The Royal BC Museum has been slowly but surely repatriating artifacts and belongings to the Indigenous peoples that are their rightful owners. This endeavour, a worthwhile step in the name of truth and reconciliation, has the side effect of causing rolling closures in various departments of the museum’s permanent collection. This has created the unique opportunity to host smaller exhibits in the common areas of the third floor’s Indigenous Belongings Gallery (formerly Ethnology). These exhibits focus on Indigenous peoples of our local lands and the environments that they have been stewarding for millennia.
GO FISH is an immersive video project by Scott Smith and Nettie Wild that focuses on the annual herring spawning season that transforms the coastal waters of the K’ómoks First Nation, providing livelihood for locals throughout the generations. The film is presented on three screens playing tandem footage, reminiscent of looking out the front windows of a fishing trawler.
GO FISH strives to illustrate all the dramatic scenery of the life cycle on full display while simultaneously allowing for the poetry in motion of the natural world to be fully brought to life through kaleidoscopic camera artistry by cinematographer Smith and a sweeping musical score by Owen Belton. Sound designer/editor Michael Brockington rounds out the audio with the sounds of the west coast: crashing waves and the strident chorus of seagulls haggling for fish.
All the team members are connected to these waters in some way, and the film feels like a love letter to the fishing practice that has supported the inhabitants here—human and otherwise—since time immemorial.
The Island in the Middle of Everywhere is a photographic offering documenting the members of the Xwe’etay/Lasqqueti Archeological Project in their mission to illuminate the vast archeological record and pronounced historical significance that Xwe’etay/Lasqqueti Island has held for the Coast Salish peoples throughout the last 12 millennia or thereabouts. The island was perfectly situated in the central coastal waters of the Salish Sea to function as a central hub of trade for the Coast Salish nations, with canoes being the primary mode of travel through the archipelagic waters.
The island itself was also a fertile agricultural ground, as evidenced by artifacts and features dating back roughly 3,500 years. There were also methods used to increase the fishing and foraging used in the intertidal zone, such as terraced rock walls to boost clam production and specialized fish traps and weirs for capturing salmon and herring.
While neither of these exhibits achieves the grandiosity or archaeological intrigue that is expected from Royal BC Museum these days with massive exhibits like the current Egyptian artifacts on loan from Denmark, endeavours like these ones are important for our local culture. Gaining a better understanding of our neighbours in these unceded lands, as well as an appreciation of what these islands have contributed throughout the ages to our way of life, is always worthwhile, and while the museum strives to not perpetuate the mistakes of the past by going over its collection of Indigenous belongings, we might as well bring our attention closer to home.
Oh, and both these exhibits—running until January 10, 2027— are included in the price of a regular admission to the museum, so you can still go and play in the pirate ship, gawk at the mammoth, and, my personal favourite, pretend you’re the Beastmaster in the Natural History Gallery. And you’ll still feel like a smart college student when you head home.