Tlingit & Haida leaders ask tourists to stop using totem poles as social media props

The totem poles of Southeast Alaska tend to stand right where the crowds are — the park by the cruise dock, the plaza everyone walks through, the center of town. They are meant to be seen. That, in a sense, is the whole point. What the region's Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian leaders would like visitors to sort out is the difference between being seen and being turned into a backdrop.

In a video appeal, Executive Council members Rob Sanderson Jr. and Paulette Moreno tell tourists the poles are "not a prop for your Instagram or your TikTok." They are held sacred, the leaders say, by the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people of the region — carved with clan stories, ancestors, and teachings meant to carry across generations.

The ask is not that anyone stay away from the most trafficked part of town. One of the leaders extends a welcome, with a condition attached: "We welcome people to walk our land in an authentic way with respect." The leaders ask visitors to arrive with curiosity and humility — to learn the stories behind the places they are standing, and to listen to the people who call these homelands home.

The request lands differently once you know what you are looking at. Tlingit artist Renee Culp, artist-in-residence at the Walter Soboleff Building, said the Tlingit word for what outsiders call a totem pole holds layered meaning: the poles "tell stories, depict lineage, honor events and people, and identify whose land you're on." A tourist posing for a selfie is, more often than not, standing in front of someone's ancestors.

Their message, in the end, is a simple one: respect.