Don's Maps - First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Totem Poles and Cedar Trees. Biodiversity destruction is an immoral practice by the inordinately powerful international forest industry. Not only is it able to squash nature protection but also indigenous rights. A blatant example is the Canada – BC Pavillion erected in 2006 in Torino, Italy, to promote the 2010 Olympics in BC. Its biggest corporate sponsor was BC Wood, an international lobby group for wood products and its centrepiece was the "Bella Coola Spirit Tree" (right). This is more than a crude case of commercial appropriation of native culture: it underscores how the BC government disregards Aboriginal Title and Rights by promoting its selfserving motto "Super, natural BC means big business. " Until recently, the Nuxalk indigenous people were known as the Bella Coola Indians. In October 2007, Canada and the US refused to sign the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights which states that the survival and wellbeing of indigenous peoples depends on their access to and control of lands and resources.
Skeena River Totem Poles. The village of Kispiox was painted in 1929 by the early feminist artist Emily Carr (above). She was one of the first to grasp the compelling power of the totem pole as an art form: "The oldest art of our West, the art of the Indians, is in spirit very modern, full of liveness and vitality. . . The foundation that the Indian built his art upon was his Totem. He did not worship it, but he did reverence it tremendously. Most of the totems were animals representations, thus animal life played a great part in the life of the Indian and his art" Emily Carr, Fresh Seeing, 1930. Following an especially bad epidemic in 1862, when small pox claimed 30% of the Gitxsan population, in the 1880s the aboriginal communities of Skeena River were forcibly removed onto Indian Reserves. The admirable resolution of the Kispiox people to defend their territory from colonial takeover is embedded in their poles. U'mista Cultural Society - Alert Bay. Haida Heritage Centre.
WELCOME to the Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay. The Haida Heritage Centre at Kay Llnagaay is an award- winning Aboriginal cultural tourism attraction located on Haida Gwaii on British Columbia's Northwest coast. The centre houses the Haida Gwaii Museum, additional temporary exhibition space, two classrooms, the Performance House, Canoe House, Bill Reid Teaching Centre, the Carving House, the Haida Gwaii Musuem Gift Shop and the Kay Kitchen Café.
The Gwaii Haanas Legacy Pole - Carving Connections © Haida Heritage Centre 2012. All Rights Reserved Site Design: Laughing Sea Design info@haidaheritagecentre.com. Nisga’a Museum - Laxgalts'ap. 'Ksan: First Nations Museum - Hazelton. Aboriginal Tourism British Columbia Canada - Experience Canadian Aboriginal Culture. Museum of Anthropology - Vancouver.