A Historical Event

The last weekend my parents were here, Aug 22/23, there was an amazing event in the village. 40 years ago, a pole was carved by a 22 year old Haida man and it was raised infront of the Anglican church in Old Masset. The carvers name is Robert Davidson. The Davidson family celebrated this anniversary with a feast complete with singing, dancing, and inspiring words at the Hall. I don't know the numbers in attendance but it was a packed house, maybe 700 people witnessed the event.

It had been almost 100 years since the last pole went up before this pole in 1969. The potlatch ban of 1884 tried to end all things culturally important to the First Nations people. In B's family, songs were recorded in his great grandma's kitchen back in the 50's in an attempt to keep the songs and language from being lost and forgotten. There was a special mask that was hidden in the walls of the house so that it would not be confiscated. There were no more potlatches, feasts, ceremonies, poles, masks, singing, dancing, longhouses... I think Robert Davidson said they had just a couple songs and dances to celebrate the raising of his pole in '69. They had no masks and so a dancer that needed a mask used a paper bag over their head. When the potlatch ban was omitted from the Indian Act in 1951, the First Nations cultural activities were almost lost.


On the Friday night Grand Entrance, there were over a hundred of dancers; beautiful blankets (several raven's tail style woven), lots of cedar hats, 14 (?) huge box drums all painted inside, masks of all shapes and sizes: lots of eagle and raven with the clapping beak, a few killer whale, one mask had huge eyes that blinked, and there were several transformation masks. It was beautiful visual art. The sound of the drums and the power of so many voices singing was very cool. (I had lots of shiver down the spine moments over the weekend). The Haida culture is alive and well!


The drum beat was led by 'Gogeet' (?). The wild man or bigfoot of the forest. He was the first to come out, that is why there are no dancers yet :)

There was a feast both Friday night and Saturday night (fantastic soup!) and dance performances from groups all over the island and from Alaska. Throughout the weekend, Robert and Reg shared some wonderful inspiring words with all in attendance.

Here is the pole today infront of the church. We met there on Saturday afternoon. In the weeks before this event there were a few local guys who worked on restoring it; cleaned it up a bit and added some fresh paint.

Below are ladies dancing with Robert and Reg Davidson leading the singers.

At the Saturday night feast, a gift was presented; I will have to research the details to be sure who it was from and who it was to before posting. It was a painting of a photograph taken the day the pole was raised in 1969. The young men raising the pole are recognizable and so are many of the elders in the background. It gives a glimpse into the past of that historic day. On Monday morning, while I was at work, the painting went up at the Hospital lobby. It was decided this was an appropriate place to display for all the community to see.

My parents left on Monday with a full blown BC Ferry 'get off the rock' experience. The ferry was broken in Prince Rupert for a few days; three sailings were missed with one of them being their reserved spot on Saturday. Once the ferry made it to the island, they had to get in the stand-by lineup. But over night the winds picked up. They got into the lineup about 7am, spent the day waiting on the ferry and it did not leave Skidegate till 8pm due to a 'weather delay'.

Just a few more days of summer vacation... I'm looking forward to getting back into the school routine.