Field Museum gets totem pole

A new 15-foot totem pole that marries traditional carving styles with contemporary techniques has been erected at the Field Museum in Chicago, replacing a pole that was returned to an Alaskan tribe.

The new totem pole was carved by a father-and-son team from a western red cedar tree given as a gift to the museum from the Tlingit community of Cape Fox, Alaska.

In 2001, the museum returned one of its most treasured items -- a 26-foot totem pole removed from southeast Alaska in 1899 by a scientific expedition -- to the Tlingit people. The new pole was carved by Nathan Jackson, a master carver and member of the Chilkoot-Tlingit Tribe of Alaska, and his son, Stephen Jackson, a sculptor based in New York City.