9 Best Sights in Juneau, the Inside Passage, and Southeast Alaska, Alaska

This center devoted to Alaska Native art, culture, and language is operated by Sealaska Heritage Institute and named for a local Tlingit elder who died at age 102 in 2011. It includes an exhibits gallery, a traditional clan house, research areas, and a shop selling work by Northwest Coast artists. The building's three major public art pieces—exterior red metal panels, a carved cedar house front in the lobby, and a modern glass screen in the clan house—were created by three of the top Northwest Coast artists in the world (Robert Davidson, David A. Boxley, and Preston Singletary), and represent the three Indigenous tribes of Southeast Alaska—Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit, respectively. The art pieces also highlight the center's dual role in honoring tradition while remaining forward-facing and contemporary. Across the street, also clad in Davidson's red formline design, is a second building that hosts classes, apprenticeships, and work spaces for artists. One of the first projects completed at the site—the state's only 360-degree totem pole, representing Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian core cultural values and carved by Haida artist TJ Young—stands in the plaza out front.

About a quarter of the Ketchikan bus tours include this park that contains many totem poles and has a hand-hewn Native clan house. Totem Bight sits on a scenic spit of land facing the waters of Tongass Narrows. Master Native carvers crafted the first replica poles here as part of a U.S. Forest Service program that began in the late 1930s. The tools the carvers used were handmade in the Native style, and modern paints were employed to re-create colors originally made using natural substances from clamshells to lichen. The clan house, open daily in summer, was built to resemble a type that might have held several related families. Note the raven painting on the front: each eye contains a small face. Try to save time for a stop at nearby Potlatch Totem Park as well.

A footbridge from the bottom of Shakes Street provides access to this small island in the center of Wrangell's protected harbor. The Tribal House, constructed in 1940 as a replica of the original 19th-century structure, was completely restored by local carvers in 2012 and 2013, as were the surrounding totem poles. The interior of the building can be viewed for a fee through the Wrangell Cooperative Association.

Buried here is Shakes V, who led the local Tlingit during the first half of the 19th century. A white picket fence surrounds the grave, and two killer-whale totem poles mark his resting spot, which overlooks the harbor.

The Kiks.ádi Totem, one of several in the park, bears crests owned by the clan and other animal figures, including a frog, a beaver, and a raven. The totem is a replica carved in 1987.

Constructed in 1972 to resemble a traditional Tsimshian longhouse, this cedar structure serves as a gathering place for community events. Two totem poles stand in the back of the building, and a Northwest Coast design featuring the four Tsimshian clans—Raven, Eagle, Killer Whale, and Wolf—covers the front.

Walk along the waterfront and several forested paths to view striking examples of the monumental art form of totem pole carving, which is indigenous to Northwest Coast tribes. In addition to the totems, highlights include a carving shed where you can watch artists continue the work of their ancestors, a tribal house, and a large gift shop showcasing a wide range of authentic Native art. Also on the property are an antique car museum and antique firearm museum. Located adjacent to Totem Bight State Historical Park, Potlatch Park is 10 minutes north of town.

A 2½-mile paved walking path and bike trail parallels the road from Ketchikan to Saxman Native Village, named for a missionary who drowned while helping Native Alaskans establish a new settlement in the area in 1886. A totem park dominates the center of Saxman, with poles representing clan crest figures, including bears, ravens, whales, and eagles. Saxman's Beaver Clan tribal house, which features a painted house screen by master carvers Nathan Jackson and Lee Wallace, is said to be the largest in Alaska. Carvers still create totem poles and totemic art objects in the adjacent carver's shed. You can visit the totem park on your own (on foot or by taxi, bicycle, or city bus), but to visit the tribal house and theater you must take a tour; book through Cape Fox Lodge.

Gathered from Tlingit and Haida village sites, many of the Native totems in the center's collection are well over a century old—a rare age for cedar carvings, which are eventually lost to decay in Southeast's exceedingly wet climate. Other work by Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian artists is also on display inside the facility, and outside stand several more poles carved in the three decades since it opened. The center offers guided tours and hosts classes, workshops, and seminars related to Northwest Coast Native art and culture.