We Talk to the Trees

Dense evergreen forests rise up immediately behind the narrow strips of beach in southeast Alaska. The forests of the Pacific Coast stand ready to supply many daily needs.

Once, the raw materials from the forest provided the basis for nearly everything that the Tlingit used. Women constructed their baskets from materials harvested from conifer trees--Sitka spruce roots and the inner bark of the Western red cedar. They acheived fame for these finely twined baskets decorated with dyed grass applied in a technique termed "false embroidery."

Northwest Coast men are renowned for their tradition of wood carving and painting. They carve everything in wood, from monumental totem poles and canoes, to delicate face masks.