Skidegate House Models

"Early in 1892, more than seventeen Haida artists were commissioned to carve a model of their village of Skidegate on Haida Gwaii. The model, displayed at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, is the only North American example of an aboriginal village systematically documented by its own nineteenth-century residents. It originally featured twenty-nine house and forty-three totem pole models; after the exposition, the model was dispersed and many pieces were lost over time. However, ten house and twenty-two totem pole models remain in Chicago in the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History, and two additional model houses with seven totem poles have been located in other collections. In this highly collaborative research project, Wright combines interviews with members of the Skidegate community today with close study of the extant parts of the model along with a review of the documentation collected in 1892 to bring both the model and the village and community it documents into full view. The community engaged research and resulting book offers valuable insights into Northwest Coast art history and will be a significant cultural resource for the Haida Nation"--