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ENRICH your MIND through our selection of best reads on Indigenous art and culture.

  • The Raven Steals the Light

    Robert Bringhurst and Bill Reid

    CA$14.95

    Ten masterful, complex drawings by Bill reid are accompanied by ten episodes from Haida mythology told by Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst.  The result brings Haida art and mythology alive as never before.

    Published in 1996

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

    Softcover

  • Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson

    Gary Wyatt

    CA$60.00

    with Robert Davidson.

    In collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery. Forward by Karen Duffek.

    With over two hundred serigraphs and paintings, Echoes of the Supernatural: The Graphic Art of Robert Davidson is an exhilarating tour of a half-century of mastery and innovation of Haida formline by the most prominent Northwest Coast artist of his generation.

    Hardcover

    Published in 2022

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • Totem Pole Carving: Bringing a Pole to Life [Second Edition]

    Vickie Jensen

    CA$45.00

    In 1985, photographer and writer Vickie Jensen spent three months with Nisga’a artist Norman Tait and his crew of young carvers as they transformed a raw cedar log into a forty-two-foot totem pole for the BC Native Education Centre. Having spent years recovering the traditional knowledge that informed his carving, Tait taught his crew to make their own tools, carve, and design regalia, and together they practiced traditional stories and songs for the pole-raising ceremony.

    Totem Pole Carving shares two equally rich stories: the step-by-step work of carving and the triumph of Tait teaching his crew the skills and traditions necessary to create a massive cultural artifact. Jensen captures the atmosphere of the carving shed — the conversations and problem-solving, the smell of fresh cedar chips, the adzes and chainsaws, the blistered hands, the tension-relieving humor, the ever-present awareness of tradition, and the joy of creation. Generously illustrated with more than 130 striking photographs, and originally published as Where the People Gather, this second edition features a new preface from Jensen and an updated, lifetime-spanning survey of Tait’s  major works.

    Published in 2020

    Softcover

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • Carpe Fin: A Haida Manga

    Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

    CA$29.95

    Hardcover
    2019

    In a prequel to the award-winning Red: A Haida Manga, acclaimed artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas blends Asian manhwa/manga with the Haida artistic and oral tradition in another stunning hand-painted volume.

    In a small near-future community perched between the ocean and the northern temperate rainforest, a series of disasters is taking a heavy toll. It is early fall and a fuel spill has contaminated the marine foods the village was preparing to harvest. As food supplies dwindle, a small group decides to make a late season expedition to search for sealions. Surprised by a ferocious storm, they abandon one man, Carpe, on an isolated rock at sea. After ten days they are finally bale to return, but he has vanished. The story follows Carpe’s encounters with the Lord of the Rock, who demands retribution for Carpe’s role in the hunt, and Carpe’s fate in the half-life between human and animal, life and death.

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • Red: A Haida Manga

    Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

    CA$19.95

    An innovative graphic novel, Red is the epic tale of a Haida hero, his rage and his quest for retribution.

    Referencing a classic Haida oral narrative, this stunning full-colour graphic novel documents the powerful story of Red, a leader so blinded by revenge that he leads his community to the brink of war and destruction.

    Set in the islands off the northwest coast of B.C., it tells the tale of orphan Red and his sister, Jaada. When raiders attack their village, Red, still a boy, escapes dramatically. But Jaada is whisked away. The loss of Jaada breeds a seething anger, and Red sets out to find his sister and exact revenge on her captors.

    Red blends traditional Haida imagery into a Japanese manga-styled story. Tragic and timeless, it is reminiscent of such classic stories as Oedipus Rex, Macbeth and King Lear.

    This innovation in contemporary storytelling consists of 108 pages of hand-painted illustrations. When arranged in a specific order, the panels of the narrative create a Haida formline image four metres long. The sequence for this complex design is displayed on the inside jacket.

    Published in 2009

    Paperback

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • S’abadeb The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists

    Barbara Brotherton

    CA$50.00

    Coast Salish oral traditions, history and artistry from prehistory to the present is captured in this visually stunning book.

    A principal at the heart of Salish culture is a reciprocal exchange of physical, spiritual and intangible gifts, including songs, spirit powers, titles, names, food, natural resources and artistic creations.  The term for “gifts” in Lushootseed, a Coast Salish dialect, is S’abadeb and this book illuminates the concept by exploring the intersection of art with ceremony, oral traditions, the land, and contemporary realities.

    Published in 2008

    Softcover

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • The Way Home: David Neel

    David Neel

    CA$32.95

    David Neel was an infant when his father, a traditional Kwakiutl artist, returned to the ancestors, triggering a series of events that would separate David from his homeland and its rich cultural traditions for twenty-five years. When he saw a potlatch mask carved by his great-great-grandfather in a museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the encounter inspired the young photographer to rekindle a childhood dream to follow in the footsteps of his father.

    Drawing on memories, legends, and his own art and portrait photography, David Neel recounts his struggle to reconnect with his culture after decades of separation and a childhood marred by trauma and abuse.  He returned to the Pacific Coast in 1987, where he apprenticed with master carvers from his father’s village. The art of his ancestors and the teaching of the people he met helped to make up for the last years and fueled his creativity.  His career as a multi-media artist also gave him the opportunity to meet and photograph leading artists, knowledgeable elders, and prominent people from around the world.  In time he was a recognized artists, with his artwork presented in more than forty solo and sixty group exhibitions.

    The Way Home is an uplifting tale that affirms the healing power of returning home.  It is also a testament to the strength of the human spirit to overcome great obstacles, and to the power and endurance of Indigenous culture and art.

    Softcover

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • Discovering Totem Poles: A Traveller’s Guide

    Aldona Jonaitis

    CA$21.95

    An indispensable guide for identifying totem poles along British Columbia’s inside passage from Vancouver to Alaska.

    Whether rising from a forest mist or soaring overhead in parks and museums, magnificent cedar totem poles have captivated the attention and imagination of visitors to Washington State, British Columbia, and Alaska.

    Discovering Totem Poles is the first guidebook to focus on the complex and fascinating histories of the specific poles visitors encounter in Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver, Alert Bay, Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), Ketchikan, Sitka, and Juneau. It debunks common misconceptions about totem poles and explores the stories behind the making and displaying of 90 different poles.

    Travelers with this guide in their pocket will return home with a deeper knowledge about these monumental carvings, their place in history and the people who made them.

    Published in 2012

    Paperback

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

  • Understanding Northwest Coast Art

    Cheryl Shearer

    CA$22.95

    This easily read book introduces the reader to various symbols, crests and beings depicted in Northwest Coast artworks. Shearer provides brief descriptions of design conventions, elements and differences between cultural groups while explaining the interconnections between art, myth and ceremony.

    Published in 2000

    Softcover

    Please note: When purchasing a book online, please consider the cost of shipping to certain destinations as it may be higher than anticipated.  Please contact us for a shipping quote prior to placing your online order.

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