For a week last June Sema:th carver of the Sto:lo people Raphael Silver brought the art of making house posts to students at Yale Secondary so that they could interact with First Nations culture firsthand.
Like totem poles, house posts occupy a significant place in the culture of First Nations people on Canada's west coast.
The house post Silver made this time has an education theme. At the top of the post is a woman's head, representing a teacher. On her left and right are two students, a boy and a girl. At the bottom the concave ovoid represents the doorway into a First Nations long house, symbolising the key to a better future.
Worthy of note is the wood used to make this particular house post. The piece comes from the top portion of a 40-foot long old growth cedar log salvaged from a mill many years ago, at a cost of 40,000 dollars. The diameter of the original trunk is bigger than the curve of the post might suggest. Silver was able to count the tree rings up to 900, which puts the age of the cedar tree at about 1,200 years old. The cedar was harvested from Powell River, the traditional territories of the Tla'amin First Nation on the northern Sunshine Coast of southwestern British Columbia.
Today it is becoming harder and harder to come by cedar wood so fine-grained and free of knots, with old growth forests disappearing fast due to clear cutting by logging companies for years unabated. Carvers need high quality wood to make enduring, esthetically appealing pieces of work like totem poles and house posts.
The two finished house posts showcased below are previous work by Silver, carved from the same cedar trunk. One is on display in front of the school library, the other in the foyer.
I took my students down to watch Silver at work, learn about First Nations culture, and try their hands at working with traditional carving tools.
Reif and Leon tried, with Dylan, Sophia, Sienna, and others looking on.
(Tools featured: draw knives, chisels, and hammers. The draw knife was custom made by Silver from a farrier knife, the kind used to shape horseshoes -- quite ingenious eh!)
Enjoy!
