Toma Villa installed the Spirit Pole a couple of years ago.
The spirits have endured, as spirits tend to do. The cedar pole, however, was ready for some fix-up.
That brought Villa back to the Fort Vancouver Visitor Center on Friday to repair some cracks in the wood.
It’s something that happens “as wood dries out,” Villa said. “I came back last summer, too.”
Villa, a member of the Yakama Tribe, created the massive cedar sculpture as part of the renovation of the 57-year-old Fort Vancouver Visitor Center, 1501 E. Evergreen Blvd., Vancouver. The sculpture was dedicated in April 2016.
Almost 10 feet tall, the two-piece sculpture was carved from a single cedar log that weighed about two tons.
Villa split the log, hollowed out each half with adzes and chisels, and wound up with two segments that looked like pieces of a traditional dugout canoe.
The hollowed-out halves stand just inside the front entrance; the space between them provides a pathway into the Visitor Center, which serves as the front door to the national park.
Villa supplemented the cedar with glass art — mask-style sculptures that represent natural icons of the Northwest. They include salmon, coyote, deer, eagle, berries and beaver, and natural forces such as water, fire and wind.
Villa’s studio is in Suquamish, a Puget Sound community near Bainbridge Island.
