LITTLE BOSTON — While the construction of the longhouse on the Port Gamble Indian Reservation is already impressive in its scope, hand-carved designs on the doors serving as the primary entry are equally magnificent.

Five tribal elders and an artist have been working diligently the past several months to get the large doors, which measure nearly 12-feet-square completed in time for the longhouse’s grand opening this fall. Working on expansive sections and gluing them together is different from typical totem pole or canoe construction, the creators agreed.

“We want to see a quality door,” said carver Jake Jones. “It’s a $1 million longhouse, so we wanted to get the best door. We want to be involved with it because we weren’t part of the design of the longhouse. We want to have some part of the ownership.”

The west-facing doors will have a Northern Native American design, which is believed to come from North Vancouver Island in British Columbia and uses form lines. The east-facing doors will have a Salish design — a relief carving — that utilizes negative space.

“We have a lot of different tribes coming from Canada, so we wanted to do both,” said the non-tribal artist Duane Pasco who designed the west-facing doors. His work includes a killer whale, the symbol of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and a thunderbird, which often stands for good luck.

“It’s a symbol that all tribes use,” Pasco said of the whale. “The killer whale is real important to the S’Klallam people.”

His design is being carved and painted by tribal carvers and elders Jake Jones and Floyd Jones.

“We wanted (the thunderbird) facing (the road) so people would see it when they would drive by,” Jake Jones added.

Also included are salmon trout heads and other typical lines and forms that are incorporated in the Northern style art. The carvings are then painted with black and red acrylics

“It will hold up in the weather and it won’t run with other paints,” Jake Jones said.

The main entrance to the longhouse will be on the east side and doors will be filled with carvings of crests that were used within the tribe’s individual clans, including a raven, an eagle, a seawolf and a killer whale.

But the largest symbol on this door is a tribute to a woman who had dreamed of seeing a longhouse on the S’Klallam reservation during her lifetime.

The face of legendary elder Martha John is integrated into the design of a great horned owl, explained her nephew and carver Gene Jones. When she was younger, there were 17 villages and 13 longhouses within S’Klallam country. Port Gamble S’Klallam’s last longhouse was located at Point Julia until it was burned down in the late 1800s.

“It was always her dream to have our own longhouse,” he recalled.

Gene Jones is working with Bill Jones and Benny Ives on the east-facing doors.

Once the 6-foot sections are glued together to create the 12-foot doors, they will weigh 750 pounds each. The enormous pieces will be installed on a sliding track and will have to be manually opened and closed.

Gene Jones said the biggest satisfaction he is getting out of doing the project is being able to display what is a significant part of the tribe’s culture.

“To show people our own art and people really appreciate it,” he said. “A lot of people from the office come out and say, ‘Oh, this is stunning.’”