NORTHEASTERN OREGON
Thursday, February 24, 2022
East Oregonian
A7
Refl ections on the John Day totem pole
Spouse of artist
who carved the
pole pushes for
better location,
cleaning
TOTEM POLE
SYMBOLS
The John Day totem pole is
adorned with four stylized
animal carvings, each with
its own symbolic meaning.
Eagle: The Great Spirit
Fish: The food of life
Turtle: Eternal life
Beaver: The Great Builder
By BENNETT HALL
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY — The years
have not been kind to the
John Day totem pole.
A quarter-century of wind
and rain, sun and snow have
taken a toll on the local land-
mark, leaving its once-bright
wood darkened, weathered
and cracked.
That doesn’t sit well with
Margot Heiniger-White, the
widow of Ralph White, the
Canyon City chainsaw artist
who carved the pole.
“I would like that totem
pole cleaned up,” she said.
And she’s not crazy about
the location, either, tucked
between a telephone pole and
a two-story building just off
the city’s main drag.
“It’s not a very good place
for it because nobody can
see it,” she said. “It’s in a bad
spot.”
Bennett Hall/Blue Mountain Eagle
Bennett Hall/Blue Mountain Eagle
The John Day totem pole is showing its age, but the city has plans to clean it up and refi nish it this spring. There also are dis-
cussions about possibly moving it to a more prominent location.
The totem pole’s unprotect-
ed wood has been badly
weathered by the elements.
Location, location
Truth be told, it really is
an odd place for a totem pole.
Standing 50 feet tall
and weighing in at 18,000
pounds, the towering tama-
rack spar is topped by an
eagle with a 20-foot wing-
span. Below the eagle are
three more carved fi gures: a
salmon, a turtle and a beaver.
It’s perched atop a
concrete footing at the inter-
section of Main and Dayton
streets, at the east end of
downtown John Day.
Yet despite its imposing
size and central location, the
totem pole is surprisingly
easy to overlook.
Driving down Main Street
from the east, the totem pole
is hidden behind the impos-
ing bulk of the Grant County
Ranch and Rodeo Museum.
Coming from the west, the
view is partially obscured by
a telephone pole.
And why is there a totem
pole in John Day at all?
Grant County doesn’t
have much of a Native Amer-
ican presence these days —
according to the 2020 census,
only 1.7% of the county’s
residents identify as Native
American or Alaska Native.
Perhaps more to the
point, Oregon tribes didn’t
carve totem poles. That was
something the coastal tribes
of what is now Washington,
British Columbia and South-
east Alaska were known for.
So what’s it doing here?
The answer to that ques-
tion comes back to Ralph
White.
Mountain Man
Ralph White died on Jan.
28, 2018, at the age of 79.
In life, by all accounts, he
was a colorful character.
He wore a bushy beard
and a bearclaw necklace, and
he called himself the Moun-
tain Man.
According to an article by
C.J. Gish in the July 20, 1995,
edition of the Blue Mountain
Eagle, he made his living
for many years as a chain-
saw artist. White had a love
for the Old West and Native
American art forms — and a
knack for turning tree trunks
into animal fi gures.
“My saw is like an instru-
ment, like a banjo or guitar,
and it’s music to my ears,” he
told the newspaper. “When
I look at a log, I know it’s
going to be an eagle or a fi sh.
They’re there and I just have
to release them.”
His biggest production
to date was a carved entry-
way for the Baker City Truck
Corral, which featured two
25-foot poles supporting a
60-foot crossbeam, the arti-
cle said, but he planned to top
that with the John Day totem
pole — at 50 feet tall, it would
be the biggest in Oregon.
The article doesn’t say
anything about the motiva-
tion for the totem pole project
other than to mention it was
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Ralph White, a.k.a. the Mountain Man, pilots a horseless carriage in the ‘62 Days Parade in this fi le
photo from Aug. 10, 2013.
Bennett Hall/Blue Mountain Eagle
Passing motorists can have a hard time seeing the John
Day totem pole. Driving down Main Street from the east, a
two-story building blocks the view of the pole, while from
the west a telephone pole partially obscures it.
being carved for the Straw-
berry Wilderness Fine Art
Gallery, a business that no
longer exists. The only other
record of it in the newspa-
per’s fi les from that time is
a photo of the fi nished pole
lying on the side of Dayton
Street, about to be hoisted
into place by a crane.
Margot Heiniger-White’s
memories of the pole’s carv-
ing have faded a bit with the
years.
In an interview with the
newspaper, she remembered
that there had been some sort
of an arrangement with a man
who owned a store to place
the totem pole near his busi-
ness because “the land was
free.” She couldn’t remem-
ber the man’s last name but
thought his fi rst name might
have been Ray. And she
couldn’t remember the name
of the business.
But some of her recollec-
tions are crystal-clear, even
26 years after the fact.
She remembers the bright
glow of the tamarack after
Ralph White fi nished carv-
ing it.
“It was the most beautiful
wood you have ever seen,”
she said, eyes shining with
the memory. “It should have
been spar-varnished at the
time to preserve the color,
but it wasn’t.”
And she remembers
exactly why her husband
carved it.
“He carved it as a tribute
to Chief Raymond Burke.”
Personal connection
Raymond “Popcor n”
Burke died on June 27, 2006.
In 1995 he was the chief
of the Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation, which lies
between Pendleton and La
Grande and is home to the
Umatilla, Walla Walla and
Cayuse nations.
And he was Ralph White’s
friend.
A s He i n ige r-W h it e
remembers it, her husband
had a genuine affinity for
Native American culture and
traditions that was refl ected
in his art. And he wanted to
do something to honor his
friend.
“He had such a deep
respect for the Native Amer-
ican people and respect for
Chief Raymond Burke.”
An article that appeared
in the Dec. 3, 1995, Seat-
tle Times fi lls in some more
blank spots in the totem
pole’s story.
Wr i t t e n b y C a r ol
Command for Pendleton’s
East Oregonian newspaper,
the article says the pole had
its genesis as a promotional
gimmick.
As Command tells the
tale, Ray Potter, owner of the
Strawberry Wilderness Fine
Art Gallery, was looking for
something to attract custom-
ers to the gallery’s new loca-
tion just off Main Street in
John Day, and he asked his
artist friend Ralph White for
advice.
White’s suggestion: “A
totem pole; it stops ‘em every
time.”
Once the idea was
hatched, several things came
together neatly to make it
a reality: A local logger
provided the massive tama-
rack trunk, the local Ford
dealership provided the land
and the local electric utility
agreed to set the nine-ton
pole in place — all at no cost.
The story goes on to talk
about the historical connec-
tion between the people of
the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation and the John Day area
— as remembered by Chief
Raymond Burke. As a boy
in the 1930s, Burke recalled
bringing his grandmother
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and other female elders
to the area, which he said
had served for more than a
century as a place for tribes
from throughout the region
to gather for trade.
“Burke honored White
and Potter with Indian
names, and the carving of
the pole and its blessing cere-
mony drew many support-
ers,” the article states. “To
further sanction the event,
the three friends and the town
fathers smoked a pipe beside
the ancient tamarack’s new
home.”
Making history
A plaque at the base of
the pole commemorates the
event.
“Erected August 21,
1995,” it reads. “This totem
pole is a symbol of friendship
and peace from all of Grant
County to Raymond Burke
and all of the Umatilla-Walla
Walla-Cayuse Tribe who
lived here before us.”
Chris Labhart remembers
that day. He was mayor at the
time, and he was one of the
honored guests in attendance
at the blessing ceremony.
The intersection was
closed to traffi c for the occa-
sion, he said, and the weather
was perfect. He remembers
tribal members in cere-
monial regalia, and Native
American drummers play-
ing their instruments. Several
people spoke, including a
tribal historian who talked
about his people’s traditional
connection to John Day.
After that, a dozen or
more people got up and stood
in a circle, including Labhart,
White, Burke and a number
of tribal members.
“We passed a peace pipe
around,” Labhart said. “Each
of us took a toke off the pipe
and passed it around.”
He agrees with Heini-
ger-White that the totem
pole is in need of some seri-
ous TLC.
“It’s in pretty bad shape,”
Labhart said. “It probably
needs to be pressure-washed,
maybe patched up a little.”
And he also thinks she’s
right when she says it ought
to be moved.
“A lot of people don’t even
know it’s there because of its
location.”
Next chapter
In December, Heini-
ger-White took her concerns
about the totem pole to John
Day’s current mayor, Ron
Lundbom. He heard her
out, then he went to see for
himself — and found he
agreed with her.
“It needs something
done,” he said. “I stopped
by and looked at it, and it
defi nitely has seen its better
days.”
Lundbom brought the
matter up at a City Council
meeting, and the consen-
sus was that the city should
pay to have the pole cleaned
up and sealed with oil or
varnish. The mayor esti-
mates the work could be done
for about $500 or so, and the
plan is to do it this spring.
He also thinks Heini-
ger-White has a point when
she says the totem pole needs
a new home.
“I all but forgot about it
— I walk by it every day,
but I didn’t really notice it
anymore,” Lundbom said.
“We talked about moving
it to a more prominent loca-
tion, but the problem is
where?”
Heiniger-White, as you
might expect, has some
thoughts on that subject.
“I think it needs to be
somewhere it can be seen,”
she said. “And the place I
would like to see it put is at
the entrance to John Day.”
Specifically, she thinks
it should be relocated to the
small patch of city-owned
land by the bridge over
Canyon Creek at the corner
of Main and Third Streets.
Labhart says he’s not sure
that’s the best spot. He points
out that while the totem pole
might catch the eye of pass-
ing motorists at that location,
there’s no place for them to
park if they want to get out of
their cars and admire it.
A bet ter place, he
suggests, might be the Pit
Stop, another city-owned
property on the site of the
former Wright Chevro-
let dealership at Main and
Canton. Or maybe one block
north on Canton, where the
Oregon Department of Parks
and Recreation is planning a
multimillion-dollar expan-
sion of the Kam Wah Chung
State Heritage Site?
“To me, it would make
more sense to put it in that
new state park,” Labhart
said. “It’s not Chinese, but
it’s part of the culture …
(and) a lot of people would
see it.”
U l t i m a t el y, He i n i -
ger-White wants to do right
by the totem pole. She thinks
that’s what the man who
carved it — her late husband,
Ralph White — would want
if he were here to speak for
himself.
“I feel strongly that I am
the messenger for him,” she
said, “because he’s passed on.”