Northern wooden spoons are typically carved from a section of a small tree, using almost the entire cylinder of the wood. The shallow S-profile of the spoon runs through the block in such a way that the center of the tree is visible at two places in the spoon, once in the bowl near the tip and again at the base of the handle. This means that the wood grain at the tip and in the handle lies at an angle to the spoon's surface; when it is carved very thin, as here, the spoon is quite fragile. This spooon is one of three in the collection of the Burke Museum. Lieutenant George Emmons, who collected this spoon, identified the creature on it as a petrel. (Holm, Spirit and Ancestor, 1987)

The paint is red and black.