Carve Your Own Totem Pole by Wayne Hill and James McKee.
Boston Mills Press, 2007.
$24.95; 132 pp.

So you want to carve your own totem pole. This book will give you ideas for creating a personal totem pole using traditional designs or a more folk-art look. Carve Your Own Totem Pole looks at the history of the West Coast native carvings and provides techniques and patterns using historic and modern tools. The book also explains the meanings of figures, how to paint your totem pole and where to display it. Before you jump into working on a totem pole, you might want to try one of the mask designs also included in the book.

For an immediate look at totem pole art, take a look at our feature on totem pole carver Tommy Josephs and another feature on Canada’s native carving traditions.