DiscoverTotems

For the second trip in a row, I've been prevented from getting to the sister totem pole to Royal Totem Pole!

Royal Totem pole is actually a copy of the one in Great Windsor Park and is located in a section of the park called Virginia Waters. On my last trip earlier this year, I couldn't wrangle enough time and a car to get out to the park and on this trip the whole park was cordoned off due to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. My geocaching buddies Team Sandivka were all geared up and ready to place a cache at nearby with me and kick off a mini-world travel bug race. But heck, none of us were ready to risk a run in with the Queen's guards. So we resolved to go back a third time as soon as the outbreak is contained..so stay tuned!

A few weeks back (October 6/7), I found myself on with a free weekend in Australia, so I rented a car and drove from Canberra to Sydney.

As always I kept my eye out for totem poles and found this art installation inspired by traditional totem poles by Sydney artist, Jane Becker, entitled "Future Totems" part of Art & About @ Circular Quay and located at Customs House Square.

I am fascinated by reproductive technology and the ways it is affecting our genetics, families, influences and identity. In traditional cultures, totem poles represent community and family history. We are now moving away from the notion of the traditional family tree. My work takes its cue from my family and I hope it will have resonance for other people. My daughter is obsessed with cats, penguins and elephants, so you’ll see them on her pole. Retro rocket ships link the past and future." - Artist, Jane Becker

Last weekend, I attended a fund-raising reception at the Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Gastown for the Stanely Park Restoration. This past December, Stanley Park was heavily damaged by a storm that brought down thousands of trees.

At the fundraiser, I was able to purchase a beautiful Pendelton blanket by Coast Salish artist, Susan Point - and meet the artist herself.  

Later this year, Stanley Park will receive a new addition with the installation of People Amongst the People, a major sculptural and architectural commission by  Susan Point. In support of these important projects, the Spirit Wrestler Gallery annouced the release of a new limited edition Pendleton blanket by Susan Point titled Renewal – Honouring the Spirit of Stanley Park with two open-edition variations in different colours of the same design titled Spirit World. Susan Point has also produced three new limited edition prints based on the Stanley Park project and four new sculptural works. The proceeds from the sale of these works will be donated to the park.

We finally got to see the Oppenheimer Park's Memorial Pole this weekend during the Powell Street Festival - a celebration of Japanese culture in the heart of the neighbor that used to be called Japantown before the interments of Japanese-Canadians during WWII. They didn't return to the neighborhood - but come back each summer to remember and celebrate with japanese food, dance and music.

The pole itself stands all year round watching the comings and goings of the park's largely homeless population. It's great to see everyone enjoying the park together for one weekend of the year; mingling with street people, upscale japanese pottery booths and elderly japanese men in traditional garb doing karate high kicks.

"I'm writing a new book—and every author knows that writing a book is like carving a totem pole with your thumbnail." - attributed to Paul Hawken in an online discussion between Paul Hawken and John Elkington don the ethics of capitalist value creation, life at the bottom of the pyramid, and the rise of Sustainable Civil Society. (That's a mouthful, eh?)

Thought this was one of the best uses of totem poles as a Simile I'd seen in a long time. Even with the proper carving implements, poles seem to take forever to get completed..just imagine only using a thumbnail!

I noticed the article because of the beautiful totem pole photograph of a Comox Valley totem, British Columbia, Canada by local Vancouver photographer Kris Krug.

Comox Valley totem, British Columbia, Canada. Photo by Kris Krug (CC). To see more of his totem photography work, click to his Flikr Photo site: Kris Krug (CC).

Once again, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas hits a bull's eye with his show at UBC's Museum of Anthropology (running until December 31, 2007). On a visit to the museum with my 11-yr nephew Fred, we unexpectedly came upon this seriously under-publicized exhibit - of Mike's gleefully humorous reclaiming of the space - right at the entrance of the usually serious and sedate museum with 2 brilliant copper shields with his manga-style haida painting airbrushed onto the hoods of car hoods. I have to admit I didn't realize that they were car hoods until the 11 yr old pointed out the obvious - I was seeing oversized copper shields shimmering in the sunlight. Inside the museum there are two more installations: a refurbished Pontiac Firefly that looks to abscond with one of Bill Reid's fabled cedar canoes and a manga-style comic strip pained on the backs of museum storage trays the poignantly points out the irony of the 'collection and archiving' of First Nations culture that has taken place in the museum itself. As always, Mike's work is filled with humor and 'meddles' with the medium in ways that challenge us to think about Haida culture in new and insightful ways.

In Vancouver, some people marked Earth Day by blessing the salmon as they head to sea. The False Creek Watershed Society and the Sierra Club of Canada offered a blessing to the young salmon that have travelled down the local rivers and are preparing for their epic ocean journey. A crowd of people from Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and other religions walked to the low-tide line and placed their hands in the ocean water off a Vancouver beach yesterday to bless salmon and mark Earth Day. The open-air service at the English Bay beach, called the "Interspiritual Gathering to Bless the Salmon as they Head to Sea," was one of many events organized by Greater Vancouver faith groups and environmental organizations to emphasize the sacredness of nature. The Squamish Nation Canoe Family drummed, danced and chanted after speakers from a variety of religions delivered homilies to about 75 people about how salmon symbolize the cycle of life in their effort to spawn in the face of adversity. The ceremony was conducted at a Kitsilano Point beach that the event's organizers said used to be the mouth of one of the 57 salmon spawning streams that coursed through what is now Vancouver.

The Burke Museum will present the first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Northwest Coast Native art from the Burke’s own collections, In the Spirit of the Ancestors, from Mar. 3, 2007 – Sept. 3, 2007. Selected by two Burke Museum curators and two guest curators from more than 2,400 20th & 21st century pieces in the museum’s ethnology collection, this will be the first exhibition of the Burke’s contemporary Northwest Coast collection that features a broad mix of media, including sculpture, weaving, paintings, and prints, together in one major show. Drawing from significant collections donated by Arthur B. Steinman, Simon Ottenberg, Margaret Blackman and Ed Hall among others, the exhibit will feature over 70 works made since 1985. The work of over 60 artists will be exhibited, including Art Thompson, Hyacinth Joe David, Susan Point, Marvin Oliver, Manuel Salazar, Robert and Reg Davidson, Dorothy Grant, Isabel Rorick, Calvin Hunt, Beau Dick, Klatle-Bhi, Ken Mowatt and Clarissa Hudson.

Several major new pieces have been donated and acquired specifically for this exhibition, such as a six-panel wall sculpture donated by Susan Point. Long established as a leader among contemporary Coast Salish artists, Musqueam artist Susan Point, from Vancouver, B.C., is known for her large scale, three dimensional works in a variety of media that reinterpret traditional Coast Salish art forms.

For more information: http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/info/press_release.php?ID=86 

One of the many wonderful pieces at the Vancouver International Airport is Bill Reid's massive The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, The Jade Canoe on the international arrivals concourse.

With Bill Reid's death in 1998, there was a move on to commerate his life's work - one of the outcomes is that the Jade Canoe now appears on the Canadian 20 dollar bill

..resist the temptation to spend, save your twenty and you'll have a great souvenir of this piece.
Learn more about Bill Reid

Another beautiful Vancouver day today, I took the pugs for a run on the beach and a drive to Horseshoe Bay to get photographs and a gps reading on the totems at the BC Ferries terminal. I headed down Marine Drive passing by the Welcome Totem at Ambleside and a group of totems at Thunderbird Marina. Someone had mentioned another totem pole at the West Vancouver Yacht Club totem pole at the West Vancouver Yacht Club (5854 Marine Drive), so I stopped by and took a couple of pictures and a gps reading - then headed to the BC Ferries terminal where I spotted the Kwakiutl Bear Pole out in front of the ticket booth. Then headed for the small park on the bay, where there's another totem pole carved by Chief Jefferies and his son Rupert and raised in 1975.