A Monograph of the Totem-Poles in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia

By G. H. Raley

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473353695

Book preview

Shades of the Past in Stanley Park

IN Stanley Park a major attraction to visitors and tourists are the weird monuments, called totem-poles; a group of seven at Lumbermen’s Arch, which stand straight as a corporal’s guard facing the sea and the giant Thunder Bird with outstretched wings, looking down in solitary dignity from Prospect Point, at the foot of which, 150 years ago, Captain Vancouver and Chief Capilano of the Squamish tribes met.

If it is true that we live in the presence of ghosts of which we are not aware, as we walk across the well-kept lawn and pass from pole to pole, perhaps the shades of a forgotten people crowd around us and maybe their totem spirits are not far away.

While the grandeur of Stanley Park needs no totem-poles to enhance its beauty, it makes a marvellous setting for them. You can almost hear the paternal cedars whisper Welcome, my forest children, the same sun gave us the same life. Linked with Pauline Johnson’s memorial, Siwash Rock and a thousand legends, these carved symbolic poles speak to us of the feelings of the people they represent, their passions and antipathies, defeats and victories, loves and hates, in short, a people who for natural culture, generosity, hospitality and amiability had no superior among the primitive races of the