The Message of the Sacred Sites Totem Pole

​By Ray Smock

​The Byrd Center was honored to assist members of the Lummi Nation, the Native Organizers Alliance, and the National Congress of American Indians, who conducted a webinar from the Center on September 27, 2022. The next day my wife Phyllis and I, along with the Byrd Center’s Director of Education and Outreach Jody Brumage,  attended the installation festivities at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in Shepherdstown, where the magnificent 25-foot tall Sacred Sites Totem Pole was officially received in a moving ceremony. The Lummi Nation House of Tears Carvers had earlier created totem poles for victims of September 11, 2001, which can be found in Washington, DC and in New York City.

Members of the House of Tears Carvers of the Lummi Nation lead a prayer at the presentation of the Sacred Sites Totem Pole.

This totem was created for President Joe Biden “to raise awareness of Indigenous sacred sites at risk from oil, gas, mining, and infrastructure projects.”  The totem was accepted on behalf of the President by the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland. The totem traveled more than 25,000 miles before reaching its final destination, stopping at eight endangered sacred sites: Snake River, Idaho; Bears Ears, Utah; Chaco Canyon, New Mexico; Black Hills, South Dakota, Missouri River, South Dakota, Standing Rock, North Dakota, White Earth, Minnesota and the Straits of Mackinac, Michigan.
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You can watch the dedication ceremony at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RSmE38DmUs

A detail view of the middle section of the Sacred Sites Totem Pole which depicts land and aquatic organisms in addition to human figures.

​The director of the NCTC, Steve Chase, in his opening remarks, began by acknowledging that the land on which the NCTC sits was once the home of many indigenous peoples including the Shawnee and the Delaware. Those who spoke stressed not only the need to protect sacred sites, but for all of us to be stewards of Earth.  Human activity has created a planetary crisis of global warming which affects every person and every nation. As I write this, we are learning of the awful devastation from Hurricane Ian, and I thought back to my own experiences on Pine Island in Florida, one of the places hardest hit.  That island too has a long history with indigenous peoples. Perhaps the highest ground on that island is the shell mounds built by the Calusa, the dominant people of South Florida for many centuries. I wonder if that place is still recognizable.

Ray Smock (left) with Doug James, one of the carvers of the totem.

​Whenever I visit the National Conservation Training Center I will always stop long enough to place my hand on this magnificent pole, carved from a 400-year old tree, and reflect on the opportunity I had to be there for the dedication, to meet members of the Lummi Nation, especially Doug James, one of the carvers, and other members of his family, including a most delightful and engaging four-year old. But most of all, I will remember the message this totem brings from representatives of this continent’s first inhabitants, that we humans are a part of nature, not apart from it. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we will be able to save the only home of us all, the place that is heaven, if we can keep it so.