What is the significance of the totem pole in Canada?

Totem poles are monumental cedar carvings made by the Indigenous nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, including the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Heiltsuk, Nuxalk, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Coast Salish peoples. They are typically carved from a single trunk of western red cedar (Thuja plicata) and stand from three to more than twenty metres tall. Each pole records the lineage, history, achievements, or rights of a family, clan, or nation, and the figures are not religious idols.

Common figures on totem poles include eagle, raven, wolf, bear, frog, killer whale, thunderbird, and supernatural beings such as Sisiutl and the Wild Woman of the Woods. The arrangement and combination of figures encode specific stories agreed with the carver and the family commissioning the pole. Crests carry inheritable rights and are protected under customary law of the nation that owns them.

Federal Indian Act amendments enacted between 1885 and 1951 banned the potlatch ceremonies at which poles were raised, and many existing poles were confiscated by missionaries and government agents and shipped to museums in Canada, the United States, and Europe. The 1951 Indian Act revision lifted the ban, and a renaissance of carving began in the 1950s and 1960s led by artists including Mungo Martin, Bill Reid, and Robert Davidson. Repatriation of historic poles to communities of origin has accelerated since the 1990s.

Major contemporary collections of totem poles stand outdoors at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, the Royal British Columbia Museum, Stanley Park in Vancouver, Thunderbird Park in Victoria, and the village of SGang Gwaay (Anthony Island), a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Haida Gwaii.