2014/06 Haida Gwaii trip - Kay Llnagaay museum |
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Sunday June 22nd 
It was still wild and wet in the morning, clearly a good day to visit the museum in Skidegate, officially the Kay Llnagaay Haida Heritage Centre. It’s designed in the style of a traditional Haida village and contains a carving shed and classrooms as well as the museum. It was quiet there on a Sunday morning and the lady on the front desk took the opportunity to fill us in on her pet 
theory. She was Haida but had lived in both Hawaii and New Zealand and she’d noticed similarities between words in the men’s languages. Her theory is that men from Haida Gwaii had traveled to Hawaii, picked up some Polynesian women, and continued on to New Zealand, beginning the Maori people about a thousand years ago. Sandie pointed out the Haida have tongues sticking out on their carvings (as in this example from Skidegate village) like the Maori do in their carvings and dances.
We learned that the islands were attached to the mainland during the Ice Age as the Hecate Strait was above sea level. 
There were few animals there at the time so when sea levels rose, there were only bears and some tiny caribou. Since then Europeans have introduced raccoons, squirrels, beaver, rats, and those tiny Sitka black-tailed deer. The deer came with a virus that wiped out the caribou. 
They have no predators so there are tens of thousands of them now, and they have cleaned out the forest understory and are eating all the tree seedlings.
We were there though mainly to see the Haida artwork and there are plenty of totem poles, canoes, paddles, and other carvings. Some are relics from the old Haida villages and the rest are relatively new. The pole on this page is typical, topped by Haida watchmen, who’d look out for the neighbours dropping by for a little rape and pillage. Below are eagle and bear and raven, all predators. You sometimes see orca carvings on the poles but never deer or caribou.
More modern art, like this logo for the Gwaii Haanas national park, includes other animals, in this case a sea otter and an urchin, its favourite food.
The Canadian government suppressed Haida culture for decades. The art almost died out until revived by Bill Reid in the sixties. Some of you have seen 
his work, the Raven and Clamshell at the Anthropology museum, the Orca at the Aquarium, the Jade Canoe at the Airport, and the Expo ’86 Canoe. His art 
was featured on the previous series Canadian $20 bill. The museum included some of his work and carvings by the Davidson brothers, his apprentices.
No photos were allowed inside the museum, but I have a few shots from outside. The eagle and raven symbols appear often. The decorated paddles I had not seen before. The colour picture of the village shows a model of 
Skidegate as it used to be. The black and white is a 19th century photo. The canoe was one of three in the carving shed.
We took our time going back up the coast, stopping to look at the poles in Skidegate, one of the Haida villages, and the Balanced Rock,
which is just what it sounds like. Sandie checked it out and found that it wasn’t an agate, so she left it there.