The Spirit of Haida Gwaii

In the Vancouver airport there’s the most amazing sculpture by Haida artist Bill Reid.

Spirit of Haida Gwaii is a massive bronze sculpture that’s 6m long and weighs in at almost 5000kg. This thing is big! Treated with a green patina to resemble British Columbia jade, Spirit is deeply symbolic, portraying supernatural beings driven from their traditional homeland to the sea. This is the mythology of the Haida people all jammed into one small boat. There’s Bear, Wolf, Raven, Dogfish Woman and many others, all central to the Haida mythology, a mythology that’s as rich as that of ancient Greece. All these beings are crowded in together and somehow managing to remain afloat. But peace is hard to come by. Wolf is biting Eagle’s wing, who in turn chomps on Bear’s paw. Everyone’s squabbling and shifting for position. It’s noisy and chaotic, but somehow they’re all paddling in the same direction.

As Reid himself has explained…

There is certainly no lack of activity in our little boat, but is there any purpose? Is the tall figure who may or may not be the Spirit of Haida Gwaii leading us, for we are all in the same boat, to a sheltered beach beyond the rim of the world as he seems to be, or is he lost in a dream of his own dreaming? The boat moves on, forever anchored in the same place.



More and more of us these days are forced from our homes for one reason of another, and all of us can relate to being a bit adrift. Life is a voyage after all. It’s fitting that the Jade Canoe is in an airport where people come and go all day, each dragging their own personal mythologies with them. Bill Reid himself is almost deified here on the North Pacific Coast. He was a master artist who embraced his Haida heritage and helped introduce this indigenous art to a wider world. Thanks to him, these spirits can sail once again for all to see.