SYDNEY LAURENCE ALASKA / NORTHERN PACIFIC. Circa 1935. 39 7/8x29 7/8 inches. Brown & Bigelow, St. Paul. Condition B+: foxing and tears in margins; creases in margins Alaskans are in a decorated wooden boat with a yellow sail in the shadow of snow-capped blue and gray mountains. Originally distributed on request, this poster came with a printed explanation by Mary Lee Davis, "Potlach means giving --in the Chinook jargon of the Northwest coast--and to the Northwest Indian peoples, a potlach is a festival of giving to which one's family, neighbors, friends or even whole tribes are summoned, from far and near . . . The magnificent cedar boats of our Haida and Thlingit Indians . . . are among the most perfect treasures of American-Indian craft. [They were] worked out from giant cedar trunks by charring and chipping, sometimes nearly 100 feet in length."
