Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, New York, USA

Note:

The present model pole is made after a widely depicted and iconic ʼYalis (Alert Bay) pole currently in the collections of the U’mista Cultural Centre, and once on display in Chicago's Lincoln Park.

While the history of the pole from the time of its 1926 arrival in Chicago is relatively well documented, its early history is enshrouded in mis-information and numerous conflicting identifications. Acquired in 1926 by James L. Kraft (founder of Kraft Foods Inc) it was installed in Lincoln Park in Chicago until being removed in the 1980s and replaced with a pole carved by Tony Hunt, Tony Hunt Jr. and John Livingston.

Early identifications of the U’mista Cultural Centre pole vary. Anthropologist and ethnographer Marius Barbeau seems to be referring to the U’mista pole when he describes and recounts the history of the "Kwaw'yim" or "Whale House Portal Pole" in his two volume 1964 work Totem Poles, with the aid of Kwakwaka'wakw elder Daniel Canmer. In 1947 Cranmer identifies the pole as having been carved ca. 1900-1905 by its owner Chief L'akwagyilaw. Notably the L'akwagyilaw pole stood in Alert Bay alongside the Thunderbird House Pole of Chief Wakius, from which lot two in the present auction is derived.

During the period were the U’mista pole was displayed in Chicago it was routinely identified erroneously as "Kwa Ma Rolas", possibly having being conflated with another pole, “K’wamaxalas” also collected by Kraft. The museum of Vancouver currently identifies the U’mista pole as "Kwanu’sila", however period photographic documentation in the collections of the University of Washington Libraries, and Royal British Columbia Museum identify it variously as the pole of “Chief Klakwagila, of Kingcom Inlet", and as belonging to the house of "Hitlamas" of the "'Namgis family – Tlakoglas." James Kraft's own records note it as belonging to a Chief "Waxawidi".

Notably the pole appears to have been painted (presumably in-situ) by Emily Carr in the 1909, documented in the painting An Indian Village, and later in the 1912 painting Totem Pole.

Jay Steward, Peter L. MacNair Et al., To the Totem Forests: Emily Carr and Contemporaries Interpret Coastal Villages, (Vancouver: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1999), 19.
Marius Barbeau, Totem Poles, (Ottawa: Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources, National Museum of Canada, 1964), 289, 668, pl. 412.
Museum of Vancouver, Open Collections: Photograph, Kwa̱nu’sila Pole, Chicago, c. 1920, accessed, 9 September 2026, https://openmovportal.ca/argus/final/Portal/Main.aspx?component=AAFG&record=a8e83ca1-c56f-44bb-bfbe-472201cddb2f


The present lot is one of six model totem poles in the current auction from an important upstate New York collection. Poles in this collection are united by their rarity, large scale, age, and original unrestored surfaces.

The collection was acquired privately from collectors and dealers over thirty years of focused pursuit. Acquisitions were driven by a passion for hand made objects and their connection to the land, a life-long interest in First Nations traditions, and meaningful ties of friendship and family the collector has with Canada. The six exceptional model totem poles in the collection represent a meaningful cross-section of the golden age of wooden model totem pole carving in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.