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Totem poles outside of original context

This Tlingit totem pole was brought from Alaska to Pioneer Square in Seattle.

When poles are removed from their original context their meaning changes. Poles used in the CCC-created totem parks of Southeast Alaska were removed from their original places as funerary and crest poles to be copied or repaired and then placed in parks based on English and French garden designs to demystify their meaning for tourists.

Poles from the Northwest have sometimes been exported to be displayed out of their original context. In Britain, at the side of Virginia Water Lake, in the south of Windsor Great Park there is a 100-foot (30 m) high Canadian totem pole given to Queen Elizabeth II, commemorating the centenary of British Columbia. In Seattle, Washington, a Tlingit funerary totem pole was raised in Pioneer Square after being taken from an Alaskan village.

The Alaska Building at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.

From 1901 to 1903 Alaska Governor John Brady collected 15 Haida and Tlingit totem poles, two dismantled Haida houses, and a canoe for display at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Governor Brady borrowed the indigenous symbol of wealth and prosperity to market Alaska as a viable location for industry, travel, and settlement.

The famous pole collections in Vancouver's Stanley Park, in Victoria's Thunderbird Park and at the UBC Museum of Anthropology are all relocated from their original locations around British Columbia.