In 2013 a joint project was undertaken by the National Park Service's Harpers Ferry Center, by Sitka National Historical Park, and by the Historic American Landscapes Survey to document the eighteen standing totem poles and house posts along the Totem Trail, in order to enhance the park's interpretive efforts and provide documentation for future preservation planning.

On this tour you will see equipment- tripods, red target poles, a blue scissors-lift, and other items- that were present for the documentation field work and are not normally found on the trail. This tour displays only a small number of the totem poles in Sitka National Historical Park’s collection.To learn more about the park’s totem pole collection, explore this map that includes all of the totem poles in the park, along with their location and a short description. The map will open in a new browser tab.