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Big Beaver Totem Pole facts for kids

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The Story of Big Beaver
Chicago, June 2015 - 083.jpg
The sculpture in 2015
Artist Norman Tait
Year 1982 (1982)
Medium Totem Pole carved out of a cedar tree
Dimensions 17 m (55 ft)
Location Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Coordinates 41°52′02″N 87°37′01″W / 41.86721°N 87.61705°W / 41.86721; -87.61705


Big Beaver Totem Pole (also known as Story of Big Beaver, or simply Big Beaver) is a 55-foot (16.8-meter) tall outdoor totem pole sculpture by Norman Tait, of the Nisga'a people of British Columbia, located in front of the north entrance to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.

The totem pole was carved out of a cedar tree donated by the Council of Forest Industries of British Columbia, according to the plaque, and was commissioned by the Women’s Board of the Field Museum of Natural History to commemorate the 1982 opening of a permanent exhibit about the Maritime Peoples of the Arctic and Northwest Coast. It was erected on April 24, 1982 (around the time the exhibit opened) in an event involving a traditional Nisga'a tribal ceremony with costumes and dancing sponsored by the Field Museum.

Chicago, June 2015 - 084
Plaque for the sculpture

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