totem Pole by overlaying the 1914 Sanborn fire map on top of a satellite image of modern-day Wrangell. The house circled in red is the approximate area of the house photographed behind the Beaver Totem Pole. A mention in the July 2, 1914 Wrangell Sentinel confirms that the Beaver Totem Pole is the “first totem to the left after reaching the power house.”
Visitors to Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw walk along a makeshift boardwalk along what is today Case Avenue in Wrangell. (image credit: Michael & Carolyn Nore Collection)
A new, more even boardwalk passes by the Beaver Totem Pole. The front of the home adjacent to the Beaver Totem Pole features a front-piece artwork. (image credit: Michael & Carolyn Nore Collection)
A view from the north, looking at the right-hand side of the Beaver Totem Pole, showing how the additional carving was attached. In the distance, the two carved killer whales of Shakes Grave is visible above a roof. (image credit: Concord Library)
As the nearby Willson & Sylvester sawmill expanded operation, planks, boards, and other stacks of wood piled up in the areas around the mill. This photograph shows the Beaver Totem Pole being eclipsed by a large stack of lumber. (image credit: Michael & Carolyn Nore Collection)
Acquired by Axel Rasmussen
Wrangell public school superintendent Axel Rasmussen (far right) photographed with a group of school children on an outing. (image credit: DaNika Smalley, Wrangell Museum)
On November 30, 1932, Charles Sheayet passed away after a long illness. He was only 50 years old. Tragically, Sheayet’s wife had died of tuberculosis four years earlier, leaving their 9 year-old daughter without either of her parents.
His obituary in the Wrangell Sentinel identified him as “the nephew of Chief Shustack. Had the old ways continued he would have been, for many years past, the head of his tribe.”
Two weeks before his death, the Wrangell Sentinel reported that Sheayet sold the Beaver Totem Pole to Axel Rasmussen. Axel Rasmussen was born in Indiana and moved to Wrangell in 1926 to serve as the public school superintendent. He quickly became an active collector of hundreds of Indigenous artifacts. He often collected from estates or people who were near the end of their lives. Sheayet’s passing presented an opportunity. The Wrangell Sentinel wrote:
“Mr. Rasmussen recently bought the Beaver totem pole from Charley Sheyate, with the intention of asking permission from the school board to put the pole up at the school. This probably will not be accomplished until spring. The pole has rotted in places and will have to be repaired, creosoted, and painted.”
In 1937, Axel Rasmussen moved to Skagway to serve as the superintendent. He took many pieces of his vast collection of Indigenous artifacts with him, but he continued to spend time in Wrangell during the summers until he passed away in 1945.
#3. Alaska State Museum
The Beaver Pole photographed—in pieces—standing inside the stairwell of the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, Alaska. (image credit: Wikipedia Commons)
.jpg){kind=link}
The death of Axel Rasmussen on January 4, 1945 set off a flurry of activity to collect his vast trove of Indigenous artifacts. Nearly all of the items in Rasmussen’s estate were sold out of Alaska (most went the Portland Art Museum), with the exception of a small quantity of items secured by the Alaska State Museum under curator E.L. Keithahn. The November 7, 1945 Daily Alaska Empire wrote:
“Three segments of a 60-foot totem pole which until 1926 stood before the Flying Raven house in Wrangell, tower at the entrance of the museum now. Mr. Keithahn plans to have them completely reclaimed and painted in the near future… The Beaver, which was in an advanced state of deterioration, was not purchased by the museum.”
Thank you to Mike Hoyt for sharing his research into this totem pole!