Wood chips flew through the air, adding to the piles of shavings now littering the rain-spattered concrete at Archbishop Murphy High School.
The soft morning rain had abated just enough to let rays of sunshine spill onto the 12-foot hunk of wood laying by the empty football field. Hands wielding adzes, chisels and mallets pounded away at the wood grain.
Come fall, the field would dazzle under Friday night lights and the log would be a nearly completed healing pole, reminding the campus of what it overcame together.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools in spring 2020, it took away students’ chances at a normal high school experience.
“We got to know each other over screens,” said Solomon Perera, a junior at Archbishop Murphy. “I met all my classmates over Zoom, but here, in real life, it’s different.”
Archbishop Murphy students (from left) Logan Kendrick, Solomon Perera and Noah Jimenez put their backs into their work. About 20 students from Roger Brodniak’s APUSH class gathered to help make progress on the artwork. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Roger Brodniak, the school’s AP U.S. History teacher, brought his class of juniors outside to work off some stress on their last day of school before final exams. His students crowded the log, eager to get their hands on the array of metal-tipped tools.
In fall 2020, his students, then freshmen, had started high school virtually. No pep rallies, sporting events or tangible sense of community.
“It was so isolating,” one student muttered from the back of the group, as others reflected on the previous three years.
When the students returned to campus, Principal Alicia Mitchell wanted to do something — something big, hands-on and experiential — that could bring students back together, forging a new sense of community no longer separated by screens or six feet of distance.
‘We’re on Native lands’
The school sits nestled in a cedar grove northeast of Mill Creek. It has about 450 students, 11 of whom are Tulalip tribal members. Two of those students are the sons of James Madison, a Tulalip and Tlingit tribal member who has gained national recognition as a master carver.
Madison already spent a good deal of time on campus, volunteering with the football team, so Mitchell called him up with an idea.
“We’re coming out of COVID and asking, ‘How do we build community and bring everybody back together when our experience was so disjointed for the last few years?’” Mitchell said. “We wanted to create something together while teaching kids about Coast Salish art and Native American traditions.”
Madison jumped at the proposal.
AP U.S. History students from Roger Brodniak’s class at Archbishop Murphy High School take turns using adzes and chisels. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
“We’re on Native lands,” Madison said. “I thought it’d be cool to have a healing pole for these seniors and juniors coming up and to bring the culture to the campus, to bring my culture here.”
No one knows who carved the first totem poles, but careful examination of the records from early European explorers to the Northwest Coast suggests that totem poles were in evidence when their first ships arrived more than 200 years ago, according to author and researcher Vickie Jensen.
One of the oldest written accounts comes from Chief William Shelton, the last hereditary chief of the Tulalip Tribes.
Shelton, born in 1869, was famed for his work on totem poles. One of Shelton’s poles still stands outside of the Totem Family Diner in Everett, depicting his tribe’s legends in wooden imagery for more than a century now.
The poles hold the stories of their people, Shelton wrote in his 1923 book “The Story of the Totem Pole.”
“It is hoped that the stories as well as the Pole will stand as a monument to a vanishing race and that they will help our white friends to understand a little of the Indian’s beliefs in spirits or totem,” Shelton wrote in his book.
Master woodcarver James Madison squats next to the in-progress healing pole. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Madison, who began carving at age 5 with his grandfather, said his traditions today stem from Shelton’s work.
So Madison, Mitchell and the Archbishop Murphy community decided to craft their own pole, not bearing Indigenous totems, but bearing the healing story of their journey together through the pandemic.
The gnarled log would become a wildcat, the school’s mascot, poised and ready to leap.
Mitchell hopes to unveil the pole in 2024, displaying it in the school’s courtyard.
“Indigenous people have been misrepresented and underrepresented for more than a century,” said Mytyl Hernandez, the museum manager for the Hibulb Cultural Center. “(This) is a way for us to be represented in our community and in local communities.”
‘A physical connection’
On June 13, their last day of school, students gathered around the hunk of wood that would soon be a physical representation of their resilience.
Students hollered and clapped for their peers as chunks splintered off the log, landing in pooling rain puddles. Madison, who had been coming to the school three times per week to teach the students how to carve, picked up an adze.
“Don’t swing it toward you,” Madison instructed, demonstrating how to wield the curved blade.
He grinned as the students caught on, lining up to try.
One of those students was Cory Maxwell, a Tulalip tribal member. Each day, Maxwell commutes to Archbishop Murphy from the reservation.
“Seeing this process, seeing my classmates join in, brings a physical connection to Tulalip here on campus,” Maxwell said.
Wood shavings from chainsaw cuts blanket the work-in-process healing pole outside Archbishop Murphy High School. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Tentatively at first, Maxwell swung the adze. As the tool became comfortable in his hand, he swung harder, brow furrowing as he worked through a knot in the swirling red grain. Next to him, classmates pounded mallets into chisels to break away larger chunks.
“This is great for any pent-up emotions,” said Georgia Franck, a junior who’d just handed the adze off to a friend. “But more than that, it gives us the chance to explore other cultures.”
“Schools are rooted in where they’re located, and it’s the people who make school diverse,” Franck continued. “This project allows for teaching that isn’t super prevalent in suburban Everett.”
A few feet away, Madison’s voice rang out.
Archbishop Murphy High School facilities staffer Tani Tupou (left) and artist James Madison use steel poles to slide a 12-foot healing pole back under cover. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Hit it “kind of like a drum,” Madison instructed, “like we’re trying to make some music — get the rhythm going.”
Mitchell grinned, watching the students intently. She said she hopes that when the students come back in a few years — as alumni who’ve gone off to pursue the colleges they would no doubt tour this summer — they’d see the healing pole and remember the power of community and perseverance.
“It’s a cool way to leave your mark,” Maxwell said, setting down the adze.
Sound & Summit
This article is featured in the fall issue of Sound & Summit, a supplement of The Daily Herald. Explore Snohomish and Island counties with each quarterly magazine. Each issue is $4.99. Subscribe to receive all four editions for $18 per year. Call 425-339-3200 or go to soundsummitmagazine.com for more information.
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