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Beatrice ‘Beatty’ Pilon worked in Chengtu, Szechwan, China in the late 1940s and made a month-long trip into Tibet by horseback in 1948. Some objects Pilon purchased while in Tibet were later donated to the Museum of Anthropology.

Michael McLean Ames was born in Vancouver in 1933. He graduated from UBC with a B.A. in Anthropology in 1956, and from Harvard University with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology in 1961. Ames also studied at the University of Michigan, University of London, and the University of Chicago between 1957 and 1962. He taught at McMaster University from 1962 to 1964, and in 1964 he began working at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as an assistant professor, followed by an associate professorship in 1966 and full professorship in 1970. In 1974 he became Director of the UBC Museum of Anthropology (MOA). From 1974 to 1976 Ames was president of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute which was established in 1968 with funding from the Indian Government to promote Indian studies in Canada. Ames retired from MOA in 1997, and received professor emeritus status in 1998. He remained involved with the Anthropology department at UBC, co-teaching undergraduate courses such as Humanities 101 on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, chairing the Dean of Arts First Nations Language Programme advisory committee, and helping to institute the Musqueam 101 seminar at Musqueam. In July 2002, Ames returned to MOA as Acting Director until 2004. Michael Ames passed away in February, 2006.

Ames received the Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1979, and a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1996. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998. Ames also received the UBC Alumni Award of Distinction in 2005.

Ames published an extensive number of articles and books on a range of subjects including South Asian anthropology, First Nations issues, and museology.

Rita Steeds (nee Pollock) was born in 1918 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She attended business college in Regina and worked in the field of accounting between 1938 and 1955. In 1943, she married James Steeds and moved to Ottawa. She completed training in 1962 to become a medical records librarian. Between 1962 and 1964, she worked as a medical records librarian at the Ottawa Civic Hospital and the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital (London, England). She functioned as the Director of the Medical Records Department of Kingston General Hospital in Kingston, Ontario between 1964 and 1969. From 1969 to 1973, she was Director of the Medical Records Department and the Head of Medical Records Librarian Training at Severance Hospital in Seoul, South Korea. After completing this appointment, she served as a consultant at Silliman University Medical Centre at Dumguetl, Island of Negros, in the Philippines between 1973 and 1976. Prior to her retirement in 1980, Steeds worked as the Head of Medical Records at Wrinch Memorial Hospital, Hazelton, B.C. Rita Steeds is the author of several publications related to medical records in addition to her autobiography, Woman Not Alone.

Jean Telfer graduated from U.B.C. in 1924, and subsequently trained as a teacher. Telfer worked in this role from 1931 to 1934 at the Morley Residential School in Alberta. In the late 1930s Telfer also worked at the Alberni Residential School in British Columbia.

William (Bill) McLennan was born in Vancouver on October 4, 1948. He received a degree in Arts and Merchandising from Vancouver City College and upon graduation, worked for the City of Vancouver, the MacMillan Planetarium, and Vancouver Centennial Museum, all in the area of exhibit and graphic design. In 1975, McLennan began to work at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) on a contract to photograph the presentation of the visible storage system. In 1976, he became a permanent staff member at the Museum.

His initial responsibilities included exhibit design, graphic design, photography, teaching, and research. In these capacities McLennan held the responsibility of photographing collections at various stages, as well as photographing events and the physical building and exhibition spaces. Being a designer entailed working with curators and artists on exhibits, designing labels, brochures and memorabilia sold in the gift shop. His teaching responsibilities included working with students who interned under his supervision during the school year, giving classes on photography and design to students taking museum studies courses and giving lectures of Northwest Coast painting and photography. In 1993 he began to curate exhibits, McLennan’s first exhibit as curator was The Transforming Image after his discovery through extensive research that infrared film could reveal Northwest coast paintings that had disappeared under the patina of age. In 2001 he officially became a curator/project manager in addition to continuing work in the graphic design department. In addition to these duties, McLennan performed contract work for various museums.

In 1979, McLennan won the Certificate of Design Excellence for exhibit design for Print Magazine Casebooks. In 1983, he received a Canada Council Grant, followed by a BC Heritage grant in 1984 and 85, to research the possibilities of using infrared film to reveal Northwest Coast paintings that had faded with time. This research was interrupted in 1986 when McLennan took a one-year leave of absence from the Museum to work for Expo ’86 as a member of the exhibits team. In 1987, he received a planning and development grant from the Museums Assistance Program in order to develop his previous research on infrared painted images into an exhibit and book. This exhibit came to fruition in 1993 and was called ‘The Transforming Image’ from which a book was published by the same name which won the Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Canadian Museums Association in 2001. He also received a Certificate of Merit from the British Columbia Historical Federation for this book.

McLennan was also the recipient of the President’s Service Award for Excellence from the University of British Columbia in 1995 and the British Columbia Museums Associations Award of Merit for “The Respect to Bill Reid Pole” in 2002.

In 2010, McLennan curated an exhibit displaying the works of Charles and Isabella Edenshaw titled ‘Signed Without Signature: Works by Charles and Isabella Edenshaw’. This exhibit used 3D imaging technology to show the patterns on 3D objects in a flat undistorted perspective.

McLennan retired from MOA on October 31, 2013.

Marjorie Myers Halpin was born on February 11, 1937 in Tampa, Florida. She received both her Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Anthropology from George Washington University in 1962 and 1965 respectively. Between 1963 and 1968, Halpin was employed as a docent and an instructor in anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. During this time, she was also a part-time lecturer at George Washington University. Halpin’s involvement as teacher and scholar at the University of British Columbia began in 1968 when she was hired as a sessional lecturer in the Anthropology Department. Her duties evolved to include part-time curating at the Museum of Anthropology at U.B.C. She received her Ph.D. from U.B.C. in 1973 and was hired for the position of Assistant Professor and Curator in the same year. Halpin was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and Curator at U.B.C. in 1981 and remained in this position until the time of her death in 2000. She was also Acting Director of the Museum from 1983 to 1984.

As a professor in U.B.C.’s Anthropology Department, Halpin taught both lower and higher level anthropology courses. She also supervised the work of many Master’s and Ph.D.-level students and served as Chair and University Examiner for numerous Ph.D. students. As part of U.B.C.’s faculty, Halpin served on various committees including the Department Equity Committee, the Graduate Studies Committee and Green College’s Membership Committee. As scholar and writer, Halpin’s main interests were in Coast Tsimshian and Gitksan ethnology, museum anthropology, and the anthropology of art and ritual, which led her to produce many articles and essays on native art and culture. In addition, Halpin also gave presentations and public lectures at national and international conferences. She wrote two books, Totem Poles: An Illustrated Guide and Jack Shadbolt and the Coastal Indian Image, both of which were published as part of the Museum of Anthropology’s Museum Note Series. Halpin also edited and reviewed many publications within the anthropological field and contributed chapters to Canadian Encyclopedia, The Handbook of North American Indians and Consciousness and Inquiry, among many other publications. Her scholarly interests have also led to her involvement with electronic publications on Northwest Coast art, namely with CD-Roms and websites.

Halpin was an active member of numerous societies such as the Canadian Ethnology Society, the Canadian Museums Association and the Native Studies Art Association of Canada. She was also a member of the Tri-Council (MRC, SSHRC, NRC) Committee on Collections Documentation (2000), Chair of the Totem Pole Advisory Committee for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (1983-84) and Chair of the Committee on Museum Ethics for the Canadian Ethnology Society (1974-75). In addition to her duties as teacher, scholar and anthropologist, Halpin also took on the role of consultant for numerous private projects. Marjorie Halpin passed away in White Rock in 2000.

The 14th Dalai Lama, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who is considered to be the first Dalai Lama to become a global figure, largely for his advocacy of Buddhism and of the rights of the people of Tibet. Despite his fame, he dispensed with much of the pomp surrounding his office, describing himself as a “simple Buddhist monk.” He was born Lhamo Dhondup in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognized at the age of two. In accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama, His Holiness is an incarnation of Avalokiteshvar, the Buddha of Compassion.

Dr. Alan R. Sawyer was born on June 18, 1919, in Wakefield Massachusetts. He completed his undergraduate degree at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, graduating with a Bachelors of Science in 1941, majoring in Geology and minoring in Physics and Chemistry. After the United States joined the Second World War, Sawyer enlisted in the US Army as 1st Lieutenant in 1942. Once the War was over, he separated from the army in 1946. In that same year, Sawyer married Erika Heininger and they later had five children together.

From 1946 to 1948, Sawyer completed his first graduate degree at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. While he studied subjects such as painting, drawing, and art history, Sawyer conducted research in Mayan art. During intersession and summer sessions, Sawyer also took courses in art history and anthropology at the Boston University College of Liberal Arts Graduate School. In 1948, Sawyer began his second graduate degree in art history at Harvard University. He graduated with his Masters in 1949 and although he was recommended as a Ph.D candidate, he did not pursue a doctorate degree.

Upon graduating from Harvard, Sawyer was hired as an instructor for the Art Department at the Texas State College for Women in Denton, Texas where he taught courses in art history and studio art. It was there that Sawyer became interested in pre-Columbian art of the Americas, and he arranged an exhibit of that art from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Texas State College.

In 1952, Sawyer was hired as an Assistant to the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago. He later rose to the rank of Curator of Primitive Art in 1956. In that same year, Sawyer became the director of the Park Forest Art Center, a small art museum located in Park Forest, a small town located outside of Chicago. In addition to his roles at the Art Institute and at the Art Center, Sawyer taught courses in primitive art at the University of Chicago and Notre Dame University from 1954-1959.

In 1959, Sawyer became the Director at the Textile Museum in Washington DC, where he stayed until 1971. While there, Sawyer made significant additions to the pre-Columbian textiles collection. In addition to his director role, Sawyer also made several trips to Peru in order to carry out fieldwork assignments, including several aerial surveys and a stratigraphic excavation in the Inca Valley. In 1975, Sawyer became a professor of Indigenous American Art at the University of British Columbia, where he remained until 1985.

In addition to his official roles, Sawyer also participated in several additional professional activities. In 1964, he served as a guide for the Brooklyn Museum Members’ Tour of Archaeological Sites in Peru. From 1964-1968, Sawyer served as the Curator of the Master Craftsmen of Ancient Peru Exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. He made several trips to Peru where he selected and negotiated loans for the Ancient Peru Exhibit with the Peruvian government. In 1968-1969, Sawyer taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, teaching courses in art and archaeology.

Although his main area of interest lay in Pre-Columbian art, Sawyer became interested in the artifacts and the art of First Nations communities of British Columbia and Alaska, specifically those living on the Northwest Coast. In the late 1970s – early 1980s, Sawyer received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to discern the provenance of and to determine the approximate dates of undocumented NWC masks and other artifacts housed in museums in North America and in Europe. Sawyer also traveled to several First Nation villages located on British Columbia’s and Alaska’s northwest coast where he photographed the villages’ totem poles and log cabins Although he never published his findings as intended, Sawyer used his large slide collection as a teaching aid in his art classes at UBC.

In 1969, in recognition of Sawyer’s achievements, his alma mater, Bates College, awarded Sawyer a honourary doctorate degree. He died in Vancouver, BC on January 31, 2002.

Darrin Morrison was born on April 19, 1965 in Toronto, Ontario. From 1984 – 88 he attended the Ontario College of Art and Design. From 1991 – 1994 he was enrolled at the University of British Columbia (UBC), attending classes in Museum Studies, Conservation, and Chemistry. During the time Darrin Morrison was enrolled at UBC, he worked as a Museum Consultant, creating Emergency Contingency Plans for several local museums

From 1991 to 2005, he was employed at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC. He was originally employed as a Preventive Conservation Specialist (1991-93) and moved into the position of Project Manager in the area of Preventive Conservation and Design, before his departure. Morrison’s tasks included designing museum exhibitions and displays as well as planning and implementing preventive conservation measures for the collections. He also taught and supervised students in classes such as preventive conservation, exhibition design, museum principles and methods. Besides teaching and working at MOA, Morrison also devoted time to instructing at cultural centres and small museums.

Darrin worked as the Administrator/Curator at the West Vancouver Art Museum from 2005 until 2020. He passed away in 2023.

Nuno Porto is originally from Portugal. He was trained has a social anthropologist. He did long term fieldwork in Central Portugal in the early 1990s, studying the relationships between literacy skills acquisition and gendered cultural knowledges. The coexistence of literate and oral rationalities in rural Portugal fueled interests in visual culture and on how religious experience is mediated by visual and material culture. The universe of visual theory and material culture studies was to become the center of his subsequent work related to museums. His PhD dissertation explored the articulation of colonialism, science, and museum culture, and how these merged in the co-development of the Dundo Museum in Northeast of Angola and of its proprietor, the Diamonds Company of Angola. This dissertation received the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation award for the Social and Human Sciences Thesis and was published by the same foundation in 2009.

Between 2006 and 2012 he integrated the Commission for the Re-opening of the Dundo Museum, led by the Ministry of Culture of Angola that successfully concluded its works in 2012. During this period he also led a team that developed and implemented the website on the archival materials of the Diamonds Company of Angola held at the University of Coimbra, www.diamangdigital.net. He was also a member of the research team for the project ‘Bearing Waters’ led by Lisbon sculptor Virginia Fróis, on the renewal of traditional Cape Verdean women ceramics.

Between 1991 and 2011 he taught at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, on subjects related to theory in social anthropology, material culture, critical museology, visual culture, photography and African studies. His work has been published in four different languages in eight different countries. He coordinated the Graduate Program in Social and Cultural Anthropology between 2006 and 2011, and also taught in the Graduate Program on Design and Multimedia. He acted as director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Coimbra between 2002 and 2006, where his team developed a series of temporary exhibitions based on the notion of ethnographic installation.

In 2013 he was Invited Professor at the Post Graduate Program in Social Memory at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, in Brazil.

Porto currently serves as curator for Africa and South America at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Museum of Anthropology. He has been at UBC since 2012.

James Herbert (Herb) Watson was born 5 December 1934 in Ontario. He studied Science at Waterloo College and Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. In 1960, he spent one year at the Kokoschka International Academy of Vision in Salzburg, Austria.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Herb Watson worked as an exhibition designer in a number of museum environments: the Vancouver Maritime Museum and Vancouver City Museum, 1966; the Vancouver Centennial Museum, 1969; the Maritime and City Museums, 1970-1977. In 1977, he took a one year visiting appointment at the Museum Of Anthropology (hereafter MOA). In 1978, he became Exhibit Designer at MOA.

While at MOA, Herb Watson designed over sixty exhibitions, ten of which traveled across Canada and many of which involved studen
t trainees. He regularly taught exhibit design to studen ts in a UBC introductory museum course and supervised the design and installation of annual studen t exhibitions. He was frequently invited to give lectures and workshops at other universities and museum associations.

From 1985-90, Herb Watson managed a contract to research design and install the South Pacific Pavilion at Expo '86. His role included representing eight South Seas nations and travelling to the South Pacific to acquire artifacts. Between 1988 and 1990, Herb Watson designed the west wing extension of MOA that would house the Koerner Ceramics Collection. Herb Watson retired from MOA 28 February 28 1991.

Margaret Stott served as the Curator of Ethnology and Education at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology from 1979-1990. Stott's duties included public programs, education, and curator activities. Stott also gave teacher and museum workshops as well as teaching anthropology classes at the University of British Columbia. Margaret Stott obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1966. In 1969, Stott received her Master in Anthropology at McGill University. From 1969 to 1972, she served as archivist at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa and from 1973 to 1975, she worked as the Anthropology Exhibits Coordinator for the Museum of Man. From 1979 to 1990, Stott served as the Curator of Ethnology at UBC's Museum of Anthropology. Meanwhile in 1982, Stott obtained her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of London. In 1990, Margaret Stott completed the Foundation Programme in Tourism Management at Simon Fraser University. From 1979 onwards, Stott also worked as a museum consultant. Major exhibitions curated or coordinated by Margaret Stott include: "'Ksan: Breath of Our Grandfathers", a travelling exhibition of the National Museum of Man 91972-1973); "Ontario Prehistory", a travelling exhibition of the National Museum of Man (1973); "Athapaskan Peoples: Strangers of the North", an exhibition prepared by the National Museum of Man and the Royal Scottish Museum (1973-1975); "Objects from Northwest Coast Indian Cultures", a touchable exhibit for visually handicapped at the UBC Museum of Anthropology (1979-1980); "Kwaqiutl Echo Dance Costume" for the Guaranteed Trust Company (1980); "Northwest Coast Indian Art", a display in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at Vancouver International Airport (1980 onwards); "Form, Manufacture, Function, and Meaning" exhibited at MOA (1981-1982); "Art of the Northwest Coast Indians" was an exhibition for the UBC Hospital (1983); "O Canada!" at MOA (1984); "Blue Jeans" at MOA (1985); "To market, to market...the culture exchange", an exhibition about tourism and art at MOA (1989); and a Nuxalk exhibit (untitled) of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Stott also worked on a number of audio-visual productions. "MOA Presents" consists of 8 half-hour productions for cable and educational television networks in British Columbia 1980-1981. "MOA Presents Series 2", consists of 6 half-hour programs for the Knowledge Network, public programming in British Columbia 1981-1982. "A Curator's Guide to MOA", a 30-minute audio tour tape, was produced in 1983. Stott is credited with a number of published independent and collaborative articles. Some of these titles include "Guide to the UBC Museum of Anthropology", "Bella Coola Ceremony and Art". Among her published journal articles: "Economic Transition and the Family in Mykonos, Greece"; "Video Disc: Museums and the Future"; "Object, Context, and Process: Approaches to Teaching about Material Culture".

Kuldip Gill was born in Punjab, India; she and her family immigrated to Canada when Kuldip was five years old. The family formally settled in the Fraser Valley area of British Columbia. After working for several years in the resource industry, she pursued and obtained both a BA and MA in Social Anthropology from UBC, the latter in 1982. In 1988, she received a Ph.D. – also from UBC – after extensive travel to Fiji to research the lives of elderly Indian women there.

Fred Ryckman was born in eastern Canada in 1888. As a youth he moved with his family to the Kootenay region of British Columbia where he remained for the rest of his life, residing first in Creston then in Cranbrook. In 1912 Ryckman began his career with the Department of Indian Affairs serving as a constable in that department. During this period he also served in the position of Indian Farm Instructor. In 1931 Ryckman was promoted to the position of Indian Agent, a post he was to hold until his death in 1935. During the twenty-three years of his employment with the Department of Indian Affairs, Ryckman took an active interest in the language and culture of the people with whom he was working, a fact which is reflected in his papers.

David Neel is a fifth generation Indigenous artist who draws on both his heritages, Kwakwaka'wakw and European, for his artistic creations. He studied the work of his ancestors by looking at collections and publications of Kwakwaka'wakw art and uses traditional materials to create his contemporary works. He attended the Mount Royal College in Calgary and the University of Kansas where he studied photography. He has also created a series of masks on contemporary issues, which continues to be a focus of his work in photography, graphic arts, and sculpture. He comes from rich cultural and artistic roots: his father was Dave Neel Sr. who was taught to carve by his mother, Ellen Neel, and her uncle, Mungo Martin.

Edward Sheriff Curtis was born near White Water, Wisconsin, in February 1868. The Curtis family moved soon thereafter to Minnesota, and he grew up near the Chipewa, Menomini, and Winnebago native tribes. He was 19 (1887) when his family moved to the pioneer villages of Puget Sound, Seattle, where his father, Johnson Curtis, died of pneumonia. Edward had to support the family. He farmed, fished, dug clams and did chores for neighbors, but nonetheless managed to buy his first camera.

With only grade school education, Edward Curtis taught himself photography from self-help guides and built his own camera. He was keenly interested in the Puget Sound natives’ way of life. He made his first Native Americans’ photographs in 1896. Among them was the photograph of Angeline, the daughter of Chief Seattle, whom he photographed at Seattle waterfront.

He spent a season with the Blackfoot natives of Montana. A selection of his photographs, "Evening on Puget Sound," "The Clam Digger," and "The Mussel Gatherer", won first place in the Genre Class at the National Photographic Convention and won again the next year.

Curtis was later invited to join the famous Harriman Expedition to Alaska the Bering Sea, which was the last great nineteenth century survey to ascertain the economic potential of America's frontier. On May 30, 1899, Curtis set sail from Seattle with a crew of 129 among whom were some of the world’s leading scientists including Robert Grinnel, a leading ethnographic expert on Native Americans. Curtis was one of the only two official photographers on the two-month expedition. After a trip of nine thousand miles the party returned with five thousand pictures and over six hundred animal and plant species new to science. New glaciers were mapped and photographed and a new fjord was discovered. Curtis photographed many of the glaciers, but it was his pictures of the native peoples that established his artistic genius.

For the most part, Curtis labored at his own expense. But in 1906, with Theodore Roosevelt’s connection, he was introduced to J. Pierpont Morgan who agreed to fund his “North American Indian” project.

Curtis lived among the native peoples and studied their ways in depth and by doing so gained their friendship and trust.

His health and family life suffered due to overwork and long absences. His wife, Clara, and their four children could not always accompany him. In 1919 Clara filed for divorce and received, as part of the settlement, Curtis’ studio with all of his negatives. The original filing was years earlier, but Curtis was always in the field and could not be made to come to court. She continued to manage the studio with her sister. Curtis was obliged to move, in 1920, from Seattle to Los Angeles with his daughter Beth from where he continued the Project and shoot films.

He began his involvement with the film industry by assisting Cecil B. Demille ("The Ten Commandments"). Throughout his career, Curtis would fight to be accepted by scholars of North American Natives, especially the approval of The Smithsonian Institute.

In 1930, Volumes 19 and 20 of "The North American Indian" were published. The project was finally completed. The work, initially expected to take 15 years, took 30 years during which time Curtis visited the Arctic and over 80 North American native tribes.

Anne Melita Williams was a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology.

Anthony Lawrence Carter, the late author, publisher and photo-journalist, was born on October 22, 1920 in Somerset, England. He and his family emigrated to Wallaceburg, Saskatchewan in 1926 and later moved to Goodsoil, Saskatchewan . The Carter family leased an acre on Lac des Isles where they farmed for a living. In 1938, Carter purchased his first camera and learned how to develop his own pictures using an old developer and instructions from a Kodak booklet. In 1939, he applied to the Royal Canadian Air Force and was accepted a year later. He continued with the RCAF and the British Institute of Sciences and Engineering until he was discharged in 1945. Following his time in the Air Force, Carter held his first public exhibit in Ontario of images he had taken across Canada. He also spent time at the First Nations village in Fort Rupert where he began building a collection of his own photographs of the community. In 1948, Carter began working for MacKenzie Barge & Derrick as a shipwright where he took his first commercial photograph and began selling prints widely. In 1951, he decided to go into child photography, which he did exclusively for three years. Carter was also an active photo-journalist in the marine and logging fields, which led to his contributions to journals such as Western Fisheries, Canadian Truck Logger and The British Motor Journal.

While photography was Carter’s main source of income during the 1950s, he also spent his summers fishing to make a living. Around 1960, Carter purchased a 60 foot fish packer, the Wamega. He was based in Klemtu at this time and collected the history and legends of the Kynoc and Kit-is-tu people, which appeared in his first book. Carter’s publications, which include This is Haida (1969), Somewhere Between (1968), From History's Locker (1968), Wamega (1960s), and Abundant Rivers (1972), were directly inspired by First Nations people and their culture. He also wrote a book called Snowshoeing for Everyone (1975). Carter was a poet and accompanied his photos with his own text. Additionally, he undertook all aspects of designing his books for publication. Carter also worked with the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan to develop its Northwest Coast collection, and was a consultant to the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, B.C.

Chief Bill Cranmer (T̓łaḵwagila) is the son of Dan Cranmer, who hosted the 1921 potlatch now often referred to as the "Cranmer Potlatch" and the brother of Kwakwaka'wakw carver, artist, and 'Namgis Chief, Doug Cranmer (1927-2006), and activist, curator, and writer Gloria Cranmer Webster (1931-).

Chief Bill Cranmer has been a strong and vital voice for the sustainment of the ‘Namgis First Nation language and culture. He led the repatriation of cultural objects including masks, bentwood boxes, and regalia that were confiscated under duress in 1921 after a Kwakwaka’wakw potlatch held in the village of ‘Mimkwamlis on Village Island, BC. The confiscation was sanctioned through Canada’s “Anti Potlatch Law” which existed between 1884-1951. Twenty community members were sent to be imprisoned at the other end of the province because of practicing their traditions. A fluent speaker of Kwak’wala, Bill worked tirelessly to retrieve the appropriated pieces and raise awareness about the need to preserve and maintain language, history, and culture. The repatriation of some of the 750 confiscated items has had a significant positive impact on the community. He has travelled to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere to share the story, and present on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations and the First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation.

As Chief Councillor of the ‘Namgis First Nation, Bill negotiated economic treaties to develop businesses for his nation to prosper. Bill has spent numerous terms on the Executive Board of the Native Brotherhood of BC and has been an Elder/Cornerpost with the First Nations Health Authority, giving historical and cultural input into meetings. His efforts in the preservation of First Nations’ traditions have gone a very long way towards Reconciliation. In a speech at the 1980 opening of the U’mista Cultural Centre, which houses much of the reclaimed potlatch items, he said, “It’s important to know your past if you are going to fight for your future.” From: https://ltgov.bc.ca/t%CC%93la%E1%B8%B5wagila-chief-bill-cranmer/

On Monday, June 19, 2017, Bill Cranmer was presented with honours in Recognition of Outstanding Indigenous Leadership by David Johnston, Governor General of Canada. In June 2022, Chief Bill Cranmer was given a British Columbia Reconciliation Award.

Ellen May Neel was the niece of Mungo Martin and granddaughter of Charlie James, and she began drawing and painting very early in life, at age 12. Ellen Neel's father was Charles Newman who in turn was the son of James Newman. She attended St. Michael's Residential School in Alert Bay and learned outside of school how to carve from her grandfather, Charlie James. Ellen married Ted Neel and had a large family with him. In 1946, Ellen had to solely support the family by carving full-time, since Ted Neel suffered a serious stroke which impaired his health for life. Thus, her husband dealt with the business side of her work, while Ellen carved and painted. She worked on a number of restoration projects (including some at UBC) and commision projects as well. In 1950, she was elected onto the board of the Vancouver Centre Liberal Association--a support group for one of Canada's strongest political parties-- she became the first native woman to hold office. Ellen Neel produced works for the tourist trade and sold things through Totem Art Studios in Stanley Park. All the while Ellen worked, she taught her children her skills; at the age of 12, Dave Neel, the oldest son, was as good a carver as his mother, but in 1961 he died in a car accident in Washington State, and both Ellen and her husband never recovered from the pain. Her Kwakwaka'wakw name was Kakaso'las, which means "people come from faraway to seek her advice".