Walking sticks adorned with sphinxes, phoenixes, and other symbols have long been part of Commencement at Dartmouth.

For students like Kaleigh Krause ’26, they represent membership in senior societies, in her case Cobra, which was founded in 1978 as the first all-female senior society at Dartmouth. 

Senior Video Producer Shupriyo Maitra talks with Krause and with Matthew Strong, a master wood carver from Stowe, Vt., who has been making some of the canes for Dartmouth students for 11 years, about the care and craftsmanship that go into the canes and the importance of the tradition.

As Krause says, the hand-carved canes are “pieces of art that connect people through generations.”