The Path of the Great Canoes

February-March 2003

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Grizelda'Connor

Mervyn Child steers cedar dugout.

On the eastern shore at the top of Vancouver Island, an ancient Kwagiutl village named T'sakis overlooks the sea. Right in the middle of the village, which spreads up the hillside in orderly streets (and on the maps is called Fort Rupert), is a planked workshop surrounded by monumental pieces of wood - raw logs of massive dimensions, some bucked into blocks, some peeled, some as they came from the forest, old growth cedar still dressed in tattered skirts of red cedar bark.

This is the Copper Maker Gallery, established in 1983 by Calvin Hunt and his wife, Marie. Today they are joined by their nephews, Mervyn Child and Stephen Hunt, in creating the Art of the Copper Maker. Totem poles, masks, ceremonial regalia, potlatch gifts, and monumental cedar dugout canoes emerge from the workshop like living beings, representing the vast cultural and historical wealth of the Kwagiutl.

Maxwalaogwa Canoe, by Calvin Hunt and Mervyn Child..

"The Copper is the symbol of wealth to our Kwag'iul People. The name Copper Maker is an appropriate name for the gallery and workshop for it is steeped in a wealth of traditional work," Calvin says.

The Copper Maker gallery is alive with masks, prints, old photographs, posters, and beautifully painted paddles and drums. Delicate old baskets of red cedar bark and spruce root, tiny Nootka baskets woven of sea grass and tule imbricated with whales and canoes are all displayed in glass cases. Shelves are filled with scale models of old canoes, elaborate conical spruce root hats from the West Coast, carved and painted bentwood boxes, alder spoons, silver and gold traditional jewellery, and strings of blue Russian trade beads. In the yard the great canoe Maxwalaogwa rests under an awning.

Barely one hundred years have passed since the curve of shore at Fort Rupert was lined with traditional dugout canoes. Canoes were individual then, not standardized designs as they are today. There were no templates or rules outlining the right design for a canoe; there were as many styles as there were carvers and uses. Some were even made to be burned at potlatches as a display of wealth, and for weddings and funerals.

Interior of the Copper Maker Gallery in Fort Rupert.

The northern Vancouver Island coastline is rugged, smashed by violent Pacific storms thrashing up the waterways between the mainland and the island. These turbulent waters were the highways of the First Nations people; their world was experienced from an ocean perspective in a sleek, hollowed out cedar tree. Engines, heaters, wipers, and headlights were non-existent; no clock measured time and distance. The ancient paddling songs marked the time, the repetitions of the verses marked the distance. Paddles and people created the power to propel the vessel.

The red cedar dugout canoe was an efficient tool in the seasonal quest for food and the principal vessel in the technology of the larder. The canoe equaled tribal survival. For coastal people backed up against impenetrable forests, travel by canoe to their hunting, fishing, berrying and gathering sites on seasonal rounds meant the difference between starvation or nourishment, poverty or wealth, mere existence or the evolution of a complex material culture. The canoe was transportation up and down the coast for trade, ceremonial gatherings, social events, and tribal hostilities.

Calvin Hunt’s 25’ memorial pole, commissioned by the Museum of Art and History
in Belgium..

But most of the old canoes were stored in museum collections all over the world, or lying abandoned and decaying in out-of-the way villages, until the Haida carver, Bill Reid, built a canoe for Expo '86 in Vancouver, and later took a historic voyage up the Seine River in France which caught the attention and imagination of West Coast people.

Anthropologist Dr. Eugene Arima studied, measured and sketched the old vessels, pored over and read the descriptions from Franz Boaz and other early explorers and anthropologists, and heard all sorts of hearsay and ideas on canoe building from old timers.

In 1993, Frank Brown and the Heiltsuk Nation challenged all of the Nations to build canoes and participate in a canoe gathering in Bella Bella named the Quatuwas Festival. Calvin and Mervyn contacted Dr. Arima and, using his guidelines and advice, carved the 32 foot northern style canoe Maxwalaogwa, their first of many cedar dugout canoes, named in honour of Calvin's mother and Mervyn's granny, Emma Hunt.

The Maxwalaogwa Canoe Society became involved in building canoes for neighboring nations: a canoe for Chief Frank Nelson of Kingcome Inlet; one for the Quatsino Band; a ramming Head war canoe; and a Manka canoe.

When the Tribal Journey Canoe Quest to the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria was announced, the Comox Band commissioned Copper Maker to build a canoe named I Hos, a double headed sea serpent.

I Hos is elegant and beautifully proportioned. The soaring curves of prow and stern are painted with the fierce black teeth and watchful red eyes of the two-headed sea serpent. I Hos is wide, beamy and stable, 32 feet long and weighing 700 pounds. She accommodates twelve 'pullers' (paddlers) plus a helmsman, and has tons of water displacement when loaded with people and gear.

Bentwood chest: Calvin Hunt and Mervyn Child.

In 1996, the great, lissom and speedy vesselUg'wamalis Gix'dan was carved to participate in the second Tribal Journey to the Aboriginal Games in Victoria. Ug'wamalis Gix'dan led the pack with a skilled and enthusiastic crew, and when Victoria came in sight on the last day of the two week journey, she was first and fastest, pulled by a precedent setting all female crew.

Today the sound of metal chipping away at wood, and the good natured banter of the carvers spills out of the workshop. Work is underway on a cedar plug for a fibreglass canoe. Assisted by the talented Dr. Eugene Arima, the Copper Maker carvers are creating a West Coast Sealing Canoe. It is 22 feet long with the characteristics of exaggerated depth and width so it can be rigged for sail. By the end of February 2003, the first canoe should be built and will be unveiled in Victoria.

The Copper Maker has created wealth and treasure for the people. The mighty canoes are a cultural tool and an opportunity for young people to test their strength, co-operate with each other, and reconnect with their ancestral lands and cultural inheritance. With the rebirth of the Canoe Way of Knowledge, people are rekindling tribal and personal pride.

Web: www.calvinhunt.com.

Email: coppermaker@cablerocket.com.

Photos are courtesy of the Copper Maker Gallery, with special thanks to Marie Hunt.