Alert Bay - Mile 279

Alert Bay, on the west side of Cormorant Island, is the present center of Kwakwaka'wakw culture. The town used to be across the channel, at the mouth of the Nimkish River, where the salmon were plentiful, but moved to its present site when the whites built a cannery there in 1870. Northbound cruise ships, in a hurry to make Ketchikan or Juneau in time for their passengers to take excursions, usually travel through Blackfish Sound and along the back side of the island from Alert Bay. But often southbound cruise ships, with a bit more time to spare, may take the narrower channel inside of Malcolm and Cormorant Islands, and pause briefly in front of Alert Bay. Here a naturalist will often explain that the very tall towers actually aren't cell towers but totems. Alert Bay claims to have the world's tallest totem, but traditionalists dispute that claim because the Alert Bay pole is actually made of three different poles fitted together.

Alert Bay, around 1900. Around this time British Columbia authorities became concerned that the traditional custom of potlatching - essentially a party to celebrate some important event to which other tribes are invited. The chief who hosts the potlatch tries to show his wealth and power by showering the guests with many gifts. Before the arrival of the white man, these gifts were all locally produced - dried salmon, sealskin clothing, cedar baskets, etc. But once there was work in sawmills and canneries and there were Hudson Bay Company trading posts offering a wide variety of goods to the natives. Once this happened, the potlatches became genuine transfers of wealth with sewing machines, HBC blankets, pots and pans, canoes and even gas boats as gifts.

Of course potlatches were a deeply ingrained part of native tradition, and when the authorities eventually banned them, the natives just held them in more and more remote places, especially the village sites hidden among the islands to the northeast. Finally on Christmas Day, 1921, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police 'busted' a big potlatch hosted by Dan Cramer, sent over 40 natives to jail and confiscated a large amount of masks and other regalia that were used in the ceremony. After that potlatches were smaller and evern more hidden until finally, in 1951, the ban was repealed and eventually much of the confiscated or stolen (depending on your point of view) regalia, was repatriated to native museums. Left: Masks and rattles such as these were used during potatch dances and ceremonies.