Photo: Gary Bembridge from London, UK (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio tour of two totem parks outside Ketchikan, each walked on foot, with a short drive between them that is not narrated. It starts at Saxman Totem Park, in the Tlingit village of Saxman south of the downtown cruise berths, laid out in the 1930s under the Civilian Conservation Corps program of the U.S. Forest Service to gather, preserve and reconstruct carvings from abandoned towns and cemeteries, with Charlie Brown as master carver. It reads the Sun and Raven pole, the first raised here in 1939, the other poles of Totem Row, the square at its head with its Raven and Bear stairways and the pole long known as the Lincoln pole, and Chief Kashakes House of 1895, the first structure in Saxman. At Totem Bight State Historical Park, north of Ketchikan, it follows the trail past the Thunderbird and Whale pole and the Man Wearing Bear Hat to the clan house with its painted front, the sixty-eight-foot Pole on the Point, carved for Totem Bight by Charles Brown and his apprentices, and the Haida poles first carved by John Wallace of Hydaburg, and ends at the Kadjuk Bird Pole and the Halibut Pole.
11 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 44 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 3 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Saxman Totem Row, The Poles of Totem Row, The Totem Square, Chief Kashakes House.
Thunderbird and Whale Pole, Man Wearing Bear Hat and the Thunderers' Pole, Totem Bight Clan House.
Pole on the Point and the Blackfish Pole, Land Otter, Master Carver and Sea Monster Poles, Raven at the Head of Nass and Kaats' Bear Wife, Kadjuk Bird Pole and the Halibut Pole.
The driveway of poles laid out in the 1930s, beginning with the Sun and Raven pole, the first set up here, in April 1939.
The square of hand-adzed logs at the head of Totem Row, its stairways flanked by Raven and Bear figures for the two Tlingit phratries.
The clan house of 1895, the first structure in Saxman, beside the new school.
The community house of the model village, built for thirty to fifty people round a central fire, with a painted Raven front by Charles Brown.
The tallest pole at Totem Bight, sixty-eight feet, an original carved by Charles Brown and his apprentices, topped by a shaman.
Three Haida poles first carved by John Wallace of Hydaburg, among them the story of a man captured by the Land Otter People.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 11 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 11 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Ketchikan's Totem Parks — Saxman and Totem Bight, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
11 narration points, including Saxman Totem Row, The Poles of Totem Row, The Totem Square, Chief Kashakes House and Thunderbird and Whale Pole. That is about 22 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~2.5–3 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 11 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.