This totem pole a family project

He is a musician, a chef, a craftsman and a painter.

Now Camas Logue is carving out a new niche in his adopted hometown.

The 36-year-old Portland native, who resides with his wife, Katherine, on North First Street, has spent much of August helping carve three ceremonial cedar totem poles that will be installed near the Swinomish Tribal Community’s signature cedar hat pavilions.

Logue passed his first traditional carving test with flying colors – and not just those he applied to the stylish migrating salmon images that highlight the poles.

“He’s done a good job,” Logue’s approving father-in-law, Swinomish Tribal Senator and master carver Kevin Paul, told the Weekly News. “He traded in his kitchen knife for one he can use on wood.”

Paul, who has appeared on the Discovery Channel and is known locally for having twice been involved with refurbishment of the famed Swinomish Totem Pole, is mentoring Logue in his newest artistic venture.

“It’s been a good experience working with Kevin,” said Logue, a drummer and guitarist who teams with his wife, also a multi-instrumentalist, as rising figures on the indie music scene.

Logue has had his paintings exhibited at a dozen galleries in the Pacific Northwest and did the cover art for Loss & Relax, a single released in 2019 by Black Belt Eagle Scout, for which Katherine is the critically acclaimed lead singer-songwriter.

Logue’s eye for art came in handy when it was time last week to “wake up” the new Swinomish poles by painting the eyes of the salmon.

“That’s one of the teachings I received from my uncle, Michael Paul,” said Kevin Paul. “The last thing to do is wake up the pole and see the eye.”

The new poles are part of a project that has been in the discussion stage for a couple years, Paul said.

Swinomish Tribal Community Environmental Department Director Todd Mitchell approached Paul about creating thematic poles to serve as an entrance to the cedar hat pavilions area. They agreed upon the migrating salmon design.

Mitchell, a Dartmouth College grad, is engaged in beach, tidelands and water resource research with an emphasis on maintaining Swinomish culture.

The salmon theme thus seemed to Mitchell and Paul an ideal fit for poles being placed in a shoreline area.

This summer the time was finally right to begin work, Paul said.

“I had to wait for Kathy and Camas to move up here from Portland to start,” Paul explained.

Upon delivery of the poles, he and Logue began with what they call the “grunt work.” There was lots of sanding, followed by creation of a salmon template.

Paul then collected paint left over from his restoration work on the towering Swinomish totem pole, believed to be the only one of its kind to bear the image of a white man – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during whose administration many advances were made on Swinomish Reservation.

“This is really good paint,” Paul said. “It’s a strong paint. It will hold up well in Pacific Northwest weather.”

Paul has undertaken countless projects over the course of a career that has spanned more than three decades. This one, because of the collaboration with Logue, ranks among his favorites.

“I’ve enjoyed being able to share with Camas some of my experience and background in carving,” Paul said.