Vancouver isn’t just a haven for foodies and nature lovers—it’s also home to one of the most important collections of Indigenous art in the world. In this article, Liisa Ladouceur explores the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, where totem poles, carvings, masks, and West Coast Indigenous Artisans tell us about the history of Canada.
Totem poles are awesome. I’m not using that word as a stand-in for “great” or “exciting” or “cool.” I mean that whenever I see a giant cedar tree carved with ravens, bears, orcas and other symbols of the Indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest, I feel a sense of awe. Which means that standing in the Great Hall of the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, British Columbia, is indeed an awesome experience.
Confronting Colonialism Through Indigenous Art
Indigenous art in Canada has a complicated history, one that I came to the “MOA” to learn more about. This beautiful museum, located on Vancouver’s UBC Campus and the traditional territory of the Musqueam people, has one of the most important collections of Northwest Coast First Nations Art in the country.
Picture masterful wood carvings, colourful textiles and fashion, playful and thought-provoking contemporary paintings, and so much more. The museum is also actively working to ensure that those pieces are presented in a respectful way, to address its own colonialist history head-on, and to make the space a museum of the moment for all.
Which is perhaps why one of the first things you encounter upon entering the museum—before you get to a display of exquisitely painted canoe paddles, before those majestic totem poles—is a copy of the Indian Act riddled with bullet holes.
The piece, by artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, is a commentary on the federal government document written in 1876 that still defines and controls Indigenous life in Canada. It’s a striking statement that reminds me I’m not here just to see historical artifacts, but to encounter a vibrant and resilient living culture through its art.
More Than Totems: Indigenous Art as Protest
The building itself is a stunner. Designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson in the 1970s, it opens up with that Great Hall, where huge walls of glass show off more than a dozen massive totem poles, some almost 200 years old.
The most showstopping totem poles here stand up to 11 metres high (that’s 36 feet!), bearing figures of ravens, grizzly bears, killer whales, and supernatural, man-eating birds painted in bright reds, greens and yellows. Detailed notes explain the stories these carvers are telling, and it’s interesting to learn a new language, to interpret what a specific figure or symbol means, like a hatted man on top who represents a watchman.
Actually, I’ll correct myself here with something I learned at the MOA—these tall carved poles are not all “totems.” Like the House Post that once stood inside the home of a Kwakwaka’wakw chief, depicting a grizzly bear holding the human head of a rival chief. Or the Cedar Man, created in 1984 as a protest against logging.
If the only Indigenous art at the Museum of Anthropology were those poles in the Great Hall, it would already be one of the best things to do in Vancouver. But as my local companion promised, that was just the introduction.
The Legacy of Indigenous Artist Bill Reid
There are more than 50,000 works in the MOA collection, including the world’s largest collection of art by the late Bill Reid.
Reid is perhaps the most famous Haida artist, a master carver and goldsmith from Victoria, BC. His massive sculpture The Raven and the First Men is given pride of place in the Bill Reid Rotunda, and it’s easy to see why. The 3-D carving of a raven standing on a clamshell is striking even before you notice that inside the shell are six naked human figures.
According to Haida legend, after a great flood, the Raven was walking along the beach on the Queen Charlotte Islands when he heard a sound coming from a clamshell. He looked and saw that the shell was full of small people. He coaxed them to come out, and they became the original Haidas, the first humans.
It’s this kind of piece that has much to teach. Or you can just sit and admire the craftsmanship. Around the sculpture are some of Reid’s other works, including intricate gold jewelry. (For even more, visit the Bill Reid Gallery in downtown Vancouver.)
To Be Seen, To Be Heard: A Multimedia Experience
One of the most powerful exhibitions in the museum for me was the multimedia exhibit called To Be Seen, To Be Heard. Here, large projections of historical photographs and film show how First Nations people of British Columbia appeared, dressed in their finery, for royal visits, in parades, and even tourist markets. The images are accompanied by audio recordings of Indigenous community members looking back on this time in history. I felt the pride in their efforts to remain in the public eye when so many in the government wanted them to be invisible.
In this exhibition, I also loved the contemporary artworks by West Coast painters like Pat McQuire, Henry Speck, and Judith Morgan, as well as the clothing on display, which mixed different disciplines and eras, challenging what Indigenous art is supposed to be.
Masks from Around the World
The biggest surprise for me at the Museum of Anthropology was the artwork and artifacts from beyond Canada. A large gallery of masks from across the Americas, Africa and Asia really showcases how the practice of masked rituals is part of Indigenous cultures all around the world.
From Sri Lanka, “Sanni” exorcism masks meant to ward off evil. From Cameroon, “elephant masks” for the funerals of kings. From Mexico, masks used by missionaries in plays meant to convert local Indigenous Peoples to Christianity. And most extraordinary of all, masks from nearby British Columbia for transforming from man to raven.
A New Understanding of West Coast Art
Before my visit to the Museum of Anthropology, I was advised to allocate several hours to explore. Those people were not wrong. Not only is there more on display than I imagined, but so many of those pieces are like a whole universe to discover.
It’s one thing to look at a master painting when you’ve heard about that artist your entire life or stand in front of an ancient Egyptian artifact after watching dozens of National Geographic documentaries about their civilization. I have a lot of pieces of the puzzle to interpret and understand those objects. Here, I found myself embarrassed at how much I didn’t know about West Coast Indigenous art, especially after many visits to Vancouver and BC.
As an art lover from Ontario, I felt robbed of being taught about Haida art and other cultures of this land. I even recalled times I’ve said “Oh, Vancouver is all about nature, not culture”—thinking of the kinds of music and art scenes I’m used to in Toronto that I found scarce out here. At the MOA, I realized how much I’d been missing out on.
Towards the end of my visit, I came across a piece that has really stuck with me. A four-metre-long wooden canoe filled with what appeared to be bric-a-brac: bits of weaving, blankets, books… an Elvis record.
The canoe installation has a name, To Wash Away the Tears, and it’s a memorial for Maggie Pointe of the Musqueam Nation, curated by her family members. I thought about my own loved ones who have passed on, how they had passions and personal history that may or may not make sense to anyone else. And how Maggie’s canoe is a reminder not to put the artists and cultures represented at the MOA in a box. (Even a beautifully crafted box—there are many of those here, too.)
There are many reasons I would tell anyone interested in seeing Indigenous art in Vancouver to spend an afternoon at the world-class Museum of Anthropology. The first is practical—at a 20-minute drive from downtown, the museum is much more accessible than some of BC’s famous Indigenous travel experiences, like an excursion to Haida Gwaii. It’s also a museum you can feel good about supporting, that is actively trying to decolonize its collections.
Mostly, though, it’s because the Museum of Anthropology is filled with two things we can never have too much of: beauty and truth.