Ketchikan | Repatriation

In 1899, five years after the Cape Fox Tlingit moved from their remote village into Saxman for schooling and religious instruction, Edward Harriman and a swarm of scientists sailed through Southeast Alaska and stopped at Cape Fox to have a look around. It appeared to them that the village was abandoned, so in the name of preservation, they purloined a few things. The artifacts they took from the village-a clan house, four totem poles and four house posts- wound up in museums and private collections across the US. Since then, in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, all but one totem pole have been returned to the Cape Fox people.