If a totem pole falls in a St. Albert park, does anyone hear it?
“There hasn’t been much interest. No one seems to know that it’s not there anymore. There’s been no discussion about it,” said Roy Bedford.
The totem pole that Bedford referred to is presently lying on its side in pieces in the public works yard near the St. Albert grain elevators. On a grey winter’s day the bright reds and greens of the totem gleam somewhat artificially as drifts of snow cover the carved beaks and faces.
Bedford, who is the community recreation co-ordinator for the City of St. Albert, did what he could to investigate the origins of the totem pole when the rejuvenation of Lions Park began last year. He believes a renowned artist from British Columbia carved the totem pole 56 years ago but he cannot confirm it.
“When the Lions Park refurbishment project was underway, I found myself doing some research on the totem, using the oral history from the Lions Club, library and Internet. I found a number of interesting possibilities, but nothing was conclusive,” he said.
The provenance of the totem pole is incomplete, Bedford said, but the Host Lions members have an oral tradition that says about 25 years ago the totem came from the former Westmount Shopping Centre in Edmonton. The same tradition holds that at one time the totem pole had a thunderbird on top of it, but that is no longer there and no one knows where it went.
Bedford’s research revealed that in 1955 Woodward’s Stores commissioned Kwakwaka’wakw Ellen Neel, from Alert Bay on Vancouver Island, to carve five totem poles to celebrate the opening of the store.
“Some references say her family helped her. Neel, who died in 1966, is considered to be a carver/artist of significance within the totem, aboriginal and anthropology spheres,” Bedford said.
Bedford and City of St. Albert Visual Arts Co-ordinator Heidi Alther both tried to confirm that Neel carved the totem.
Alther sent photos of the totem to a person in British Columbia who specializes in studying totem poles, but that expert could not confirm its origins.
The confusion stems from the fact that it was a commercially used totem in a mall and no one is sure how the St. Albert Host Lions club acquired it.
“Woodwards closed in 1981. Books and various Internet references indicate that five or three of the totem poles were retuned to the coast in the 1980s and that Neel’s son Robert restored one that currently stands in Stanley Park. I have read a reference that one was provided to a service club in Edmonton, and I think that may be the St. Albert Host Lions Club,” Bedford said.
The totem consists of three pieces carved on three sides, with the back flat. This is consistent with photos of West Coast totems that Bedford studied.
“In St. Albert the three totems were mounted on one totem pole, which may have been inaccurate,” Bedford said.
The bright colours were another inaccuracy that confused the researcher in B.C., but Host Lions member Claude Carignan has an easy answer for that.
“About 10 years ago we helped the city with a toxic roundup event. We used the recycled paint and repainted the totem pole in about 20 different colours,” Carignan said.
“Looking at our pole, I think we have damaged goods,” Bedford said, adding that in addition, the cost to restore it, if it could be confirmed as an authentic Neel sculpture, would be in the thousands of dollars.
“It hasn’t been acquired as public art and it’s not even really an Edmonton artifact. It was a totem for a commercial outlet and a mall decoration. It was in the playground, and people will remember it, but it is not a historically significant artifact in St. Albert,” he said.
