Everything that lived on the North West Coast in the early days lived in the timber or the water. When it gets real cold, sometimes forty below, and it gets so quiet you think you would hear a twig snap for miles, the Timber Wolves sing across the Matanuska and up the Knik valley. This lovely bracelet design reflects experiences that the artist had when hiking the Matanuska river flats and sang with the wolves.

Frog is truly a creature of transformation, from egg, to Polliwog, to Frog. Change is the only true constant in life and Frog helps us change through one’s own creative and spiritual resources. Frog is a very powerful spirit helper who brings good fortune to deserving souls. Frog may represent a transferring of spirit power as he is truly a creature of two worlds, land and water. Frogs mouth naturally turns down in what seems to us a frown but mostly he is a cheerful little creature that seem always to be bringing good news.

Hummingbirds are messengers between the spirit world and the physical world. When we see and hear these beautiful little creatures we can feel joy in our souls and rejoice with them to the pure essence of life. These little masters of flight eat tiny bugs and flower nectar. What a sweet dinner they have. When we see Hummingbird, it reminds us to savor the sweetness in our own lives.

Ancients of the Northwest Coast believed that some animals could supernaturally change their appearance and take on human form. Bear moved back and forth from animal to human form and as a result had characteristics of both.

An ancient story tells of a woman who was carried off by Bears and was married to the Chief of the Bears. She gave birth to twin Bear Cubs who are considered to be the ancestors of Bear Clan People of the Tshmshian, Kwak’waka’ wak and Bella Coola Peoples.

It was Raven, with both human and bird qualities, who placed the sun, the moon and the stars in the heavens. First, that sly character, would devise a way to trick Grandfather Creator into letting him play with the glowing orbs in his magic box. Succeeding that as human, he transformed back to Raven and flew with them, out through the smoke hole, and released them into the sky. That Raven, thank goodness he did! Raven was ever helping, or hindering the Creator in organizing the world.

This bracelet shows Raven with both bird and human parts. He is mostly bird but shows his human hand as he transforms to fly out of the Creators house with the sun.

Beaver is considered an industrious and kindly creature. Beaver’s medicine power is industriousness and persistence. Beaver can be identified by large incisor teeth and a crosshatched round tail.

Northwest Coast Indian lore speaks of Beaver, who at first was a woman who loved to swim. Like many of the stories of those first peoples it is both entertainment and a cautionary tale.

A woman, who was the first ancestor of the Beaver Family, had a husband who was not a kind and loving husband but was very demanding. The woman dammed up a stream to create a pool to swim in so she could not hear her husband complain when she was under water. Soon the pool grew into a lake and she spent more time away from her husband. He scolded and threatened her for ignoring her wifely chores so gradually she lived in the lake altogether. Her leather apron turned into a tail and she became covered with brown fur. She had spent so much time in the lake that she became a Beaver.