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Volume 7, Number 32 | September 17, 2015

Totem pole finds a home By Lynn Burton Sopris Sun Staff Writer

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It took Donnie Lente, of the Silt-based Native American Crane Company, less than an hour to place KDNK’s new totem pole on Tuesday morning. The 2,000-pound work of art is anchored in place by a 350-pound steel rod, set in six-feet of concrete. KDNK is located at 76. S. Second St. Photo by Jane Bachrach

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ccording to websites, indigenous people of the northwest and into Canada carved totem poles for a variety of reasons, including welcoming signs for village visitors, mortuary vessels for the remains of deceased ancestors or as a means to publicly ridicule someone. Community access radio station KDNK officials are no doubt ruling out reasons two and three for their new totem pole ownership, after setting the 17-foot tall sculpture into place on Tuesday morning to welcome one and all. But wouldn’t a simple “welcome sign” have done the trick? Not if you’re station manager Steve Skinner. Here’s the story behind KDNK’s new totem pole. Skinner told The Sopris Sun he first saw the pole in a garage while he was helping a friend move four or five years ago. “But the totem pole came back in my mind” during this summer’s extensive landscaping project, he said. Skinner tracked down the sculptor, John Doyle, whom he’d known in the 1980s and asked him “do you still have it?” Doyle said “Yea.” Doyle’s totem poles are mostly found upvalley. An Aspen area resident commissioned Doyle to carve this totem pole several years ago, and paid several thousand dollars for it in advance, but never picked it up. “He said he didn’t know what to do with it,” Skinner continued. Brief negotiations ensued, then Doyle repainted the totem pole and donated it to the station. He carved the totem pole from an Engelmann spruce brought down from the Flat Tops north of Glenwood Springs. A beetle epidemic on the Flat Tops killed thousands of the trees in the 1950s. Websites also say totem poles are not religious objects, but they do communicate important aspects of native culture. The carvings may symbolize or commemorate cultural beliefs that recount familiar legends, clan lineages or notable events. The KDNK totem pole apparently diverges from traditional designs. “There’s some Tibetan Buddhism …. Hindu … Native American (carvings) … It’s multi-ethnic and a gift to the community,” Skinner said. For more on the totem pole and its dedication, visit kdnk.org.

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