Sacred totem pole returns to Kitkatla community after 126 years

Members of the Gitxaala Nation community wait along the shores of Kitkatla to greet their sacred totem pole, absent for more than a century. Image by RCMP

After travelling nearly 5,000 kilometres by truck, boat, and on foot, a sacred totem pole known as the Grizzly Bear Pts’aan is back where it was first created in a First Nations community called Kitkatla, British Columbia, or known as Gitxaała Nation.

An emotional repatriation ceremony on April 17, 2023, marked the end of a decades-long effort to reunite Gitxaała Nation with the revered piece of its heritage. The repatriation involved cultural organizers in the community, and high-ranked hereditary chiefs and matriarchs who worked together to ensure the totem pole’s safe return after a 126-year absence.

Significance of the Pts’aan

For generations, totem poles and their intricate carvings have marked territories and symbolized power for First Nations communities. This 12-foot totem pole — or pts’aan as it’s known in Sm’algyax, the language of the Gitxaała Nation — displays the Grizzly Bear of the Sea crest at the base and the Bear Mother crest on top. The crests belong to the Gisbutwada, the Blackfish Clan.

The totem pole was sold under duress in 1897 to the New England Fishing Company, which kept the pole for 20 years before selling it to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it was held in a warehouse.

Wilg’oosk, Dustin Johnson, the cultural program manager for Gitxaała Nation, helped co-ordinate the return of the totem pole. It was transported by a shipping truck from Boston to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, transferred to a small moving company, loaded onto a barge, driven onto the loading ramp at Lax Klan (Gitxaała village), marched by community procession to the Community Hall where it was carried in by hand.

Before entering the Community Hall, the pts’aan was cleansed with traditional medicines by Hereditary Chiefs following cultural protocols. “Our people knew that we needed to treat this like a sacred living being, and to apply our Ayaawx — our traditional laws and knowledge — to approach the returning a totem pole of this significance,” Johnson explains.

Celebration of homecoming

Hundreds of Elders, community members, and hereditary leaders gathered along the shores of Lax Klan, the main village of the Gitxaała Nation, to welcome the pts’aan home.

“This was the first time my people have brought home such a large, sacred piece of culture,” says Johnson. “My ancestors have seen other totem poles and cultural treasures destroyed and the surviving section of the original pole was forcibly sold, so it was emotional to see this treasure returned to us.”

Two officers with the RCMP’s West Coast Marine Services, Constable Christopher Henley and Constable Dale Judd, who are known in the community for patrolling the area and answering calls for service, were present at the ceremony. The pair helped launch the canoes for the repatriation ceremony, escorted the totem pole into the community aboard the Patrol Vessel Inkster, and helped prepare for the homecoming feast.

“I’ve been going up to the community for almost 15 years and it was the most togetherness I have ever witnessed. It was a passion and spark I haven’t seen in the past,” says Judd.

Today, the Pts’aanm Midiik, or grizzly bear totem pole, stands as a guardian of the Gitxaała Nation in Lax Klan, its carvings immortalizing the stories of their ancestors and asserting their sovereignty.