Artist raises totem sculpture

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The delicate work of transforming an 800-year-old cedar into a totem sculpture for Commonwealth Place is finished. On July 19, artist Roy Henry Vickers paid homage to hereditary chiefs and Elders as the totem travelled through Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Coast Salish territories.

The 10-metre totem sculpture, The Legend of the Salmon People, was raised July 22 in a ceremony steeped in ancient tradition. It will remain at Saanich Commonwealth Place, the new swimming and aquatics venue built for the Commonwealth Games, after the international competition ends Aug. 28.

Representatives of the Coast Salish, Tsimshian, Nisga'a and Nuu-Chah-Nulth Nations surrounded the totem and with the help of approximately 100 people from the crowd, the totem was gently raised.

Chief Norman George accepted the totem on behalf of the Songhees tribe on whose territorial land the totem now stands.

The totem-raising ceremony marked the end of a long and highly traditional passage of taking a tree from the forest and giving it a new life.

"The artistic expression of my ancestors is equal to any in the history of man," said Vickers. "As Aboriginal people of Canada, we are becoming aware of the importance of our contribution to the world in which we live."