Outside Taylor’s Crafts in Raleigh stands a huge totem pole adorned with Newfoundland icons — puffin, fisherman, cod, polar bear, seal.
In 2006 the store’s owner, Abiel Taylor, hand-carved the pole. Each figure took him four days, longer again to paint.
It’s impossible to miss the towering tribute to Newfoundland as you drive towards the Raleigh store and when Lieutenant Governor John Crosbie saw it last year, he just had to have it.
Mr Crosbie is not someone to let things go and so, after some cajoling, Mr Taylor is finally sending the pole to St John’s where it will stand in the grounds of Government House.
Sitting in his store surrounded by the carvings worked from the stark white of moose bone, dark smooth serpentine and porous whalebone, Mr Taylor told the Pen last week that he decided to let the pole go as a kind of legacy.
“I guess I’m doing this for my grandkids and great-grandkids,” he said, “because when I’m gone who knows? Maybe someone’ll pull it down and just use it for firewood.”
When Mr Crosbie first asked Mr Taylor to think about giving the pole to Government House, his answer was a resounding ‘no.’ But after talking it over with his wife, he decided he wouldn’t mind parting with the towering artwork.
“So when he called back this spring and asked again I said we’d do it,” Mr Taylor explained.
“I think it’ll look good down there and a lot more people will get to see it.”
For his part, Mr Crosbie admitted he was pleasantly surprised to stumble across such an “amazing” piece of work in Raleigh.
“[My wife and I] hadn’t been to Raleigh in quite some time so we went for a drive down there and we came across this totem pole,” he told the Pen from his home in St John’s.
“We thought it was a wonderful piece of Newfoundland artwork so I decided to work to try and get it here to Government House to stand in the grounds.
“We already have a spot for it picked out to make sure people can see it and when it’s here and it’s erected I think it’s going to be quite an addition to Government House.
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