While totem poles are thought by many to be a symbol of Native American culture generally, their production was limited to six tribes in British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. The tribes which carved totem poles were the Bella Coola, Haida, Kwakiutl, Tlingit, Tsimshian and West Coast. Pole carving flourished in the 19th century.

The poles told stories or commemorated historical events. The figures were not gods or demons, but rather were symbolic like the figures in European heraldry. Totem poles were not worshipped, but the stories they told often inspired respect or veneration.

Each tribe had its own distinctive style. The Kwakiutls used high~relief carvings and carefully smoothed surfaces. Haida poles can be recognized by their bold carvings and massive style. The Tsimshian and Bella Coola were noted for ornate carvings of supernatural beings, while the West Coast people carved human figures on their house posts.

The full flowering of totem pole carving did not take place until European tools such as steel axes, adzes and curved knives became more and more easily available. Previously the carvers' art was mainly seen in much smaller household crests, graveyard carvings, masks, staffs and charms.

Most totem poles were carved from red cedar using knives and adzes, and early poles were painted using local materials. White was obtained from clay, yellow came from ochres, red from iron ore, blue from copper ore, and black from charcoal. Later poles were colored using pigments and paints obtained by trading with the white settlers. To raise the pole, a six foot hole was dug. The butt of the pole was placed over the hole, a rope was tied to the top of the pole and passed over an A-frame, and the pole was pulled erect.

A new pole was an occasion for festivity, and poles were usually raised in the presence of hundreds of people, sometimes up to two thousand, and the family or village responsible for raising the pole was also responsible for feeding the visitors and for giving them suitable gifts. As is seen in many other cultures, the more generous the festivities, the higher the prestige of the family or tribe. The poles were a way of displaying wealth obtained in the fur trade, but it often took years to amass the resources needed to obtain the proper log, design and carve the totem pole and then erect it with the proper ceremony.

By the 1880s and 90s the size of totem poles often provoked bitter feuds, as one village or tribe erected a pole taller than that of a rival group.

It has proven difficult to trace the history of totem poles and their carvers. Because poles were carved from green logs and mostly stood for just 50-60 years, the artistic development of carving styles can only be guessed at. Certainly early poles were carved using a flatter style similar to that used on masks and other ceremonial objects. The concept of treating the design of the pole as a unit, rather than as several individual carvings, seems to have begun to appear towards the end of the 19th century.

The top figure on a pole is usually the clan crest. The most common crests are the eagle, raven, thunderbird, bear, beaver, orca and frog. Eagles and thunderbirds have curved beaks, while the raven has a straight beak. Thunderbirds have outspread wings. Bears and beavers have ears on the top of their heads, and beavers also have large teeth. The orca ('killer whale') has a dorsal fin.

The figures under the crest represent figures in a story. The story may be a myth or legend, or it may be a story from the life of a person in the tribe.

There are 6 types of totem pole:

• indoor house posts, which support the roof and carry clan emblems; house frontal poles, which stand by the entrance of the house;
• heraldic poles, which stand in the front of the house and give the family history;
• burial poles, which carry a story about the deceased;
• ridicule poles, which were sometimes erected to shame debtors; and
• potlatch poles, carved exclusively by the Haida to commemorate festivals.