Architect Linn A. Forrest Sites

The park was designed along a main axis—Totem Road—with totem poles on each side, and a rectangular area enclosed with logs carved with frog heads. Leading to the square, there are two stairways marked by totem poles on each side. U.S. Forest Service Architect Linn A. Forrest designed the sixteen frogs breakers. In 1938, the Civilian Conservation Corps developed the Saxman Totem Park. The program was part of a larger U.S. Forest Service effort to employ Alaska Natives and conserve totems and Native cultural assets. Many of the poles that the CCC recovered from abandoned villages were found in an advanced state...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) carved the Yax-te Totem, as part of a restoration program that lasted approximately between 1938 and 1942. The program was part of a larger U.S. Forest Service effort to employ Alaska Natives and conserve totems and Native cultural assets. U.S. Forest Service architect Linn A. Forrest oversaw the joint program of the Forest Service and the CCC throughout Southeast Alaska. The Yax-te Totem, also known as the Big Dipper Totem, was carved by Frank St. Clair, who was a Tlingit carver from Hoonah, and two CCC enrollees circa 1939-1941. In the early 1990s, after it was damaged...