Stanley Park Totem Poles: Wilderness in the City

Every time I'm in Vancouver, I make a point of going to the see the Stanley Park Totem Poles. In itself, Stanley Park is incredible. It's hard to imagine that this thousand acre park is perched right on the edge of downtown. Most big cities have their emblematic park: there's Central Park in New York, Mont Royal rises above Montreal and London boasts Hyde Park. Stanley Park however, is more like the wilderness than an urban park. Ancient red cedars that are hundreds of years old cover most of the park. It's chock full of biking and walking trails, and a small portion of the park can also be driven through.

The Stanley Park Totem Poles stand in the northeast corner of the park, between the aquarium and the lighthouse on Brockton Point. They reflect both the legacy and continuing presence of the First Nations of the Northwest Coast. Several of the poles are relatively new, dating from the 1980s, while others date back closer to the 1880s. These older poles are almost entirely replicas, however. In some cases, the originals were purchased and brought to Stanley Park, but decades of wind and rain washed out the paint and wore down the wood. Unlike the trees surrounding them, totem poles were not meant to stand for hundreds of years. Nonetheless, the replicas have been painstakingly reconstructed to match the originals and, from the painting to the carving, they are stunning.

Although Northwest Coast Art has become synonymous with the Haida, the Stanley Park totem poles are a collection of many different cultural styles. There are Kwakiutl, Nun-chah-nulth and Nisga'a to name a few. Each people has their own manner of carving as well as their own mythic creatures. Carved into the poles are Thunderbirds, Sea Bears, the Lightening Snak—with its serpentine body and wolf head—and even Bookwus, the Wild Man of the Woods. All the carved beings are highly stylized, and it can be difficult to tell the fantastical from the earthly.

One of the most interesting of the Stanley Park totem poles was carved by Doug Cranner and is Kwakiutl in style. Look for the forward-leaning thunderbird poised atop a pole with two protruding beaks, one midway down and another on the lowermost figure, a raven. In their original use, totem poles served different purposes. There were welcome poles, mortuary poles, memorial poles and house poles. One of the most intriguing, of which this Kwakiutl pole is an example, is the house portal pole. Such a pole would have stood flush against the front of a house beside the entrance. On ceremonial occasions, however, the lower beak would be opened, forming a ramp, and guests would then enter through the open mouth of the raven.

Stanley Park border downtown Vancouver, and is easily accessible from most parts of the city. The Sylvia Hotel and The Coast Plaza are two great options if you want to be within walking distance of the park.

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