In 1947, George Whitney, the founder of Playland by the Sea, commissioned the Totem Pole, which was created by Chief Mathias Joe, master carver and hereditary Chief of the Squamish First Nation in British Columbia.

Nancy H. DeStefanis is the Executive Director of San Francisco Nature Education.

First image: George Kerr Whitney's Totem Pole at the Cliff House (courtesy Kenneth Stampfer)

Second image: Squamish Chief Mathias Joe of British Columbia with a model totem pole.