98 BC STUDIES visual imagery and form, the extensive rious central collection of thirty-eight array of representations of the several colour plates that celebrate the beauty genre of the souvenir-art form are and complexity of the commoditized crucial to her ability to make her objects of art. Simply put, this is a points. Accordingly, this volume is thought-provoking and ground­ copiously illustrated with over 200 breaking study. black-and-white images and a glo-

Solitary Raven: The Selected Writings of , editor /Seattle: Douglas and Mclntyre/ University of Washington Press, 2000. 250 pp. Illus. $40 cloth.

JOEL MARTINEAU University of

HE HAIDA ARTIST Bill Reid mother was Haida. Only as an adult, (1920-98) is arguably Canada's about to embark on a career with CBC T most renowned sculptor. Radio, did he visit and Among his monumental works are the discover that his lineage included partial replica of a Haida village at the several great carvers. He made his life's University of British Columbia (UBC); ambition the exploration of art and of the band council housepole in Skidegate, his cultural . First, he acquired the first pole raised in the village in a European, technical jeweller's skills. century; The Raven and the First Men, Then, he steeped himself in the vision the large yellow cedar representation of Haida artistic tradition. Finally, he of a Haida creation myth that has transcended cultural boundaries to become the signature piece of the create art for all. As Reid matured and Museum of Anthropology at UBC; his art gained acclaim, he assumed an Chief of the Undersea World, his cast active role articulating Aboriginal bronze of a killer whale rights. In the 1970s and 1980s, when located at the ; Haida allied with preservationists to and Loo Taa, the 15.7-metre wage a thirteen-year campaign to save featured at Expo '86, paddled to the southern portion of Haida Gwaii Skidegate in 1987, and later paddled from clear-cut logging, Reid contri­ up the Seine to Paris. Reid's greatest buted to their cause as both fund­ sculpture is The , raiser and advocate. Who will forget installed at the Canadian Embassy in the March 1987 headline in the Vancouver Washington in 1991. A replica, The Sun: "Haida Artist Abandons Carving Jade Canoe, graces the departure for Embassy"? Reid informed the lounge of the Vancouver Airport. federal government: "I'm not prepared Reid was raised in Hyder and to enhance your international repu­ Victoria without knowing that his tation when you treat my people Book Reviews çç badly" (Ai). Only when the various lecture delivered at UBC expands his levels of government agreed to pre­ treatment of the formline and ovoid; serve the South Moresby wilderness and the essay "Haida Means Human area did Reid resume work on The Being" pleads for respect between Spirit of H aida Gwaii. races. Fourteen pieces from the 1980s Most of the thirty pieces collected reflect Reid's artistic maturity. He in Solitary Raven mark significant leverages the wisdom gained during junctures in Reid's artistic career. his decades of immersion in North­ Three are from the 1950s. The first west Coast artistic traditions and the recounts the awe Reid experienced as esteem that his monumental artworks he participated in an expedition that had earned into influential statements salvaged several Haida housepoles about environmental responsibilities, from abandoned villages on southern Department of Indian Affairs policy, Haida Gwaii. He argues that the Native land claims, appropriation, removal was "necessary" to arrest the cultural regeneration, and the roles of decay of these "beautiful, tragic academics in the preservation of reminders of a romantic " so that Aboriginal cultures. In the final piece, they could be preserved in Victoria written in 1991, Reid provides de­ and Vancouver, where "contemporary lightfully humorous, thought-provoking carvers" could make exact replicas (39, notes that describe the occupants of 41). In the second and third pieces be the great bronze , The Spirit of begins to refine that initial awe, Haida Gwaii and The Jade Canoe. turning it into his argument that the Solitary Raven will be a delight for finest Native art of the Northwest aficionados of Bill Reid's art, whether Coast "ranks with that of any fine their interests are primarily aesthetic, artist past or , anywhere in the historical, literary, or political. Robert world" (55). Two pieces from the 1960s Bringhurst's introduction and notes, anticipate Reid's theory that the sea and Martine Reid's afterword, add to shaped the form, lines, and symmetry the warmth of spirit (or raven-like that Native artists channelled into playfulness) that imbues Reid's writing "the matchless grace of the Northwest and seems so consistent with his Coast canoe" (61). Eight writings from . The book is generously the 1970s vary in form and purpose: a illustrated, with some three dozen long poem relates Haida masterworks black-and-white photographs, six to the culture that produced them; an colour plates, and more than two autobiographical essay describes the dozen reproductions of manuscript life journey that led to his retro­ pages and drawings. It includes a spective exhibition at the Vancouver chronology and bibliography. The Art Gallery; a brief piece philo­ publishers should be proud of this sophizes about the plurality of truths; book and the reasonable price at another eulogizes ; a which it is available.