Denny Leak slowly carves a killer whale totem out of a tree trunk last Thursday behind the Wrangell Cooperative Association cultural center. The totem will be one of two that will replace the old carvings that were mounted on posts around the Chief Shakes gravesite on Case Avenue. Brodie Gardner, who graduated high school on May 19, cleaned up the site by power washing and painting the surrounding fence and cleaning the stairs leading up to the site as part of her senior project. The previous whale carvings were rotting and falling apart. Leak said Richard Oliver had cut the log and outlined the totem. It's taken a couple of weeks to get this far in the carving, and Leak estimates it will take another couple months to finish.
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