In 1985, photographer and writer Vickie Jensen spent three months with Nisga?a artist Norman Tait and his crew of young carvers as they transformed a raw cedar log into a forty-two-foot totem pole for the BC Native Education Centre. Having spent years recovering the traditional knowledge that informed his carving, Tait taught his crew to make their own tools, carve, and design regalia, and together they practiced traditional stories and songs for the pole-raising ceremony.
Totem Pole Carving shares two equally rich stories: the step-by-step work of carving and the triumph of Tait teaching his crew the skills and traditions necessary to create a massive cultural artifact. Jensen captures the atmosphere of the carving shed?the conversations and problem-solving, the smell of fresh cedar chips, the adzes and chainsaws, the blistered hands, the tension-relieving humor, the ever-present awareness of tradition, and the joy of creation. Generously illustrated with 125 striking photographs, and originally published as Where the People Gather, this second edition features a new preface from Jensen and an updated, lifetime-spanning survey of Tait's major works.

Vickie Jensen has built her writing career around the importance of documenting and validating work. As editor of Westcoast Mariner magazine she travelled on coastal tugs, charter yachts, dredges, ferries and water taxis for nearly four years, interviewing skippers, crews and owners about maritime work. She is the author of Saltwater Women at Work and Working nese Waters, and coauthor of the children's book Build Your Own Underwater Robot and Other Wet Projects. Her interest in writing about work extends to dry land, as well. Vickie spent several months with a Nisgda Totem Pole Carving crew, a collaboration that resulted in Totem Pole Carving. Bringing a Log to Life and the children's book Carving a Totem Pole. For three decades, she and her husband Jay Powell have worked with First Nations elders to produce more than thirty schoolbooks, documenting a variety of Native languages spoken on the Northwest Coast. She is the author of nineteen publications including the textbook Underwater Robotics: Science, Design & Fabrication (MATE, 2010). She lives in Vancouver, BC.

Vickie Jensen's profile page

"A compelling introduction to the artistic techniques, training processes, and the cultural imperatives that are underlying the carving. It is, finally, a celebration of both artistic talent and cultural persistence."

Journal of the West

"An important record of late-twentieth-century pole carving that will be appreciated by future historians of Northwest Coast art."

American Indian Quarterly