Chief Little Owl, the Bethany Beach Totem
Near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
The towering wooden figure watching over Bethany Beach is Chief Little Owl, a landmark here since nineteen seventy-six. It rises about twenty-four feet and was carved by the Hungarian-born sculptor Peter Wolf Toth.
It is part of Toth's Trail of the Whispering Giants, an ambitious project in which he carved more than fifty monumental sculptures honoring Native peoples and donated at least one to every state in the country. This one honors Charles Clark, known as Little Owl, who served as chief of the Nanticoke people from nineteen thirty-three until his death in nineteen seventy-one.
The figure you see is actually the third. The first fell to termites and a windstorm in nineteen ninety-two, the second rotted away by two thousand. Toth returned in two thousand two with a red cedar log from the Pacific Northwest and carved the giant that stands here now.
