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Alver Tait is a Nisga’a (Gitlaxdamix) carver and hereditary Chief of the Eagle-Beaver clan. Tait carved many poles raised in the Nass Valley and assisted with the carving of two red cedar canoes in 1980, with his brother Norman Tait who taught him to carve. He also worked with Norman on the Beaver Pole that was raised at the Field Museum in Chicago. In recognition of his craftsmanship, Tait was selected by the City of Vancouver to carve a Nisga’a Eagle bowl, which was later presented to Queen Elizabeth II. He was also asked by the British Museum to restore a pole carved in the 1860s, which was originally a monument to his great-great grandfather, Luuya’as, carrying the Eagle-Beaver crest image. In 2006, he received the Order of British Columbia.

Chief Mungo Martin or Nakapenkem (lit. Potlatch chief "ten times over"), Datsa (lit. "grandfather"), was an important figure in Northwest Coast style art, specifically that of the Kwakwaka'wakw Aboriginal people who live in the area of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. He was a major contributor to Kwakwaka'wakw art, especially in the realm of wood sculpture and painting. He was also known as a singer and songwriter.

Mungo Martin was an important figure in the early history of the Museum of Anthropology. In 1950 and 1951 he worked for the University of British Columbia restoring and carving totem poles. These later stood in Totem Park at UBC and some were later moved into the great hall in the Museum of Anthropology. After this time he is best known for his work at Thunderbird Park in Victoria, where he helped to carve many of the totem poles and house posts that now stand in the park. He worked with several artists who became well-known including Bill Reid, Doug Cranmer, and Henry Hunt.

Chief William Jeffrey was a hereditary Tsimshian Chief, born in 1899 near Lax Kw'alaams, British Columbia. Alongside Chief William Beynon and two others, he co-founded the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia in 1931. In 1940 he appeared before the House of Commons to advocate improvements to Indigenous education, the recognition of Indigenous rights, and the decriminalization of the potlach. In 1953 Jeffrey became a minister of Jehovah's Witnesses. Jeffrey began carving totem poles and replicas in 1960.

Governor General of Canada from January 14, 1974 - January 22, 1979.

Canadian politician, in office 1965 - 1979.

President of UBC, 1975 - 1983.

Mrs. Yau Chan Shek-ying was born in 1923 in Sheung Kwai Chung village, Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong. She was married at the age of 12, to Yau Shui-cheung, of Kwan Mun Hau village, Tsuen Wan. After her marriage she did heavy manual labour, such as going up into the mountains to cut grass and pine branches for fuel, farming the family's fields and raising pigs, and earning wages for the family by carrying kerosene and other heavy materials at the Texaco Oil Depot. It was during this heavy labour that Mrs. Yau learned mountain songs, both learned from other women and improvised. In 1976 and 1984, Mrs. Yau sang these songs to be recorded by Canadian anthropologist Elizabeth Lominska Johnson. She had eight children, several of which immigrated to Canada. Mrs. Yau began suffering serious health problems in early middle age, for which she was required to undergo kidney surgery. In the 1990s her health declined, and she passed away in 1996.

Minn Sjolseth was born on November 4, 1919 in Oksendahl, Norway. Sjolseth started to draw and paint in early childhood, and began her formal artistic training in Norway and in Germany where she studied the Old Masters. In 1953, Sjolseth emigrated to Canada and continued her studies at the Regina School of Fine Arts with Kenneth Lockheed. She also studied graphic art at San Miguel de Allende Art Institute in Mexico.

Sjolseth settled in Vancouver, BC in 1957, where she opened a commercial gallery and began her career as a portrait artist. During this time, she also had two children, Laila and Fred Johnsen. In 1967 she closed the gallery and focused her artistic practice on documenting Indigenous peoples and their cultural productions in a realist tradition. In 1968, Sjolseth married the photographer and journalist Anthony Carter. Out of their travels to First Nations communities along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Sjolseth produced a number of landscape and portrait paintings as part of her "North West Coast Native" series, while Carter undertook work for his books. In 2009, the Kamloops Art Gallery held an exhibition entitled "Somewhere Between" which explored Minn Sjolseth's and Anthony Carter's artistic partnership during this period.

In 1974, Sjolseth had the opportunity to travel to Arctic Norway and work with the reindeer-herding Lapps (also known as Sami people) to create a series of paintings called "Reflection of Lapland" which was shown at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, among other institutions. In July 1977, she was selected as the only professional artist to be a member of the media accredited to the visit of H.R.H The Prince of Wales to Southern Alberta to commemorate the Centennial of the signing of Treaty 7. Sjolseth's work has been exhibited in juried group shows in Canada and the United States, as well as international solo exhibitions. Her paintings are in several international collections, including the collections of the Crown Prince Harald of Norway.

Sjolseth and Carter moved to the Kamloops area of British Columbia in 1980, first living at Pinantan Lake and later at Lac Le Jeune. She continued painting, creating the "British Columbia Interior" series, while also pursuing cross-country marathon skiing competitively.

Sjolseth died suddenly in a car accident in Lac Le Jeune on November 7th, 1995.

Martine J. Reid (née de Widerspach-Thor) was born in France. After completing her Master’s thesis on the role of salmon on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Kwakwaka'wakw communities, she moved to British Columbia. While studying at the University of British Columbia, she started learning Kwakwala from Katherine Ferry Adams, who introduced her to the language and culture and adopted her into her family in 1978.
From 1976 to 1978 she attended several potlatches in the area of Alert Bay (BC). There, she came in contact with Kwakwakka’wakw communities, which would lead her to write and defend her doctoral dissertation about the Kwakwakka’wakw hamaca (Man-Eater) ritual in 1981.
In the 1970s, Dr. Reid received funding from the Urgent Ethnology Program of the Museum of Man in Ottawa to record languages and customs to prevent their loss. As part of this project, Dr. Reid came in contact with Agnes Alfred (or Axuw or Axuwaw) with whom she travelled to different Kwakwakka’wakw communities. As part of these visits, she met Agnes’ granddaughter, Daisy Sewid-Smith.
Between 1979 and 1980, and in 1983 and 1985 Sewid-Smith and Reid recorded and translated Agnes’ memoirs. From then until the late 1990s, they put a hold in their project for personal and work-related reasons. In the late 1990s, they resumed their work, which lead to the publication of Paddling to Where I Stand in 2004.
Between 1979 and 1983, Dr. Reid worked at the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. There, she lectured in the areas of Anthropology, Ethnography, and First Nations studies. She also participated in several art-related projects in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, while consulting projects for the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs and for the Native Investment Trade Association.
From 2008 to 2012, Dr. Reid was the Director of Content and Research, and Curator at the Bill Reid Gallery. Then, she became the Honorary Chair of the Bill Reid Foundation.

William Beynon, Nisga'a hereditary chief, ethnographer. Born in Victoria, BC. From 1915 until 1956, he worked as an interpreter and field researcher among the Tsimshian, Nisga'a and Gitksan of British Columbia. With Marius Barbeau, he prepared an ethnographic census of those cultures, particularly their social organization and mythology. For brief periods he also assisted Franz Boas and Philip Drucker. Despite a lack of formal training in anthropology, his field notes supply major data for these cultures.

(From The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-beynon. Accessed February 26, 2020.)

April Liu is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow for Asia at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC. She completed her PhD in art history at the University of British Columbia in 2012, with a specialization in Chinese art history of the late imperial to contemporary period.

Since 2011, Liu has worked as an instructor in the Critical and Cultural Studies Department at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, teaching courses on Asian art, visual culture, and global modernities. Her current research interests include Chinese print culture, contemporary Asian art, and the visualization of heritage and memory amongst Asian diasporas.

Chief Thomas Hunt, was a singer, orator, and hereditary Chief of the Kwagulth Band of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation. He was married to Emma (nee Billy) Hunt (Maxwalaogwa), the daughter of Mowachaht Chief and Shaman, Dr. Billy from Yuquot, Friendly Cove. Emma was an instructor of Kwagulth and Nuu-chah-nulth culture. Their children are: Ross Hunt Sr., Calvin Hunt, Tony Hunt, and Eugene Hunt and his grandfather was the renowned carver Mungo Martin.

Billy Assu (Kwakwaka'wakw) became Chief of the Cape Mudge (now We Wai Kai) First Nation in 1891 when he was 24 years old. He built the first modern house in the village in 1894 and during the 1920s organized the replacement of all the traditional longhouses with modern housing. He was a fisher for most of his life, and bought the first gas fish boat at Cape Mudge. During the Depression, he helped to create the Pacific Coast Native Fishermen's Association, which later merged with the Native Brotherhood of BC. His son, Harry Assu, succeeded him as the first elected Chief of the Cape Mudge band (1954-70).

Dr. Miriam Lisa Clavir was the Senior Conservator of the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia and Associate of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia from 1980 to 2004. In 1969, she obtained her bachelor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto, Ontario, in 1976 her masters in Art Conservation at Queen’s University, Kingston Ontario, and in 1998 her doctorate in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. In addition, Miriam Clavir was received as a Member of the Canadian Association of Professional Conservators in 1987 and as a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation in 1993.

Prior to employment at the University of British Columbia, Clavir was an assistant conservator at Parks Canada, National Historic Sites Service, Quebec Region from 1976 to 1980, a conservation assistant for Parks Canada from 1973 to 1976, and an assistant for the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto in the Archaeology and Conservation Department from 1969 to 1972.

During her employment at the Museum of Anthropology, Miriam Clavir was involved in the following committees: Ellen Neel’s Thunderbird Pole Committee (2001 to 2004), Aboriginal Relations and Repatriation Committee, (Chair 1996 to 2004); Exhibits Committee (Chair 1997 and 1998); Collections Committee (to 2004); Executive Committee (1995 to 1996), and; Acquisitions Committee (to 2004). In 1982 she chaired the conference “Doing Yourself In? The Artist as Casualty.”

As the head of the Conservation area, Clavir’s responsibilities and functions included:
• Managing the conservation function, including the lab at MOA;
• Initiating and implementing processes, policies and actions to ensure that the collections housed in MOA do not deteriorate;
• Responsibility for teaching museum conservation at UBC, including credit courses, directed studies, and supervising interns and students;
• Ensuring that conservation practices at MOA are sensitive to the concerns of First Nations communities and other groups;
• Performing MOA managerial work not directly associated with conservation (such as chair or a member of committees and/or manages selected MOA projects);
• Responsibility for planning and prioritizing future conservation needs at MOA, with the assistance of other conservation staff;
• Examining objects in MOA travelling exhibits and loans to ensure that artefacts are stable and travel would not endanger their condition;
• Acting as liaison conservator with receiving institutions for MOA objects on loan;
• Supervising and advising staff, students, and Volunteer Associates on conservation questions and issues;
• Providing services to the public on questions in conservation directed to MOA; and,
• Conducting research necessary to support the functions and responsibilities of the Conservation Area and for meeting requirements set in the mandate of the Museum.

As an instructor, Dr. Miriam Clavir taught the following courses: Anthropology 451: The Conservation of Inorganic Materials; Anthropology 452: The Conservation of Organic Materials; Anthropology 43 1: (1991-1992); Classics 440: Field school (1987); Archival Studies 610: (1983-1988). In addition, she was an instructor for the Continuing Education Department at the University of British Columbia (1986, 1983, 1981). She also supervised conservation interns from 1989 to 1997. Miriam Clavir was also the principal instructor and course organizer for “Collections Care”, University of Victoria Course #HA488D taught at the UBC Museum of Anthropology for the Aboriginal Cultural Stewardship Program. Furthermore, she taught Mus.482 (Conservation) at the Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle (1999, 2000, 2002).

In 1999, Clavir took a leave of absence from the Museum to publish a book based on her Ph.D. thesis, “Preserving What Is Valued: Museums, Conservation, and First Nations,” (2002) which won the 2002 Outstanding Achievement Award in the Conservation Category from the Canadian Museums Association. The book discusses the profession and ethics of museum conservation, and how conservation ideas and practices contrast with the values and concerns of First Nations.

She is also credited with numerous independent journal articles. Among these: “Museum Changes to First Nations Objects, and their Physical and Conceptual Reversibility” (1999); “The Future of Ethnographic Conservation: A Canadian Perspective” (2001) and “Heritage Preservation: Museum Conservation and First Nations Perspectives” (2003).

Miriam Clavir retired as Senior Conservator at the Museum of Anthropology in 2004.

Jennifer Kramer is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Curator, Pacific Northwest at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia. She received a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University in 2003. Her research focuses on Northwest Coast First Nations visual culture in regards to aesthetic valuation, commodification, appropriation, tourism, legal regimes, and museums.

Kramer is the author of publications that include Switchbacks: Art, Ownership, and Nuxalk National Identity (UBC Press, 2006), Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer (Douglas & McIntyre Press, 2012) which won the 2012 British Columbia Museums Associations Museums in Motion Award of Merit and co-editor with Charlotte Townsend-Gault and Ki-ke-in of Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas (UBC Press 2013) which received three awards: the 2015 Canada Prize in the Humanities, Federation for Social Sciences and Humanities; the 2015 Jeanne Clark Award in Northern History, Prince George Public Library; and the 2014 Melva J. Dwyer Award, Art Libraries Society of North America – Canadian Chapter. Kramer is also a co-applicant and partner in a $1 million SSHRC CURA grant (2011-2016) to explore new alternatives for the recovery of Indigenous heritage of two Quebecois First Nations: The Ilnu of Mashteuiatsh and the Anishnabeg of Kitigan Zibi.

Kramer's curated temporary exhibitions include: Layers of Influence: Unfolding Cloth across Cultures (UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2016-2017), Beyond the Cap + Gown: 100 Years of UBC Studen t Clothing with her ANTH 43 1 university studen ts (IK Barber Learning Commons, UBC 2016), Together Again: Nuxalk Faces of the Sky with her UBC university studen ts (UBC Museum of Anthropology and the Seattle Art Museum, 2012-2013), Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer (UBC Museum of Anthropology, The Museum at Campbell River, The U’mista Cultural Centre, 2012-2013) and the The Story of Nulis – a Kwakwaka’wakw Imas Mask (UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2010-2012).