North America’s Native Nations Reassert Their Sovereignty: ‘We Are Here’
June 14, 2022 | Source: National Geographic | by Charles C. Mann
1. Reclaiming the land
Tla-o-qui-aht • British Columbia
The block of red cedar was about six feet long and three feet high and almost as wide. Gordon Dick was slicing off its rounded top. The chainsaw bit into it, spraying sawdust. Noise-canceling headphones on, Joe Martin crouched to watch where the blade poked through. With his right hand he made little signals—up a bit, down, good. The air filled with the sharp, almost medicinal scent of cedar.
Martin is a Tla-o-qui-aht artist on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia. Dick, another carver, is from the Tseshaht, a neighboring nation. They were making the first rough cuts on a statue of a wolf sitting on its haunches—a short totem pole, in effect. Nearby were two larger poles, almost complete, 24 feet and 30 feet tall. Up one side of each pole, stacked atop each other, were symbolic figures: bears, suns, mythical sea serpents, more wolves.