Camp Batawagama restores iconic totem pole after 40 years

Camp Batawagama is bringing back one of its most recognizable landmarks by saving the original carved figures and rebuilding the pole section by section. The totem pole came down cleanly on its side last fall in the camp’s parking lot, and Kim Nylund cut it into several sections so the carvings could be preserved.

Those figures trace back to Master Woodcarver Bob DeWar, who spent four years in the 1980s working with campers to create the 20 figures that make up the pole. Hebert Construction Company erected the finished pole in the summer of 1985, and it has stood at Camp Batawagama for 40 years as a visual marker of the camp’s identity in Iron County.

This week, a pre-camp work crew began putting that history back together. With help from Brian Schulze and his Bobcat, the crew moved the first rescued section into place and planned to erect the remaining sections during the week so the pole could be reassembled among the camp’s existing facilities. The work is careful by design: the goal is to preserve the original figures rather than replace them, keeping the hand-carved details that campers, staff and supporters have known for decades.

That sense of continuity runs through Camp Batawagama’s broader history. The camp says its youth camp has been a summer place for children since 1945, and the Iron County Band Camp dates to 1955. Senior Days has been part of the schedule since 1981, and the camp’s 2026 calendar also lists staff certification training, staff orientation, band camp and five weeks of youth camp. The camp says nearly 800 campers are expected this summer.

Support for that tradition has long extended beyond the pole. Friends of Camp Batawagama began in November 1995 around a kitchen table meeting in Cleveland and was formalized in 1996. The organization has continued to back camp improvements, including a new C-latrine funded through a winter fundraiser. Camp archives, including historical photos and concert programs dating back to the 1980s and early 1990s, show how deeply the site has documented its own story.

For Camp Batawagama, the restored pole is more than wood returning to place. It is memory made visible again, a surviving link to the artists, campers and families who built the camp’s identity one figure at a time.