The Wrangell Sentinel has a new front-page masthead and logo, honoring the history and culture of the Tlingit people.
The new logo incorporates a representation of the Bear Up The Mountain Totem, with permission of the Naanya.aayi' clan.
The new artwork replaces a different totem that had been part of the Sentinel for more than 50 years until last fall when it was deleted from the newspaper logo at the request of the clan.
Bear Up The Mountain tells the story of how a bear led villagers up a nearby mountain to safety from flood waters.
"That bear is what saved us all from the flood and how we descendants are still alive," said DaNika-Rae Smalley, of the Naanya.aayi' clan. "My understanding is that we feasted on the bear once we were safely above the flood waters and we thanked him for saving our people and sacrificing himself to feed our people."
The Sentinel wanted to include a part of Tlingit history in the newspaper's logo to recognize the rich culture, said publisher Larry Persily.
"We were looking for the right image to use, when several people last fall suggested the Bear Up The Mountain Totem."
The bear is one of the oldest crests of the Naanya.aayi' clan, explained historian and carver Mike Aak'wtaatseen Hoyt, of the Teehítaan clan.
"A lot of clans have different crests ... for the mountains they went up during the flood," he explained.
Hoyt and his team are carving a replica of the bear totem, working at the WCA carving shed on Front Street, and plan to have it ready to raise this summer.
A version of the Bear Up The Mountain Totem still exists at Old Town, or Old Wrangell, about 13 miles south of town. "You could walk right by it," the pole is so overgrown with vegetation, Hoyt said. "You can kind of make out what's there."
A newer version of the pole was carved in the 1830s and was installed in front of Chief Shakes House but was damaged in the U.S. Army 1869 bombardment of the Native village.
Another replica was carved and raised in 1940 under a federal Civilian Conservation Corps program administered by the U.S. Forest Service.
And then in 1987, a new bear was carved for the top of the 1940 pole, Hoyt recalled, explaining that horizontal wood pieces atop poles tend to deteriorate faster than the pole itself.
The new one that is being worked on this winter will be 18 feet tall, with a 7-foot-long bear at the top. One slight change from the most recent replica is that the bear is going to be in more of a pouncing, crouched position rather than its head looking straight down
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