11-foot totem pole, carved in Everett, took 35 years to make — or 650

Published 6:30 am Thursday, May 9, 2024

EVERETT — A piece of Everett some 650 years in the making will soon make its way to Alaska.

In January, local Tlingit artist Fred Fulmer began carving an 11-foot, 400-pound totem pole at his north Everett home for the Petersburg Indian Association, a tribe in Southeast Alaska.

On Saturday, he will send it off in a bittersweet celebration with neighbors, family and friends in his backyard.

Together, they will sing, feast and bid a tearful goodbye to the pole, made out of old growth 650-year-old red cedar, with 26 rings per inch. The wood was harvested from a Washington forest. It’s bound for a barge that will take it to Alaska, a voyage that takes a week or more.

Fulmer, who is affiliated with the Chookaneidee Clan in Alaska, learned to carve 35 years ago.

One aspiration guided Fulmer there — to help restore one of his great-grandfather’s totem poles if it ever needed a repair.

In 1941, his great-grandfather, Frank St. Sinclair Sr., carved a 47-foot totem pole for the Auke Village Recreation Area in Juneau.

Whenever Fulmer would visit, he took care of the totem pole, one of the oldest on record in the region, by cleaning it and weeding the ground nearby with his family.

But because of deterioration, the U.S. Forest Service had it taken down.

In 2015, Fulmer texted his nephew. He was about to return to Juneau for a month-long vacation.

The nephew told him that Wayne Price, a Tlingit master carver, was restoring the totem pole, then 74 years old. Fulmer offered his help, fulfilling his original goal.

Fulmer said his ancestors guided him to this opportunity and continue to guide him now.

“That’s how it works for me,” he said. “Because when I was working on this, I could appeal to the ancestors.”

The new carving Fulmer is sending off to Alaska is an informational pole — it doesn’t represent a specific tribe but more generally life in Southeast Alaskan waters.

Starting at the bottom and moving up the pole, Fulmer carved a halibut, a wolf, a killer whale, a seal, a salmon and a thunderbird. The animals alternate direction to give a sense of balance.

He made the totem pole in the Tlingit style, as seen in the color palette and the way he carved the eyes. The rugged texture is his distinctive touch.

While carving the 11-foot pole, Fulmer struggled with the thunderbird’s wings, having never worked on a project with wings before.

Early one morning, he woke up, not fully awake, and the answer popped into his mind.

“I went to bed pondering the solution,” Fulmer said. “The mind doesn’t rest.”

When Fulmer is stuck like this, he leans back in his chair and meditates. Once he finds a solution, he goes back to the wood.

He doesn’t extensively plan before carving. For this pole, he made a small clay model outlining the animals. It’s just silhouettes, no fine details.

He figures out solutions to obstacles as they arise. Fulmer calls that “finding my way.”

When he’s in a flow state, he likes working on multiple sections of the pole at the same time.

His passion can absorb him for hours, only realizing once he calls it a day that a “Seahawks game has gone by.”

In 1989, Fulmer heard about Ray Nielsen teaching carving at the Edmonds Senior Center. When they met, they realized they were related, from the same clan. Nielsen taught Fulmer for about a year and a half before he died.

Often, people ask Fulmer how long it takes him to carve and paint a pole.

Fulmer sees each of his works as the culmination of years honing his craft. So, in that sense, this one took 35 years.

But carving is a demanding passion. With four children and 11 grandchildren, it was only four years ago that Fulmer made it his full-time job. Before that, he worked as an oiler for the ferry systems in Washington and Alaska.

He is also teaching one of his sons to carve.

When the totem pole leaves Saturday, Fulmer will still have one in his backyard.

On this 16-foot pole, Fulmer carved an ancestor counseling a shaman on a mountaintop.

“This totem pole is representing all the spiritual guardians over time,” he said. “They figured about 12,000 years we’ve been around.”

A few years ago, a windstorm destroyed his yard. The totem was intact.

Aina de Lapparent Alvarez: 425-339-3449; aina.alvarez@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @Ainadla.