Saxman Native Village & Totem Park

Top choice in Ketchikan


On South Tongass Hwy, 2.5 miles south of Ketchikan, is this incorporated Tlingit village of 475 residents. It's best known for Saxman Totem Park, which holds 24 totem poles from abandoned villages around the Southeast, restored or recarved in the 1930s. Among them is a replica of the Lincoln Pole (the original is in the Alaska State Museum in Juneau), which was carved in 1883, using a picture of Abraham Lincoln as a reference, to commemorate the first sighting of white people.

You can wander around the Totem Park on your own or, by prior appointment (and an extra $32), join an Alaska Native–led two-hour village tour. Tours, which usually include a traditional drum-and-dance performance, a narrated tour of the totems and a visit to the carving shed, are heavily tailored to cruise-ship groups and can be hit and miss. There are several a day in peak season


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