Kwanusila

Kwanusila is a 12.2 meter (40 foot) tall totem pole carved from red cedar. It stands in Lakeview at Addison Street just east of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. The colorfully painted totems include a grimacing sea monster at the bottom, a man riding a whale above it, and Kwanusila the Thunderbird on top.

History

Its sculptor was Tony Hunt, the chief of the Kwagu'ł tribe in British Columbia, as a 1986 replacement for the totem pole that stood at the site since 1929. That pole, which was carved by Tony Hunt's ancestor, the ethnologist George Hunt, had been donated to the city by cheese baron James L. Kraft, the founder of Kraft Foods. The 1929 pole had suffered from poor maintenance, weathering and vandalism over the years, and was sent to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in 1985 for study and conservation. [cite web |author=Alice Maggio |url=http://www.gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/lakefront_totem_pole_contains_many_tales |title=Lakefront Totem Pole Contains Many Tales |publisher=Gapers Block| accessdate=2007-06-29]

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