First Nations Art in Canada

"The Spirit of Haida Gwaii" - The Jade Canoe
“The Spirit of Haida Gwaii” – The Jade Canoe

First Nations Art is something I want to learn more about, so I decided to create this page and begin gathering information about the various artists and mediums of art from Native Artisans in Canada.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I like the work of Emily Carr and occasionally visit her collection in a permanent exhibit of the Vancouver Art Gallery. It wasn’t until recently that began thinking about collecting First Nations Art myself.

Haida Gwaii

The northern Pacific Northwest Coast, showing the position of the archipelago in relation to other islands in the region. The southern half of Prince of Wales Island is Kaigani Haida territory, but is not included in the term Haida Gwaii.
The northern Pacific Northwest Coast, showing the position of the archipelago in relation to other islands in the region. The southern half of Prince of Wales Island is Kaigani Haida territory, but is not included in the term Haida Gwaii.

Haida Gwaii is considered by archaeologists as an option for a Pacific coastal route taken by the first humans migrating to the Americas from the Bering Strait. At this time Haida Gwaii was likely not an island, but connected to Vancouver Island and the mainland via the now submerged continental shelf.

It is unclear how people arrived on Haida Gwaii, but archaeological sites have established human habitation on the islands as far back as 13,000 years ago. Populations that formerly inhabited Beringia expanded into northern North America after the Last Glacial Maximum, and gave rise to Eskimo-Aleuts and Na-Dené Indians.

Underwater archaeologists from the University of Victoria are seeking to confirm that stone structures discovered in 2014 on the seabed of Hecate Strait may date back 13,700 or more years ago and be the earliest known signs of human habitation in Canada. Coastal sites of this era are now deep underwater

Photo credit: Rick Leche on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC

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