North of North Kitsap

Big things always seem to happen after the newspaper has been sent to press.

So it was Thursday evening. Just as my feature about a Suquamish art installation honoring Princess Angeline was on its way to the printers, artist George David rolled into town with the completed carvings. David finished the cedar panels in Neah Bay this week — at 1 a.m. on Thursday, to be exact. The carvings will be “unveiled” at 10 a.m. Saturday, during chief Seattle Days, but David did a temporary installation Thursday.

The Suquamish Garden Club spent three years raising $14,000 for the work of art at Angeline Park. Tribal elder Peg Deam convinced David to take on the project. David, a Naa-Chah-Nuth native, carved the canoes that, until recently, surrounded Chief Seattle’s gravesite. It was David’s idea to honor Seattle’s daughter Angeline through a three-panel storyboard.

“They originally wanted to do a totem here,” David said. “I said, ‘why don’t you let me design something.’”

The carved panels are a more traditional art form for Puget Sound tribes than the totems that dominate northern native art, David said. He cut the seven-foot-tall slabs from 700-year-old fallen old growth cedar.

As David and a group of volunteers lifted the panels into place Thursday, drivers on Angeline avenue slowed to stare and neighbors gathered to welcome Angeline back home.

“Did you ever imagine, when we started this all those years ago, that it would look anywhere near this amazing?” said Dave Soukup, whose wife Beth coordinated the project for the Garden Club.

It was easy to forgive George David for missing our print deadline. His carvings were impressive. The neighborhood’s pride was palpable.

See more photos from the installation here.