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Billy Assu (Kwakwaka'wakw) became Chief of the Cape Mudge (now We Wai Kai) First Nation in 1891 when he was 24 years old. He built the first modern house in the village in 1894 and during the 1920s organized the replacement of all the traditional longhouses with modern housing. He was a fisher for most of his life, and bought the first gas fish boat at Cape Mudge. During the Depression, he helped to create the Pacific Coast Native Fishermen's Association, which later merged with the Native Brotherhood of BC. His son, Harry Assu, succeeded him as the first elected Chief of the Cape Mudge band (1954-70).

Hereditary Chief of the Da'naxda'xw / Awaetlala Nation of the Kwakwak'awakw people.

Chief Bill Cranmer (T̓łaḵwagila) is the son of Dan Cranmer, who hosted the 1921 potlatch now often referred to as the "Cranmer Potlatch" and the brother of Kwakwaka'wakw carver, artist, and 'Namgis Chief, Doug Cranmer (1927-2006), and activist, curator, and writer Gloria Cranmer Webster (1931-).

Chief Bill Cranmer has been a strong and vital voice for the sustainment of the ‘Namgis First Nation language and culture. He led the repatriation of cultural objects including masks, bentwood boxes, and regalia that were confiscated under duress in 1921 after a Kwakwaka’wakw potlatch held in the village of ‘Mimkwamlis on Village Island, BC. The confiscation was sanctioned through Canada’s “Anti Potlatch Law” which existed between 1884-1951. Twenty community members were sent to be imprisoned at the other end of the province because of practicing their traditions. A fluent speaker of Kwak’wala, Bill worked tirelessly to retrieve the appropriated pieces and raise awareness about the need to preserve and maintain language, history, and culture. The repatriation of some of the 750 confiscated items has had a significant positive impact on the community. He has travelled to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere to share the story, and present on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations and the First Peoples’ Cultural Foundation.

As Chief Councillor of the ‘Namgis First Nation, Bill negotiated economic treaties to develop businesses for his nation to prosper. Bill has spent numerous terms on the Executive Board of the Native Brotherhood of BC and has been an Elder/Cornerpost with the First Nations Health Authority, giving historical and cultural input into meetings. His efforts in the preservation of First Nations’ traditions have gone a very long way towards Reconciliation. In a speech at the 1980 opening of the U’mista Cultural Centre, which houses much of the reclaimed potlatch items, he said, “It’s important to know your past if you are going to fight for your future.” From: https://ltgov.bc.ca/t%CC%93la%E1%B8%B5wagila-chief-bill-cranmer/

On Monday, June 19, 2017, Bill Cranmer was presented with honours in Recognition of Outstanding Indigenous Leadership by David Johnston, Governor General of Canada. In June 2022, Chief Bill Cranmer was given a British Columbia Reconciliation Award.

Chief Albert Edward Edenshaw was born near Cape Ball on the east coast of Haida Gwaii. The uncle of Charles Edenshaw, Albert was the head chief of the Stastas, one of the Eagle divisions. In the 1840s, he piloted New England trading vessels and Royal Navy ships visiting Queen Charlotte waters. On Sept. 26, 1852, Edenshaw became a central figure in a historic event. Hired as pilot of the American schooner, Susan Sturgis, they encountered, head-on, canoe-loads of Masset Haida. Edenshaw was able to hold off the attack for seven hours, and was commended by Captain Matthew Rooney. He was known as an ironworker, coppersmith, jewelry-maker, and carver of large wooden poles. It has also been stated that he was very likely a carver of argillite, however, no pieces have been definitively assigned to him.

Charlotte Townsend-Gault is an art historian, author, curator, and Professor Emeritus of UBC's Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory. Her research, teaching, and scholarship concerns contemporary visual and material Native American and First Nations cultures, particularly those of the Pacific Northwest. She is the co-editor of "Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas" (2019, UBC Press) with Jennifer Kramer and Ḳi-Ke-In, a canonical text and historical survey of Northwest Coast First Nations' art.

Charles Sidney Leary (often referred to as Sid Leary) was born in England and moved overseas in 1907, eventually settling in Nakusp, British Columbia. He began working in the lumber industry and eventually came to own a mill. He served as an officer in the first World War, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. He was posted to Cyprus for timber operations in 1917 and it was there that he began to collect ancient artifacts. On returning to Canada, Leary continued to work in the timber industry. He later served as an MLA in the British Columbia Legislature, including two years as the Minister of Public Works. His collection of antiquities acquired in Cyprus was eventually shipped to Canada. After his death in 1950, his family donated his collection to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

Charles S. Brant was born in Portland, Oregon in 1919. A life-long anthropologist, Brant began his academic career at Reed College where he obtained a B.A. 1941. In 1943, Brant completed his M.A. requirements at Yale University, where he was also University Scholar from 1941-1943. From 1943-1946 Brant served in the U.S. Army as part of the Medical Administration in India and China. With the support of Wenner-Gren and Fulbright awards, Brant undertook pre-doctoral research in the United States and Burma before completing his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1951.

In the early years of his career, Brant taught at University of Michigan (1947-1948), Colgate University (1951-1952), University of California (1952-1953), and Sarah Lawrence College (1954-1956). Brant was also resident anthropologist at Albert Einstein College from 1956-1957. In 1957, Brant joined Portland State University as Assistant Professor. Brant moved to Canada in 1961 to take the position of Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta, and obtained Canadian citizenship six years later. Brant became head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta in 1963, and also directed the University’s Boreal Institute for Northern Studies from 1964-1967. In 1970, Brant left Alberta for Montreal to join the faculty at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) as professor. Brant spent the last 12 years of his career there, retiring from teaching in 1982.

Brant is best known for his work on the Kiowa Apache through his book Jim Whitewolf: The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian, originally published in 1969. In addition to his work on North American Native peoples and cultures, Brant had research interests in social organization and change in India and China; social change in Arctic regions (especially as it applied to Canada and Greenland); and in the problems of developing countries. During his career, Brant completed fieldwork in Burma, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and in Native American communities in California and Oklahoma.

Brant and his wife Jane were both photographers and life-long social activists. They had two sons. After his retirement in 1982, Brant moved to Gabriola Island, British Columbia. Brant passed away in 1991 at age 71 in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Charles Kerry opened his studio in 1884, which later became Kerry and Co based in Sydney. In 1913 he toured the Pacific, taking photographs in Tonga, New Caledonia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Samoa. The studio closed in 1917.

Born at Tsax̱is (Fort Rupert), Charles James Nowell was the first full blooded Kwakwaka'wakw to act as an interpreter and collector for outsiders. He was married to the daughter of Chief Lageuse of the 'Namgis First Nation. Between 1899 and his death in 1924, Nowell was the assistant to Charles F. Newcombe, an Englishman who supplied ethnographic objects to the Field Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Peabody Museum at Harvard and others. Nowell and Bob Harris, also from Tsaxis, were part of the Kwakiutl and Nootka display at the 1904 St. Louis Universal Exposition.

Charles Gladstone was a Haida carver, of Skidegate, B.C. He was Bill Reid's grandfather.

Charles F. Newcombe was a British physician, botanist, and ethnographic researchers and collector. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., he studied medicine in Aberdeen, Scotland. He immigrated to the United States with his wife and three children, moving to Oregon, before moving to Victoria, B.C., in 1889.

Shortly after his arrival in Victoria he became an unpaid researcher at the provincial museum in Victoria, where he met people with whom he shared interests in botany, geology, marine biology, geography, palaeontology, and anthropology. [...] In 1895, with Francis Kermode of the provincial museum, Newcombe had travelled by steamer on an expedition to the Kwakiutl community at Alert Bay and to Haida Gwaii. On this trip, he began acquiring anthropological artefacts for his personal collection and he also established a practice of recording detailed field notes. In 1896, he became a founding member of the Victoria Natural History Society. By 1897, Newcombe had had a boat specially made for his fieldwork. The Pelican, a 24-foot double-ended Columbia River boat, was easy to row and to sail, could be transported by steamer, and permitted independent expeditions to the remotest areas of the coast. That year he returned to the same regions on his first major independent collecting trip. At the request of the provincial government he purchased a Haida totem pole for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (London) and he acquired artefacts for George Mercer Dawson of the Geological Survey of Canada. [...] By 1900, he had received commissions from major American museums. American anthropologist Franz Boas hired him to conduct research on the Haida history of the southern portion of Haida Gwaii. Newcombe was accompanied on this expedition by assistant, Douglas Scholefield, and Haida Chief, Elijah Ninstints. As they rowed and sailed together, Ninstints described the geography and history of his homeland, while Newcombe took notes and photographs, made sketches, and collected specimens. In late 1901, he agreed to work on a full-time basis for the Columbian Museum of Chicago, an arrangement that would last until late 1905. He acquired comprehensive ethnographic collections for displays on the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Salish peoples. In 1904, he was commissioned to assemble ethnographic exhibits for the Louisiana Purchase exposition in St Louis that would include a group of Nootka and Kwakiutl cultural performers and artists, as well as a traditional Native house, a canoe, and other artefacts purchased and shipped for the event. He eventually developed a web of patrons, clients, and colleagues that extended throughout British Columbia and around the world.

For decades most ethnological artefacts from the northwest coast of Canada were purchased by foreign interests. Newcombe was dismayed that he could not interest provincial and federal governments in the collection and preservation of native artefacts and specimens of natural history. Since his overriding concern was to preserve these items for posterity, he was obliged to deal with American and other foreign institutions. In response to this situation, in 1911 the provincial museum at Victoria hired him as its agent. For four years he travelled throughout the province, compiling a major collection of artefacts. After 1914 his pace began to abate and he turned to researching and writing about the exploration history of the British Columbia coast. After a collecting trip to Alert Bay, he contracted pneumonia and died in 1924. From: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/newcombe_charles_frederic_15E.html

Charles Edenshaw (Da.a xiigang), was a Haida carver who was born in Skidegate (Saangga.ahl Sdast'aas Eagle Clan). It is recorded that he was sickly when young, and at this time began carving argillite. His father, a noted canoe carver, died a few years later, so at eighteen he went to live with his uncle, Albert Edenshaw, in qang (Kung) village. When Albert moved to Masset in the 1870s, Charles would have accompanied him. He married Isabella in a Haida ceremony around 1873. After choosing his english name, Charles, and surname, Edenshaw (based on the Haidi name Edinso), he was baptized and remarried in an Anglican church. He worked as a full-time artist for most of his life, producing painted bentwood boxes, miniature and large totem poles, masks, chiefs' staffs, argillite totem poles, and gold and silver jewelry. The objects were created for First Nations' use, as well as for commissions by collectors for major museums. Like other Haida artists of his time, Edenshaw did not sign his work. The works are usually attributed to his hand through a combination of stylistic analysis and provenance. Edenshaw was able to speak Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Chinook jargon, and some English and lived and worked in numerous communities, including Sitka, Ketchikan, Port Simpson, Port Essington, and Victoria. He died at the age of 86 and is buried in Massett on Haida Gwaii.

Charles E. Borden was born in New York City on May 15, 1905 and grew up in Germany. Borden returned to the United States when he was 22 and received his A.B. in German Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1932. He continued his education at the Berkely campus of the University of California, getting his M.A. in German studies in 1933 and his Ph.D. in 1937. After teaching briefly at Reed College, Portland, Oregon, Borden joined the faculty of teh German Department at the University of British COlumbia in 1939 where he remained until his retirement.

Borden met Alice Victoria Witkin at Berkeley and they married in 1931. They had two sons, John Harvey and Richard Keith. Alice Borden pioneered in teh development of new techniques in pre-school education during the 1950s and 1960s. Her papers are available in teh University of British COlumbia Archives.

Borden had participated in some archaeological excavations around Hamburg as a youth, and in 1943 his interest in prehistoric archaeology was rekindled when he read Philip Drucker's book, Archaeological Survey of the Northern Northeast Coast. Beginning with a small dig in Point Grey in 1945, Borden gradually expanded the scope of his archaeological research to include salvage archaeology and major surveys throughout the province, including in-depth studies in the Fraser Canyon and Delta areas.

In 1949, Borden was appointed Lecturer in Archaeology in the Department of Sociology and Archaeology at the University of British Columbia, while retaining his responsibilities in the German Department. Throughout the balance of his career, from 1949 to 1978, Borden established a highly respected and internationally visible presence in archaeology as an instructor, author, editor, researcher and spokesman for the discipline. He developed the Uniform Site Designation Scheme, known as the Borden system, which has been adopted in most of Canada, and he devoted considerable energy to securing provincial legislation to protect archaeological sites. He was also responsible, in conjunction with Wilson Duff, for the passage in British Columbia of the 1960 Archaeological and Historical Sites Protection Act and the creation of the Archaeological sites Advisory Board.

Alice Borden died in 1971. In 1976 Borden married his second wife, Hala. Charles E. Borden died Christmas afternoon 1978 of a cerebral hemorrhage, having that morning completed a chapter he was writing for Roy Carlson's book on Northwest Coast Art.

Carol Elizabeth Mayer was a curator at the Museum of Anthropology (UBC) from 1987-2022. She is a Canadian citizen. Her educational background includes a Diploma in Arts & Sciences (honours) from Vancouver City College in 1972. In 1974 Carol completed a Bachelor of Arts (honours), majoring in Anthropology, at the University of British Columbia. In 1976 she received a Certificate in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University in Cambridge, UK and in 1996 she received a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester, UK in Museum Studies.

Carol began working at the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology (MOA) in 1987 as Curator of Collections and held that position until 1990 when she was appointed the Curator of Ethnology/Ceramics, a position she held until 2005. In 2005 she was appointed Curator of Africa/Pacific, and Curatorial Department Head. As of 2016, she is Curator of Oceania & Africa. In 1993 Carol also became an Instructor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. She was the co-founder and the Director of the Museum Studies Certificate Programme for MOA and the Department of Continuing Studies in 1996 and 1997. She has participated in several committees at MOA such as the Acquisition Committee, Collections Committee, Research & Teaching Committee, Executive Committee, and the Renewal Project Team. As Head Curator she is responsible for researching her area of specialty, publishing and presenting papers, representing the Curatorial Department on committees, constructing and overseeing departmental budgets, developing exhibitions and collections, and developing acquisitions policies.

Outside of UBC Carol is an instructor at the University of Victoria in the Faculty of History of Art (1989 to present), and at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in the Visual Arts Department and Art History Department (1993 to present). Previous to MOA Carol worked at The Vancouver Museum where she held several positions from 1975 until 1987.

Carol Mayer has published internationally on curatorship, exhibition, design and ceramics. She is active in provincial, national and international museum associations and has served on boards at all these levels. She has chaired and organized BC Museums Association Conferences as in the year 2000 where she was on the Planning Committee. The Canadian Museums Association awarded her in 1984 with the National Award of Merit for Curatorship and in 1991 with the National Award for Outstanding Achievement. In 2009 she received the International Council of Museums Canada International Achievement award. Many of her exhibition projects have involved collaborative work with communities and their artists, whether they be local or far afield.

James Cook was a British naval captain, navigator, and explorer who sailed the seaways and coasts of Canada (1759 and 1763–67), and conducted three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean (1768–71, 1772–75, and 1776–79), ranging from the Antarctic ice fields to the Bering Strait, and from the coasts of North America, to Australia and New Zealand. It was during his third voyage that Captain Cook sailed into the waters of what is now known as British Columbia. He spent a short period in the Pacific Northwest along what is now Vancouver Island during an expedition to find the fabled Northwest Passage. He never located the Passage, but paved the way for others to make a tremendous impact by establishing a British presence in the Pacific Northwest - he particularly influenced George Vancouver, who would sail as a midshipman with Captain Cook during his Pacific voyages.

When mapping the west coast of Vancouver Island, Cook gathered and recorded a vast amount of information about the Indigenous peoples of the area and their cultures. Cook also established a trading relationship with the Mowachaht Nation and their Chief Maquinna. The knowledge gathered by Cook contributed significantly to future expeditions, which eventually led to the European settlement and colonization of British Columbia. Cook died on February 14, 1779, on the Island of Hawaii.

Bob Kingsmill is a professional potter and ceramics instructor who lives and works near Vernon, BC. Born in Vancouver, Kingsmill trained in ceramics under Muriel Guest in Winnipeg before returning to British Columbia and establishing his own pottery studio in Kelowna in 1967. Kingsmill later moved to Bowen Island, where he compiled his first book A Catalogue of British Columbia Potters (published 1978). In 1979, Kingsmill opened a studio on Granville Island in Vancouver, which he continues to operate alongside his studio near his current home in Vernon.

Bob Kingsmill produces a wide variety of stoneware and raku-fired ceramics, including wall murals, masks, and functional pottery. Besides his artistic endeavours, Kingsmill has led many pottery workshops throughout BC and has taught at Capilano College, Malaspina College, and for Emily Carr College of Art and Design’s Outreach Program.

William Ronald Reid (Q'adasru qiirawaay, Raven Clan of T'anuu) was born in 1920 in Victoria, B.C. His mother, Sophie Gladstone, was from the Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay, Raven-Wolf Clan of T'anuu (Haida), but she was educated at the Coqualeetza Residential School. His father was an American of Scottish-German descent. At twenty Reid began his career in broadcasting, as a radio announcer. From 1948 to 1958 he worked for the CBC in Toronto and Vancouver. Also, while in his twenties, he decided to emulate his maternal grandfather, Charles Gladstone and become a silver and goldsmith. Gladstone was trained by Charles Edenshaw, a master Haida artist. In conjunction with his grandfather's training, Reid analyzed many pieces held in museum collections. He also trained in traditional European jewellery techniques in Toronto, Ontario and London, England and applied those techniques (eg. repousse) to Northwest Coast metal work. When Reid returned to the West Coast he began seriously to pursue Haida imagery in both jewelry and sculpture. His works, known for their superb craftsmanship, range from exquisite carvings in precious metals and argillite to monumental sculptures in bronze and cedar. They have been collected and exhibited all over the world. Some of his most acclaimed sculptures include The Raven and the First Men at the Museum of Anthropology, and The Spirit of Haida Gwaii (1991), castings of which are located at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Vancouver Airport. Other celebrated pieces include Chief of the Undersea World at the Vancouver Aquarium, and Lootaas (Wave Eater), a cedar canoe that has been shown in Paris, and is now at home in Haida Gwaii. Bill Reid was the first living artist to have his work displayed in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, in an exhibition celebrating the works of ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. It can be said that Bill Reid's work forms a link between ancient and contemporary artistic styles, and was instrumental in the revitalization of the northern Northwest Coast artistic tradition. Reid received many awards in his lifetime, including the Canada Council Molson Award, the Bronfman Award for Excellence in Crafts, the Vancouver Lifetime Achievement Award, the Royal Bank Award for Outstanding Canadian Achievement, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Lifetime Achievement. UBC awarded Bill Reid an Honorary degree in 1976 for his contribution to the cultural life of Canada. He died on March 13, 1998 after a 30-year battle with Parkinson's disease.