06/24/2026
It’s been a week. We’ve seen a lot of disrespect shown to our sacred totems in Kootéeyaa Deiyí (Totem Pole Trail) in recent days. This latest photo was posted on a Juneau page on Tuesday.
We’ve obscured the faces of the people in the photo, because it’s not our intent to shame anyone—rather we want to educate the public about what totem poles mean to the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people. We had the totem poles made to welcome visitors to our land, and we never assumed that they would be desecrated.
Kootéeyaa (totem poles) are sacred objects that represent a spiritual relationship between Native Peoples and their ancestors, land, and environment. Climbing on the kootéeyaa or hugging them is disrespectful. The crests depicted on these poles are important symbols of Native identity and our culture.
In the past two weeks there have been videos of (presumably) tourists dancing in circles in a primitive ritualistic manner. The people in the videos attempt to justify their offensive behavior by claiming they were imitating a humorous scene from a Hollywood movie (the scene itself was an inaccurate stereotype of Tlingit culture). Alaska Native people are not opposed to humor or having fun, however, the community has been working hard to move beyond 200 years of genocide, oppression, and very hurtful stereotypes of Indigenous culture. For the past decade, the community of Juneau has embraced Native culture, art, and academic endeavors.
We respectfully ask the community to help in educating our guests and the visitor industry about the significance of these kootéeyaa and help us prevent desecration of these sacred objects. We also thank those who have spoken out in opposition to the disrespectful behavior.
Gunalchéesh.
