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Berkhamsted Totem Pole
We took a walk along the Grand Union Canal for lunch at a waterside pub opposite this local point of interest. Below is the history of its arrival in the town.
James Alsford (1841-1912) founded a timber company in Berkhamsted on the wharf close to Castle Street Bridge.
In the early 1960s his great grandson Roger went to work at a lumber mill on Vancouver Island in Canada. During a strike Roger was rescued from starvation by a local Kwakiuti community (Indigenous First Nation of Canada). When his brother William Alsford visited he was so grateful for their hospitality he commissioned a totem pole to be carved by local First Nation artist Henry Hunt. The red cedar pole standing 30 feet high and 3 feet in diameter was carved with figures from First Nation legend and shipped to Britain where it was erected on the wharf in 1968 and is one of only six totem poles in the UK
We took a walk along the Grand Union Canal for lunch at a waterside pub opposite this local point of interest. Below is the history of its arrival in the town.
James Alsford (1841-1912) founded a timber company in Berkhamsted on the wharf close to Castle Street Bridge.
In the early 1960s his great grandson Roger went to work at a lumber mill on Vancouver Island in Canada. During a strike Roger was rescued from starvation by a local Kwakiuti community (Indigenous First Nation of Canada). When his brother William Alsford visited he was so grateful for their hospitality he commissioned a totem pole to be carved by local First Nation artist Henry Hunt. The red cedar pole standing 30 feet high and 3 feet in diameter was carved with figures from First Nation legend and shipped to Britain where it was erected on the wharf in 1968 and is one of only six totem poles in the UK
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