Does another totem pole beckon Stockton?

Mysterious and beloved, a Tlingit totem pole stood on a knoll at Victory Park from the 1930s to 1999. It is surprising how many people still miss it.

When the Stockton Arts Commission held a workshop in 2017 to hear the public’s ideas on replacement artwork for the vacant knoll, many said, totem pole! Encore!

I can see why. The fascinating 46-foot pole was a message in a bottle from a remote, ancient tribe. The heads carved on that red cedar tree told Tlingit myths. But, well, a raven emerging from a whale’s mouth, what did it mean?

Rotted beyond repair, the inscrutable artifact was returned to the earth. That was that … until last week.

A Stocktonian, Ernest Tufts, visited Alaska Indian Art, Inc. in Haines, Alaska, — Tlingit territory, and the stomping grounds of Charlie Joe Tagcook (1875-1959), the master carver who created the totem pole in the 1920s for a Stockton auto dealer whose family later donated it to the city.

Meeting the center’s president, Lee Heinmiller, who works with native carvers, Tufts was surprised to learn the center had a file on the Stockton totem pole.

“He was completely familiar with the origin, history, and fate of Stockton’s 50’ tall totem pole in Victory Park,” Tufts writes.

“He says that they had proposed and planned a newly carved and dedicated replacement prior to Stockton’s bankruptcy. He is still very interested in completing this project.”

The cost: roughly $200,000, Tufts said.

If, like me, you just thought, “Full stop,” well, bear with me.

Heinmiller confirmed Tuft’s report when I called him in Alaska.

“When we first put the project together, we were working with the Tlingit tribal organization,” Heinmiller said. “The concept of the guy brokering the project was to replace that pole and get California gaming bands to pay for it.”

There are 18 California gaming bands. If each chipped in $10,000 — “That’s nothing for them,” Heinmiller said — the Stockton pole would be paid for.

Heinmiller’s idea was to carve most, but not all, of the pole in Alaska, using yellow cedar, a more durable wood than the red. Carvers would include direct descendants of Charlie Joe Tagcook.

Transporting the pole to Stockton, carvers would finish the work in public. Then would follow a big ceremonial dedication with tribal elders, traditional dancers and others in formal regalia, Native Americans from all over, as well as city officials and the public. A potlatch.

And the pole would not only be more durable but of better craftsmanship, Heinmiller said.

“I’m not saying the Stockton pole was a funky one, but all of his other work was nicer than that,” Heinmiller said of Tagcook.

Unfortunately, tribal leadership changed, Heinmiller said. The Stockton project fell apart. By then the center had invested about $5,000 laying the groundwork for the Stockton totem pole. So Heinmiller still is interested.

All of this, mind you, came in completely over the transom.

I’m used to it. City officials, not so much.

Still, I ran it by Lauren McColl, chair of the city’s Public Art Advisory Subcommittee — an architect, by the way, and not a city employee.

“The Public Art Advisory Committee has no knowledge of any plan or idea to replace the totem pole,” McColl said.

The city, however, soon will issue an “RFQ,” or request for qualifications from artists interested in creating an artwork for the Victory Park knoll, McColl said. In an RFQ the city verifies an artist’s bona fides before entertaining an art proposal from them.

“They could go through that process,” McColl said of Alaska Indian Art, Inc.

I asked Heinmiller if his outfit was interested.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I think it would be a great thing.”

Tufts agrees.

“On NextDoor the view is that Arts Commission will replace (the totem pole) with another obscure and meaningless art piece by second rate artist like has been put on waterfront downtown,” he writes.

NextDoor, a tough house.

To close, I’ll just add a factoid: “Transcending Vessels,” the public artwork under construction in north Stockton, has a price tag of $184,495.

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/fitzgeraldblog and on Twitter@Stocktonopolis.