Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/885387
p a g e 2 2 I V a n c o u v e r F o u n d a t i o n l 2 0 1 7 WHEN MARIKA SWAN SET ABOUT CATALOGUING the disappearance of thousands of cultural objects of the Nuu-chah-nulth people, her goals were modest. "At first, we really only wanted to see what was out there," she says. For Swan, a carver of Nuu-chah-nulth descent, that archive would be a natural extension of the Carving on the Edge Festival, an annual event that brings together artisans, band members and the general public to celebrate her nation's intricate tradition of wood carving. Many of them understood the urgency of her mission. e post-contact decades of colonialism had stripped the Nuu-chah-nulth of much of their material culture. Now they wanted it back. "It's about the survival of our culture," says Swan, relaying the story of her father. "He worked hard – from a child who was in residential school to a thriving and proud First Nations carver. Our elders created the space for us and they want us to step into it." To that end, in 2010 a group of Nuu-chah-nulth carvers and elders came together on a stormy day at a carving shed in Tofino. Over the next three days they gathered ideas on how to share and perpetuate the traditions and teachings of West Coast carving, and on how they could transmit this learning to the Nuu-chah-nulth youth. Later that year they launched the first Carving on the Edge Festival. Through the Living Archive, the Nuu-chah-nulth people are documenting their ancestors' cultural artifacts held in institutions around the world By Jacob Parry Finding Treasures Lost