Symbols don’t change all that much — but our connection to them does.
One hundred years ago, British Columbia was a land of mountains and trees, salmon and bears, Ogopogos and Okanagan fruit, an Indigenous past with a diverse array of First Nations histories, and a settler present spurred by the gold rush and railways.
Then, the orca was seen by many as a criminal of the waters that competed with fishermen for valuable resources. Totem poles were famous pieces of art, but often taken from First Nations whose lands were dispossessed, put in far-off museums or tourist attractions as “ethnographic curios,” as one Musqueam art curator put it.
A century later, orcas and totem poles are the two finalists in the Search For B.C.’s Best Symbol, our fun summer competition to unofficially find out what best represents this province.
It’s reflective of more than 400,000 votes that have eliminated 62 of the 64 original entries in our competition. It’s also reflective of how British Columbia has changed.
“Totems symbolize, I think, what’s the best and the worst of British Columbia history sort of all wrapped in that one symbol,” said John Lutz, a University of Victoria historian who wrote the chapter on totem poles in the book Symbols of Canada.
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The totem pole has a long history on the British Columbia coast, but its status as a symbol is a complex story of meaning different things to different people. Justin McElroy reports.
“Our relationship to iconic species like orcas is really not extraction. It’s about approaching and experiencing nature in a very different way,” said Jason Colby, a UVic historian who wrote Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean’s Greatest Predator.
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Symbols of the past, stories of the future
Talk to people who directly engage with totem poles or orcas on a regular basis, and you’ll get all sorts of answers why they make for an interesting symbol.
On Saturna Island, dozens of volunteers are involved with the Southern Gulf Islands Whale Sighting Network, an organization that monitors and provides data to the federal government about the movements of orcas, in hopes of better preserving their habitat.
WATCH | What orcas mean to B.C.:
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They were once seen by many as threatening monsters, but today are beloved. How did the perception of orcas change so much? Justin McElroy reports.
“If we can learn to save the orcas, if we can learn to understand the orcas, we can learn to understand many other things in this province,” said Richard Blagborne, a volunteer who helped organize a symposium last decade on Moby Doll — an orca captured off the Saturna coast in 1964 whose plight helped changed the perception of the cetacean.
“The more we learned, the more we started to love them. And I think that’s a positive indication about British Columbians.”
‘Namgis and Squamish master carver Xwalacktun, who has created more than 30 totem poles in his career, is more circumspect when asked if the totem should be B.C.’s best symbol.
“If we were to use totem poles, the reason is to represent a story, and that story is the new beginning of where we want to go with this symbol of British Columbia,” he said.
“You always can’t forget what’s happened in the past. So we remember what happened in the past, but we continue on moving forward.”
Orcas and totem poles are the two finalists in the Search For B.C.’s Best Symbol, our fun summer competition to unofficially find out what best represents this province. (CBC)
The past and present both inform what symbols matter most to British Columbians.
But the one known in the future as the province’s best — at least, according to a highly scientific series of online votes — is now up to you.
Voting closes at 10 p.m. PT Wednesday, and we’ll reveal the winner Friday morning on all regional morning shows across the province.
Until then, may the best symbol win.