KWAKIUTL CANOES

Giclee  print, in archival inks on acid- and lignin-fee paper
Original painting in oil on canvas board, 1959
Collection of Donn Charnley

The painting depicts a Kwakiutl canoe traveling down Kingcome Inlet near the mouth of Wakeman Sound, sometime in the mid-nineteenth century.  Another canoe is seen some distance away.  The Sisiutl, a legendary serpent-like creature, is painted on the near canoe.  The bowman wears a white Hudson’s Bay Company blanket around his waist, but some of the crewmen are wearing cedar bark robes, suggesting that it is early in the trade period.

The picture was made to accompany an article on my making a 24-foot canoe in 1958, following a detailed account of canoe-making recorded fifty years earlier by George Hunt and published by Franz Boas.  The article, with the accompanying photographs, was published in The Beaver, the Hudson’s Bay Company magazine, and the painting was used as the cover.

About the Donor:
Bill Holm has been a most generous supporter of the Nor'wester online auctions, and of Nor'wester itself. We are so grateful to him for again offering these unique prints. Camp Nor'wester truly would not be Camp Nor'wester without the passion, commitment and legacy left by Bill Holm, his wife Marty, and their daughters Carla and Karen, and all their extended family!