Indian Legend Lives On At Cemetery -- Art Teacher Discovers Origin Of Totem-Pole Carvings That Depict Haida Tribe Mythology

It's a tale of drama, suspense and undying love:

A powerful man's wife has been kidnapped, and he'll do anything to get her back - even travel to the bottom of the ocean.

For decades, the tale has been told in a quiet grove in a North Seattle cemetery, even though few people - if anyone - have been able to hear it.

That's because the story hasn't been told on a plaque or a headstone, but on a totem pole.

The 800-pound, 16-foot-tall Haida Tribe pole is among the oldest in the city, but until recently its owners knew nothing about the artists who carved it or the legend it conveys.

Dave Daly, cemetery president, said all he knew is that the pole was carved in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia and brought to Puget Sound by a Bainbridge Island man, Thomas Kelley, in the early 1930s.

Kelley gave the pole to his next-door neighbor, C.S. Harley, one of Evergreen-Washelli's founders, who decided to display it in the cemetery along Aurora Avenue North.

Not until this year, when Daly decided to have the pole cleaned and restored in conjunction with the construction of a new funeral home, did its legend come to light, along with the fact that it was almost certainly carved by two of the most well-known and prolific artists of the Haida Tribe.

The link to its past was made by Jay Haavik, an artist and teacher of Northwest Indian art who was hired by Daly to scrape the mold from the pole, plug holes made by woodpeckers, fill cracks and repaint it.

"It really just needs to be cleaned up. It's actually in remarkable condition," said Haavik, working on the piece in his Capitol Hill studio.

In a 1953 book on Haida mythology, Haavik found a photo of a 6-foot-tall pole that, except for the scale, is nearly identical to this one. The book identifies the carvers as Luke Watson and George Smith.

Characters on the two poles tell the myth of Nanasimgat, whose wife was captured by a killer whale while she stood in shallow water rinsing blood from the fur of a sea otter her husband had just killed.

She is depicted riding on the back of the whale, grasping its fin.

Above her is her husband, and above him is a character Haavik is uncertain about. That character holds a small bundle and may be a shaman, a wise man helping guide Nanasimgat, or another depiction of Nanasimgat himself.

Atop the poles is a raven, a symbol of the particular Haida clan to which Smith and Watson belonged.

One question puzzled Haavik: What was Nanasimgat holding in his right hand, where the only thing remaining is a rusty metal peg? Photos of the smaller pole show it was a club, carved as the head of a fish; Haavik will create a replacement for the larger pole.

Both Smith, who died in 1938, and Watson, his nephew, who died in 1948, were prolific carvers. Watson in particular has pieces in some of Canada's top museums, said Nathalie MacFarlane, director of the Queen Charlotte Island museum.

In addition to their regard for traditional Haida art, Watson and Haavik share another similarity: Like Watson, Haavik is non-native.

Watson was the orphan of white parents and adopted by a Haida family.

Haavik is a Ballard-bred "100 percent Norwegian" and former urban planner who started learning about native art 18 years ago, then gave up his office job to plunge full-time into the art form.

When the pole's restoration is complete, it will be put back up at the cemetery, this time with a plaque that tells its origin and legend.

That idea pleases Phil Watson, Luke Watson's 77-year-old son, who lives in the remote island village of Skidegate, B.C., where the pole was carved.

"When I was a young fella, my father and his old cronies would sit around by a potbellied stove exchanging stories about the poles and the legends. . . . I wish I'd had the brains to write all those things down," he said.

He hopes to get a chance to see the pole someday. "I'm just happy and proud that his work is still about and that it's being recognized."