01:00:53:08
SUPER:    DONALD M. KENDALL SCULPTURE GARDEN
new york

01:01:26:00
DOUGLAS L. KWART:    This is really a representative collection of the highlights of 20th-century sculpture.

01:01:29:20
SUPER:    Douglas L. Kwart
SCULPTURE CONSERVATOR

01:01:31:00
DOUGLAS L. KWART:    We have everyone here from Rodin and Maillol to Calder. Uh... Pomodoro, Giacometti, Henry Moore, in plenitude. Uh, Barbara Hepworth, and Robert Davidson. I think there's no doubt that Robert is one of the great artists of the century and belongs-- deserves to be here-- alongside these other great artists. As deserving of a place of installation in a place like this as a Calder, or a Giacometti, a Henry Moore, any of the-- the gods of 20th-century art.

01:02:53:18
ANNOUNCER:    He's naturally important... Thank you so much.

01:03:05:12
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    (speaking Haida) (SUBTITLE) Pay attention! A supernatural being approaches! Hold on tight to your seats!

01:03:17:18
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I have my foot in two cultures. I have my foot in Haida culture and the Western culture. When I'm home, when I'm doing art, hosting a potlatch or a feast, then I'm speaking Haida culture. But when I'm living beyond Masset, or Hydaburg, or Skidegate, I'm living in the Western culture. And I am very concerned about the state of affairs in the Western culture, and I feel we all need to be concerned because what is happening today is not working.

01:04:29:13
MAIN TITLE:    HAIDA MODERN

01:04:40:15
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I was born in 1946, November 4th, in Hydaburg, Alaska.

01:04:52:18
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    We weren't allowed to be born in a hospital. We were segregated. Our lives were very limited.

01:05:04:20
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    When I was a few months old, we moved to Masset on Haida Gwaii. The village was our playground. So we're always playing-- playing on the beach, playing in the field, playing in the forest. You know, we also imitated whatever movie was showing, and we would love cowboy and Indian movies. We always wanted to be the cowboys, 'cause they always won. (laughs)

01:05:39:04
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    But one time, my Uncle Reg-- Reg Davidson-- my dad's brother, he pulled me aside, he said, "Hey, Robert, you're a-- Did you know you're an Indian?" (chuckles) And I just cried. I... I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to be a loser.

01:06:06:11
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The Anglican Church, they were very dogmatic. Like, there was all this hell and damnation. Like, I would question, how can God-- if he loved the world so much-- how can he punish us? I start questioning that kind of dogmatic way of thinking. And one Sunday, I wanted to sleep in, so I didn't go to church, and nothing happened.

01:06:41:12
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I remember travelling with Naanii and Tsinii, and also with Uncle Reggie, to fish for sockeye. And going fishing, you see other things. You see the killer whales finning by the boats, the seals in the water-- how they swim, how they bask in the sun on the beach, the bear in the forest. Like, an eagle flew over us once, and Naanii said, "That's your uncle," just like that. Like, no explanation-- that's all she said. Nature was very important in everyday life. That creates an image bank in my mind, so when I'm creating, then I use that memory.

01:07:47:14
MAN:    Everything good there?

01:07:56:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    That's right, you're going good.

01:08:04:12
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    You're good! Hold it!

01:08:11:05
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    It's coming off.

01:08:17:22
MAN:    How we doin'?

01:08:23:20
DRIVER:    Which way?

01:08:24:16
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Straight-- straight ahead!

01:08:32:02
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I started carving when I was 13. My dad actually insisted that I start carving. He just gave me a couple of tools, and "Go at it." (chuckles) So my dad, he was my first teacher. Then I went to my grandfather, and he taught me his style. Then I started copying Edenshaw. And then, eventually, I started to establish my own style.

01:09:08:04
REG DAVIDSON:    Robert was eight years older. Maybe he wanted to go to grade 11 or 12.


01:09:14:00
SUPER:    Reg Davidson
ARTIST

01:09:15:11
REG DAVIDSON:    You left to go away to school. And so he went. So I didn't actually know him until I became older, 'cause when you're a teenager, you're not interested in having your little brother around.

01:09:34:20
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The preacher at the time arranged that I live with his sister's family and finish high school in Vancouver. And I couldn't believe the change. (laughs)

01:10:09:12
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The family was very supportive. They were like a second parent. But I remember the father, Bill Gardner, took me around the city, and he'd explain the city to me. And he brought me down to skid row, and he said, "This is not a place for you to hang out. It's not a good place." And I found that kind of funny, 'cause that's where all my friends were. (laughs)

01:10:40:17
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I went to the school in Kerrisdale, Point Grey. The population of Point Grey School was 1,100 students. The population of Masset Village was 650. (laughs)

01:10:58:10
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I didn't really make any friends, except through basketball. I had no idea that the art was going to be my life journey, but I just kept carving-- carving argillite. And Bill Gardner, the father, he worked at Eaton's department store, and so he set me up at Eaton's. He would advertise, and I would demonstrate carving there. And there was a moment when I was demonstrating carving... I could feel someone was there. "Hi. I'm Bill Reid." I said, "Oh, no." I knew about him. But he invited me to his studio for him to coach me. And so I started to work in his studio, and he'd show me some things to watch. He gave me the instruction. I would go to that museum, and there were these incredible examples of Haida art in the museum. There were carved bowls, there were paddles. There was nothing of that at home.

01:12:05:23
SUPER:    MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY
vancouver

01:12:13:07
KELLY BAPTY:    I had attended the Museum of Anthropology's Coastal First Nations Dance Festival, and just seeing kind of, like, this vibrant culture, dancing amongst the totems in MOA, brought a whole different life and spirit into the space, because MOA's always carried a bit of a weird--

01:12:20:16
SUPER:    Kelly Bapty
ARCHITECT


01:12:31:07
KELLY BAPTY:    You know, you see it on the one side of apprehended cultures, but it was also an important part for relearning, because so much of our cultures were apprehended. And so museums and artworks became kind of that teaching space to relearn the language of making.

01:12:56:21
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I continued studying the art form, the old masters from the Vancouver museum, and plus studying Bill Reid's Haida Village at UBC.

01:13:13:12
KAREN DUFFEK:    Bill Reid was coming at Haida art from a modernist perspective. Modernism was really very much about the separation of the art object from use, from function, from culture, I think. So, for Robert Davidson, Robert could come at it from a different point of view because he grew up within his Haida community, and he experienced the absence of this art from the community.

01:13:31:15
SUPER:    Karen Duffek
MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY
CURATOR, AUTHOR

01:13:42:17
KAREN DUFFEK:    And he said that he had a different kind of ambition, you know, to bring that back home, to make it something that would feed back into the history, the knowledge of the Elders, and, you know, to not only create for the art world.

01:14:03:07
SUPER:    THE
POLE

01:14:09:02
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    When I came home, there was nothing. I knocked on every door to see if there was anything left, and I found one Haida carved box, that was it. I felt there was an emptiness.

01:14:43:11
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    So I offered to carve a totem pole. The reason for the pole raising was for them to celebrate one more time. But some people questioned why I was doing this. They-- "Why are you digging up the past?" Like, there was a lot of pain because of the-- the laws that governed us.

01:15:11:00
SPHENIA JONES:    Some were against it, mainly because they were still afraid of what was going to happen with us if white people came in to see what we were doing.

01:15:10:05
SUPER:    Sphenia Jones
HAIDA ELDER


01:15:24:14
SPHENIA JONES:    We were afraid that we were going to get thrown in jail. It was always, "Shh! No, don't do that. Don't--don't say things like that. You know, it's not allowed."

01:15:36:08
REG DAVIDSON:    The government and the churches did an amazing job on brainwashing people. You know, 'cause it's… They-- The museums and-- came and took a lot of the old poles, and the ones they didn't take, the churches made you cut it down. So next thing, you know, everybody's believing the church is right, and then you're wanting to raise a pole, and-- 'Cause some of these people are so-- at the end of their life, and they're worried about maybe there is heaven, maybe there is a God, so they don't-- they don't want to revisit that again. But the people that were younger were enthused about it, 'cause it's-- they still have time to repent. (laughs)

01:16:22:15
REG DAVIDSON:    Well, I mean, religion's so goofy, you know? You can-- you can be the worst person in the world, and every Sunday, you go repent, and they say they'll forgive you, so you start over again. So every-- You do whatever you want, and every Sunday, you go repent. (laughs)

01:16:36:20
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The curator at UBC, the museum, she applied for a $3,000 cultural grant. And I said, "Oh, yeah. I need some money." You know, I was about 22, my dad called me, and he said, "I found a log for you." I said, "Oh, yeah, we need a log for that." (laughs)

01:17:00:17
REG DAVIDSON:    Robert asked me to help him carve, and he said, "I'll pay you $15 a day." And I said, "Yeah, that's fine. That sounds good to me."

01:17:08:13
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    My dad built a shed where Reg and I carved the totem pole. With the support of my family-- Naanii and Tsinii, my uncles, my aunties-- that kept Reg and I going. I thought I was doing a pretty totem pole... but my grandmother, my naanii, gave me incredible insights, and suggested I talk to the old people. I realized that she was teaching me to ally with the Elders. There's an incredible story there, and that story is those Elders coming together and opening the door.

01:17:55:07
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The tone of the pole-raising was amazing. There was well over a thousand people-- people from Skidegate, people from Hydaburg, people from New Masset, off-island. People from CBC flew up for it, people from The Province, the National Film Board.

01:18:16:04
REG DAVIDSON:    It's probably the first one in the village in about a hundred years, 'cause my tsinii-- I'm going to use "tsinii"-- so that means "grandfather"-- and Tsinii was 89, and he'd never seen it done.


01:18:29:10
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I didn't realize the celebration was really uncorking the bottle, how the-- the old people carried themselves, how they talked, how they danced, how they sang songs. It spoke volumes of the knowledge that was still with them-- knowledge that survived. It was like the culture was never ever gone. It was awoken.

01:19:08:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Like, I had no idea how important it was, how this would be affecting many people outside of the Haida Nation. It took me a long time to realize the totem pole was actually a catalyst to make a statement, that, "Hey, we're alive, and we-- we want to be part of this world."

01:19:39:16
SUPER:    FAMILY

01:19:44:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I've been married, on my third marriage.

01:19:47:16
CAMERAMAN:    Oh!

01:19:48:08
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    (laughs) The first marriage was to Susan, and she's the mother of Sara and Ben. I felt it was a good marriage. And I know the limitations were myself, and I wasn't very good in communicating verbally. But Susan was amazing. She was very supportive. After our separation, when Sara and Ben decided to live with me, she offered to pay child support. And I found that amazing. You know, like, I was making more than she was, and yet she made that offer. And I-- I turned it down, and I thanked her for that.

01:20:43:08
SARA DAVIDSON:    Before I was born, my father created this birth announcement. And then he was so moved by-- he was there when I was born-- that he created this second one. And so my mom got to choose between the two for which would be the birth announcement.

01:21:02:04
SUPER:    Sara Davidson
EDUCATOR, AUTHOR

01:21:05:00
SARA DAVIDSON:    And, um, of course, she chose the second one, and that ended up being this, you know, when you read all of the art critics, that was sort of this pivotal moment.

01:21:20:00
BEN DAVIDSON:    Early on, I was pretty proud. Like, in grade four, you sometimes would have field trips, where the class would come to my dad's studio if he was working on a project or a totem pole. And that was pretty cool. But growing up, I remember having one conversation with him, where I was really mad-- like, just furious-- and I think he was in a tender spot, so, like, I almost sensed it, so I kept-- I kept... pushing.


01:21:37:16
SUPER:    Ben Davidson
ARTIST

01:21:56:12
BEN DAVIDSON:    Sure, I had all these material things, but I didn't always have him up in the stands, you know, playing lacrosse, or-- You know, I would give back, you know, the shoes and the equipment, and all this crap, just to have you show up. So, those are words that I wish I could take back, but I'm sure it helped in our own journey later on.

01:22:23:15
PEOPLE:    (singing)

01:22:34:00
SARA DAVIDSON:    My father is an incredible artist, and he goes to these places, and I understand now that that's what creative people do. They--they, you know, when the--when the-- when the mood strikes them, or when the-- the inspiration comes, they retreat, and they-- they have to capture it in some way. As a child, it's difficult to understand that that's what's going on, and it's difficult sometimes not to take that personally.

01:23:14:04
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Ben and I get along very well, in the same way I get along with Sara. We've become very good friends. But it wasn't always like that. 'Cause I feel a lot of my anger... um... just in-- in my own life-- was-- was creating that barrier.

01:23:42:15
REG DAVIDSON:    Well, smallpox showed up, and everybody was devastated. And then residential school showed up. Whatever kids survived smallpox, they took them away and sent them to residential school, right? My dad went to residential school. The affects were there with us, the way he raised us. And I don't like talking about it, 'cause he can't-- he's not here to defend himself. But he did the best he can for-- with what he knew, right? But he never talked about it.

01:24:14:10
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I had an ah-hah moment, where I was blaming my dad for my shortcomings, and one of my aunties said, "How come you're always blaming your dad? He did the best he could." I didn't really acknowledge my dad, his experience at the residential school, until after he died. But there was a whole slew of people of that generation, my parents' generation, they died quite young-- cancer and alcoholism. One of my dad's brothers went, and he actually died there.

01:25:15:00
SPHENIA JONES:    We're put on a ferry, and then we got on a train. They put me in this boxcar with a whole bunch of beautiful brown faces staring at me. Straw-- I never seen straw before, but there was straw all over in there. Along the way, they'd stop and gather up more kids, and then they threw them in this boxcar. We were on the train for about five days, I guess. I lost count, really. When we got to Edmonton, in the residential school, we had to bury lots of babies. I couldn't get over that.


01:26:02:17
SPHENIA JONES:    They wanted to educate us to be white. They always used to whip us, saying that. We didn't know how to worship God, and I couldn't understand why there was a god like that. (sighs heavily)

01:26:23:16
SARA DAVIDSON:    So you're getting into your reading groups to complete this as a whole group.

01:26:29:06
SARA DAVIDSON:    I teach a course as part of the Teacher Education Program. It's a Bachelor of Education. It's a one-year program. In order to be certified in British Columbia, you have to have an Indigenous content in the program. It's a difficult course to teach as an Indigenous professor. Part of my course is going to Coqualeetza, the residential school where my grandfather went. So, one of the pieces that was really astounding to me was the... "We Were Once Silenced" pole. And I remember walking into a studio, and when I first saw that pole, it just grabbed a hold of me. And that wasn't a commission. That wasn't for somebody else. That was my father reflecting on and working to understand the impact of colonization and residential schools on himself, on his family, on his community.

01:27:42:18
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    With number two, with Dorothy, it was very good in the beginning, but I felt the missing part was finding out who I am. My dad died young, my mother died young. I was on the same road, especially during my drinking period. We had some rough patches. Sara was very afraid. She saw that-- the pattern in my dad-- how he used alcohol-- and many other people in the village, and so she was afraid that I would turn out the same way. In fact, she challenged me. She said, "Why are you doing it?"

01:28:33:17
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    And when she said that, I said, "Wow, that's how it sounds!" Because I would ask my dad to not drink at my potlatch, and that triggered me to want to stop drinking, 'cause every morning, I'd look in the mirror, and I'd see I didn't like the way I looked. So I decided to change my pattern.

01:29:02:08
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I had this really intense visualization of my dad and my mother-- they were gone by then. I started to forgive my dad for what he couldn't give me, and I started to have gratitude for what he gave me. Then I started to work with my mother. I did the same with her. I was driving to work one day, and this beautiful song came on, on the radio. I saw a mother and dad dancing. They were dancing.

01:29:46:08
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    And that moment, I knew that... I was at peace with them.

01:30:14:21
SARA DAVIDSON:    If it's a memory that works, then no problem.


01:30:18:04
SARA DAVIDSON:    We will all have very different views on this piece of Canadian history. And it's not for me to have these debates about what's true and what's not true, but, really, what is our understanding of this and how will it impact the children in our classrooms? I think about the work-- and again, it's not always the fun work-- but I know that in having these educators-- these future teachers-- in the school system, having some understanding of this-- this knowledge-- that it will have an impact. I have to believe that.

01:31:08:14
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS DAVIDSON:    (sings “Cedar Sister”)

01:31:36:07
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    With Terri-Lynn, I feel we are a team. Terri-Lynn has this beautiful singing voice.

01:31:45:00
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS DAVIDSON:    (sings “Cedar Sister”)

01:31:50:18
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    She has this incredible command of Haida law. I've seen her at the Supreme Court, drawing from a Haida law and from the Western law with power, very secure in her presentation. And that comes from having her foot in both drawers, in both cultures.

01:32:15:02
ROBERT DAVIDSON &
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS DAVIDSON:    (sing)

01:32:25:20
CROWD:    (cheers)

01:32:35:07
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I don't take credit for Sara and Ben's development 'cause I feel it was a family event. I feel they're both creative in different mediums. Like, Sara's very, very creative with words, how she can create a thought, an image with words. I had Sara in the studios. I had her drawing, four or five years old. And she said, "How come you don't draw for fun?" (laughs) 'Cause I'd be busy calculating one line, and she's busy drawing, and, you know, drawing like that, and doing five or six drawings to my one line.

01:33:32:21
BEN DAVIDSON:    There was one story with Naanii Florence, my great-grandmother, telling my dad to wash his hands, with mine underneath, so that, you know, his knowledge or his creativity, you know, that washes off him, washes onto me. Now I have my own studio, I have my own gallery, my own space. You know, looking back at it, both him and my uncle, I give them credit for not giving up on me. 'Cause I look back at it, and I'm sure anybody else would've been fired... just for being a teenage punk that didn't always follow the rules, I guess. I was going to school, I was driving a fancy car, and I was partying. But he was very patient with me through what was a very-- for both of us... You know, it must have been interesting.


01:34:31:22
SARA DAVIDSON:    When I was in high school, my father, he used to drink coffee all the time, and one day, he decided, oh, he was getting too jittery, and he was, you know, it was just too much. He had to quit coffee. And I could not believe it. Like, I... "Really? You're going to quit coffee? You drink coffee all the time. It's like everything to you." And so, he said, "No, I am." And I said, "Okay, fine. If you drink another cup of coffee, you will owe me a horse. And if you don't, then I'll owe you a chicken," because he really loved fresh eggs. And he said, "Absolutely! Yes, for sure!" because he was so confident he was never going to drink coffee again. I figured it was a good bet, because, really, for the rest of his life, (laughs) he was not going to have any coffee. So three months later, he drank coffee, and I said, "You owe me a horse," and so, he presented me with this horse.

01:35:30:01
SARA DAVIDSON:    And my brother ended up with the sculpture of a nude woman.

01:35:38:21
BEN DAVIDSON:    My sister got a horse by the same artist-- a big bronze. I was given this partly because I spent a lot of time in a strip club that was quite close to his studio. And it got to the point where my friends called it my office 'cause I spent so much time there. So he thought it was a good gift. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't enjoy it as much as I do. We used to have it in our home. We had-- friends of ours had a little kid, and he actually was caught doing... rubbing-- rubbing her bum, and that's when my wife kind of said, "Okay, this thing's gotta... this thing's gotta go." (laughs)

01:36:38:08
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Ben is better at the age he is than when I was the same age.

01:37:02:16
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    He has grasped the art form, and I know that he will bring it further. And I'm in awe where he's bringing it. And I'm in awe that he is experimenting and using the knowledge of the old masters.

01:37:26:11
BOY:    (speaks indistinctly)

01:37:30:00
BEN DAVIDSON:    I love watching him with my children, because he's an amazing tsinii. He'll pretty much drop anything and spend time with them. And I--I look at that, and I really am glad that he is able to do that in-- at this point in his life.

01:37:55:03
SUPER:    THE
WORK

01:38:09:05
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I continued studying from the old masters at UBC, the old masters from the Vancouver Museum, plus being coached with Bill Reid sometimes, and Doug Cranmer, and the odd time from Wilson Duff. There were many days where I didn't have any money, you know to… but I just kept working. And at one point, Bill Reid and I, we both sat down and talked for a while about what can we do to create-- create salable art.


01:38:50:02
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    When I had to start doing silkscreen prints, for example, my audience weren't educated to the art form. In fact, the first prints that I did, I gave more away than I sold. And in doing that, I didn't realize I was creating a market.

01:39:28:02
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    But there was a point I went through a real inner search-- where am I going, wondering and looking at what I'd created up to that point. And what I saw was I was recycling ideas. I'd do something, and then I'd do a variation of that, and a variation of that. So, I started to look at the old masters again, and found this one artist that went beyond the classical period.

01:39:59:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Unfortunately, the artists of that time period, their names were not recorded. But I learned so much from him, and that influenced the new work that I've been doing for the past 20, 30 years. So if I see myself repeating myself, then I'm really pushing, working to explore in another direction.

01:40:45:12
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I did go through that moment of wanting to be the best. I was also being very condemning of other artists. Being the best was... I can only... It's almost like being the frontrunner. But then I switched my motto to being the best I could be.

01:41:19:11
DOUGLAS REYNOLDS:    Before Robert starts a pole, he actually blocks out a maquette to the design, so that he can scale up the design to the full-sized log. He can then take these blocky areas off the maquette, scale it up, rough out the totem pole. Robert then goes, does all the fine carving on the totem pole-- decides how the ovoids, how the wings, the details of the feathers, will be, as he's carving the totem pole.

01:41:39:21
SUPER:    Douglas Reynolds
DOUGLAS REYNOLDS GALLERY

01:41:46:02
DOUGLAS REYNOLDS:    And then once the totem pole's finished, he goes back and finishes the maquette. The fine line and details that go into these small sculptures is an incredible amount of work and time and patience.

01:42:25:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The shapes are in nature. When I walk on the beach, or when I look at a shell, they have the beginnings of an ovoid. When I see the pattern on the beach, I say, "Wow, those are U-shapes." The ovoid could be the eye. Like a bird, for example, the U-shape could be used for feathers. Formline is the skeleton of the being. Crosshatching comes from the skunk cabbage, hlgun. When I look at the skunk cabbage, "Wow, that's all crosshatching!"

01:43:11:18
MEGHAN PARKER:    I've talked to my students about why reading imagery is a valuable skill.

01:43:14:22
SUPER:    Meghan Parker
HIGH SCHOOL ART INSTRUCTOR

01:43:16:15
MEGHAN PARKER:    And it's that we're in a visual culture. We are surrounded by images all the time-- people are trying to sell you things, people are trying to communicate with you, and if you're a critical reader of those images, you'll get along in the world a little better. And Indigenous artwork is awesome. So, one of the first steps is to be able to break down the shapes. So, you can tell the difference between an eagle and a raven 'cause the eagle has a hooked beak, whereas the raven's beak stays straight all the way through. A thunderbird looks like an eagle-- same beak-- but then with a crest on their head.

01:43:52:00
MEGHAN PARKER:    So, the frog always has a wide mouth, and is usually portrayed kind of from the front, so you see two eyes. The beaver has the two front teeth, ears, and often crosshatching pattern. The dogfish has spiky teeth and is usually portrayed from the front. And then a killer whale will have, usually, like, a fin, or more than one fin, and then, again, you can see, like, the teeth from the side.

01:44:19:13
MEGHAN PARKER:    And then it's fun sometimes, in Robert Davidson's, and other Indigenous artist's work, is there'll be kind of other animals hiding within the shapes of other animals. So, for example, like, there might be a salmon in the killer whale's fin. Robert Davidson's precision with, like, a paintbrush and a carving tool is kind of a precision we only know to be possible in computer-generated imagery. Like, it is as technical and beautiful as, I think, work can be.

01:44:55:18
GARY WYATT:    When Robert Davidson creates the idea of knife-finish, it is to show that that is the highest standard that a carver can use to create. He does not sand his work. It's a knife-finish. Sanding can cover a lot of sins, and, you know, he wants something that shows that it's the integrity of the carver that is being put into every piece that he makes.

01:45:07:15
SUPER:    Gary Wyatt
SPIRIT WRESTLER GALLERY

01:45:17:07
GARY WYATT:    Sandpaper also sort of fills in the bit of the cracks and blemishes, so when you paint over top of it, you have this dust fill that comes into the work. In a knife-finish, that doesn't exist. It is that level of difference that it is that he brings to the highest possible level.

01:45:46:12
GARY WYATT:    His work is very time-consuming, very, very elite, and Robert would command as high a value as any Canadian artist.


01:45:58:17
SUPER:    THE THREE WATCHMEN
maclean hunter bldg.
toronto

01:46:03:06
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    It was a gradual thing. I didn't really pay attention to the change because it was so gradual. It was a progression. So as I gained more and more numbers to my age, I feel, then, okay, "There's only this much more left in my life, and there's only this much more that I can do."

01:46:16:22
SUPER:    HUGGING THE WORLD
vancouver international airport

01:46:31:21
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    So I feel-- I feel I have to put a new value on that, because it's taking me longer for each piece, because I'm still pushing and expanding my vocabulary within the art form.

01:47:13:11
SUPER:    AUSTIN
texas

01:48:06:22
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    …And when I did the painting, it looked kind of stingy. I only did the one. So I added two more. I named it "Halibut, Halibut, Halibut."

01:48:27:11
SUPER:    NATURAL
WORLD

01:48:36:21
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    When I look at a tree, I don't see it as a commodity. I think it's not something you cut down and you put a price tag on it. Yes, we create the canoe from it, we create totem poles from it, we create masks from it. The bark we use for weaving, and the cedar is used for houses. But there's something sacred about a tree.

01:49:03:06
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    There's a presence. When I walk in the forest, there's something sacred about it. The forest is-- it almost feels like that's where the spirits live.

01:49:35:12
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Lyell Island on Haida Gwaii, it was the stopping point where Elders, the youth, came together and said enough is enough, because the logging company had the right to absolute clear-cut. They talked about the advancement of harvesting-- they call it harvesting, but we call it clear-cut. There was no regard to the future.

01:50:13:06
ELIZABETH MAY:    I'd been an environmental activist all my life, but I was hugely fortunate. The Ministry of Environment asked me to come work in his office as Senior Policy Advisor, and I'd been really aware of the movement to stop the logging on the southern third of Haida Gwaii.

01:50:18:00
SUPER:    Elizabeth May
LEADER, FEDERAL GREEN PARTY
AUTHOR, PARADISE WON

01:50:31:11
ELIZABETH MAY:    But Haida Gwaii was achieving a lot of public profile, thanks to the arrests that had happened. Well, the Haida were sitting with Bibles open on their laps, facing arrest to stop the logging.

01:50:50:00
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS DAVIDSON:    When the Haida people saw the extent of the logging, we knew that it had to end, and we knew that we had to take a stand because there was no end in sight to the future logging of Gwaii Haanas.

01:50:52:09
SUPER:    Terri-Lynn Williams Davidson
LEGAL COUNSEL, HAIDA NATION
ARTIST

01:51:00:20
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS DAVIDSON:    We could see that the plans were to completely liquidate the old-growth forest, and we couldn't see that as how we envisioned our future to ensure that our responsibilities are met-- the responsibilities that have been handed to us by our ancestors.

01:51:20:10
REG DAVIDSON:    When Lyell Island was happening, we're living in Vancouver. And Robert and I, we'd fundraise in Vancouver. We did a gig at the Vancouver Hotel with Long John Baldry, and then we did one at The Orpheum with Pete Seeger. Bruce Cockburn, he donated his salary. Yeah, he was big supporter, 'cause he came up and donated the cheque to us-- to the Haida people. And they had a big-- it was the House of Assembly-- and they had a big... a dinner there, and then they had a dance, and he was jamming with people, playing at the dance. And after they did that, I remember Robert doing a design for one of his album covers.

01:52:12:01
BRUCE COCKBURN:    (sings) While they're waiting for a... 
While they're waiting for a... 
While they're waiting for a miracle

01:52:24:06
BRUCE COCKBURN:    On the rare occasions when you get involved with an issue, and your efforts actually bear fruit, it is very exciting and rewarding, and it feels really good.

01:52:27:05
SUPER:    Bruce Cockburn
RECORDING ARTIST


01:52:32:22
BRUCE COCKBURN:    I mean, it's never completely unqualifiedly that, because you always know that there's, you know, there's, there's an ambush waiting down the road somewhere, but-- because the industrial interests, the money interests and so on, they are not gonna give up-- but to see a real success like that was-- it sure felt good.

01:52:57:13
PEOPLE:    (sing)

01:53:05:00
THERESA MAY:    All of this contributed to the power of the narrative that this area had to be saved, and it actually happened.

01:53:15:08
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS DAVIDSON:    The steps that were taken to protect Gwaii Haanas were the genesis of the Haida Nation's efforts at advancing reconciliation, at starting to find a way to work together with the local people, the people who were on the other side of the blockade-- the logging families-- and finding a way to develop a future for all people on Haida Gwaii. Here we are now, 30 years later, and we've spent 30 years jointly managing the Gwaii Haanas area to ensure that that place was protected.

01:55:07:03
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The evidence of climate change is loud and clear, and, yet, it's still being denied. For example, there's no focus, there's no talk about the damage that the tar sands are creating. It's all been totally ignored-- the idea that it was a bad idea to develop in the first place. And so we have this incredible workforce that's caught up in someone's choice to develop the tar sands. It's like the government is addicted to lying.

01:55:47:05
PROTESTORS:    Water is life! Can’t choose oil! Water is life! Can’t choose oil! Water is life!

01:55:59:04
ELIZABETH MAY:    The reason I submitted myself to a position where I could get arrested was because Indigenous leadership is protecting all of us, all the time. And it's not right that Indigenous leadership should have to spend all the money and all the court cases to keep protecting society from the climate-crisis disaster approaching.

01:56:12:13
SUPER:    tar sands pipeline tanker blockade

01:56:17:10
ELIZABETH MAY:    But with Robert Davidson raising that pole so people could see one last pole, there was a real risk that the whole of the culture, including language, was going to disappear. But language, culture, religious traditions, the essence of being Indigenous, was not eradicated against huge odds that it would be. So the culture is alive. It's no longer a museum culture. And it's... it's also part of political power.


01:56:47:00
ELIZABETH MAY:    But I think looking at it, the art had come first. You can write a great brief this thick full of facts and figures about why we have to do something, but if you provide an image that reaches them in their heart, they're much more likely to act.

01:57:07:18
SUPER:    DRYING THE TEARS

01:57:08:05
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    But globally, we're still in that place of no regard for the future. And so, as a result, B.C. is burning up. California is burning up. There's... the oceans are... are being polluted with plastic. How can we try to imagine a future? Can we create an image to start changing the direction?

01:57:39:17
SUPER:    INFLUENCE

01:57:51:17
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I feel it's important to instill in the next generation the values that have helped my generation, my parents' generation, my grandparents' generation, and so on, help them on their journey. Relearning what was given to us, it's our privilege and challenge to continually expand on that knowledge. And I'm excited to see the next generation-- in fact, it's happening now-- the next generation of artists and where they're bringing the art.

01:58:33:04
SUPER:    TYSON BROWN

01:58:40:14
SUPER:    BEN DAVIDSON

01:58:45:19
SUPER:    SONNY ASSU

01:58:50:21
SUPER:    MARIANNE NICOLSON

01:58:59:06
SHAWN HUNT:    Growing up, it wasn't cool to be a Native person. You know, when I was a young kid, when I turned on the television, Native people were always the sidekicks, or they were the enemy, and that was so confusing for me. So, I would say one of the most important things that Robert Davidson did for me-- and, you know, I should say that, like, I never worked with Robert Davidson, but I studied Robert Davidson, you know, when I was a young man.

01:59:15:11
SUPER:    Shawn Hunt


01:59:30:04
SHAWN HUNT:    I mean, who didn't, really? And I saw how great the work was, and I saw how interesting it was, that he was always progressing, always pushing the form forward. But also, I was very interested in how successful he was, that he was making a living at being an artist, but not only making a living at being an artist, he is famous. And that was, like, a real, like, eye-opening thing for me, because it was, like, "Wait a minute." It was, you know-- I can practice my culture, I can make work that resonates deep within my soul, and I can make a great living at it.

02:00:08:04
SHAWN HUNT:    He was somebody to really look up to because he is a rock star of Native art, you know, moving into the realm of just being an artist, period. And it's now totally acceptable and totally cool to be a Native artist.

02:00:29:19
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I feel honoured for the recognition. It's not something that I flaunt. It's not something I can eat, or it's not something that I can brag about. It's helping me to know that I'm being accepted in the broader world. I'm excited that the people are reclaiming our place through the art. The movement is continually growing, and that excites me.

02:01:17:18
KELLY BAPTY:    I heard an Elder speaking. She said, "You need to feel uncomfortable before you take action. We've been uncomfortable for a long time.

02:01:24:19
SUPER:    MALAHAT NATION
community centre

02:01:26:12
KELLY BAPTY:    We need you to get here and be uncomfortable with us so that we can work this out, because everything's not okay."

02:01:33:14
SUPER:    Kelly Bapty / Scott Kemp
ARCHITECTS

02:01:36:00
KELLY BAPTY:    Architecture-- I'd say, actually, more art-- it's allowed to be very critical. It can be very confrontational. And out of necessity, it can be very poignant and pointed. But it's also beautiful, and it makes you engage with it. It makes you want to explore it more and understand it further. Whether you're looking at a totem from Davidson, or a wall panel from Jim Hart, or a Chilkat weaving by, you know, Meghann O'Brien or Sherri Dick, it's the awakening of that spirit that's been sleeping for so long, these memories and this knowledge that hasn't had a voice for generations.

02:02:22:04
KELLY BAPTY:    But as Indigenous people, we've always been contemporary. What Western world is saying now, as pop culture is, just that awareness of how we are actually contemporary. We make use of what's there. We make use of technology to our advantage, and we-- we kind of always have.


02:02:41:13
KELLY BAPTY:    And I think that's one thing that's kind of shifting the Western perspective, that we're not these black and white photos. We are living, vibrant, colourful cultures. And the Edward Curtis perspective of the last Indian, or the dying race, is not our circumstance. You know, we didn't make it through all of those other obstacles to kind of just blend in.

02:03:45:04
REG DAVIDSON:    All of a sudden, it's cool to be a Native person. I mean, when I was a kid, nobody wanted to be involved, you know. Now everybody wants to be part of it.

02:04:03:00
KAREN DUFFEK:    The use of Native iconography on popular items, yeah, it's very widespread. There's a history of grabbing hold of the Indigenous imagery, so iconic pieces of Indigenous material, culture, have been used and abused in different ways in the popular realm. There's Indigenous artists and others who are very much involved now in trying to protect their cultural heritage from misappropriation.

02:04:41:00
SHAWN HUNT:    You know, the cultural appropriation thing is interesting. I find that-- apart from the people that are lying and trying to just make money off of our culture-- the people that love our culture, they may see our culture as a time capsule, and they may see it as this sort of romantic idea, but they're at least attracted to it. And maybe we need to educate them a little further. But they're the people that are going to be on our side. And so I don't want to discourage people, and just yell in their faces, and be, like, very angry about what they're doing. I want to educate them on how they can do it properly, and how they can be in-- you know, inclusive of our culture without, you know, sort of mowing it down.

02:05:34:08
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I often wonder what the attraction is to our ceremonies, to our feasts, to our potlatches, for the Western folk. And the closest thing I can come up with is the spirituality. There's a spirituality that emanates from our songs, from our ceremonies, and they're genuine.

02:06:03:18
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The mask, it's to achieve another level. It becomes, like, this supernatural being. The supernatural beings are a very powerful concept within the Haida and within other nations. When I watch Reg, for example, he becomes the mask.

02:06:32:21
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    He is the raven. He is the eagle. He is the frog. The spirit of the being takes over his body.

02:06:52:03
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    I feel we have a place in our heart where the spirit lives. It has a hunger to be fed. We need to feed that spirit.

02:07:12:16
SUPER:    UNINTERRUPTED
public art installation

02:07:15:20
NETTIE WILD:    I think that the narratives that Indigenous artists like Robert do, where they insist on weaving the natural world with the spiritual world and making that really front and centre, that absolutely changes the lens on how we look at this.

02:07:22:10
SUPER:    Nettie Wild
DIRECTOR, UNINTERRUPTED

02:07:41:14
NETTIE WILD:    When we were filming on the river, and then later in the editing room, we actually saw ovoid shapes that we recognized from Indigenous work. And it was a real ah-hah moment, where we just went, "That's where it comes from!"

02:07:58:13
NETTIE WILD:    I know that I look at this land in a very, very different way than my mother and father did and their parents before them. And First Nations artists, like Robert Davidson, played a major role in changing that lens. And it's seeped into the city. Not just to the artists or the people who are involved in Indigenous solidarity, but to the whole works. And that's what we were seeing under the bridge.

02:08:33:20
SUPER:    POTLATCH

02:08:36:20
PEOPLE:    (sing)

02:08:56:20
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON:    Throughout time, Indigenous peoples in the Haida Nation have brought forward this issue of how did the Crown gain title to Haida Gwaii and to our traditional territories. And so we started bringing that issue further, in as many different forms as we could, and we started gaining strength. And so the Canadian government enacted the potlatch prohibition to keep us from assembling in large numbers so that we could then formulate broader strategies to bring forward the issue of Indigenous title and Haida title.

02:09:30:10
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON:    In potlatches, we bring those masks out. We share songs that our clans are entitled to sing. And in that sense, it is a court.

02:09:42:20
SARA DAVIDSON:    My father told me these stories, and I had this moment where I realized that my father was alive during this potlatch ban. He was there as a boy. And so he's looking at where our knowledge has been lost and finding ways to fill that.

02:09:55:19
SUPER:    en route to
HYDABURG, ALASKA

02:10:01:10
SARA DAVIDSON:    And so he's holding these potlatches as a way to teach.

02:10:12:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    There were a few clans from Hydaburg that there's no identification marker for that clan, so I decided to commit to giving a dance screen to each clan.

02:10:27:02
SARA DAVIDSON:    My father was born in Hydaburg, and so I think for him it's a really big deal to co-host this event with Terri-Lynn in Hydaburg.

02:10:38:21
PEOPLE:    (sing)

02:11:22:04
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAM-DAVIDSON:    The other focus of the potlatch prohibition was people saw a chief and a family and a clan giving away all of their property, and didn't think that that was-- would fit with their vision of a capitalist society, where people would be only be caring for themselves.

02:11:44:03
SUPER:    FACING
FORWARD

02:11:51:14
KAREN DUFFEK:    I think that people do see, in Indigenous work-- I mean, they know that it comes from the land and that it is connected to the land, and so it's seen as something of a guiding light, I think, and that might, again, be misappropriated. It might be misunderstood. And yet, you hear, more and more, recognition that Indigenous ways of traditionally connecting to the land and to the beings of the land and seeing yourself as not separate from that, is critical to human survival.

02:12:38:20
BEN DAVIDSON:    I still see him pushing, and see him yearning... for more knowledge and more culture. And he's still, at his age and his stage of his career, is still wanting to push-- push beyond the boundaries.

02:13:01:10
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    Done.

02:13:46:12
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON:    When I speak about reconciliation, I go back to the word “Haida.” (speaks word in Haida language) as Robert would say, means "the people." All people have that in their name, whether they're Iron people-- (speaks word in Haida language)-- or not. We're all one race. We're one people who need to find a way to live together. And the art, the music, is hopefully a way to get people thinking the same.

02:14:18:19
TERRI-LYNN WILLIAMS-DAVIDSON:    I see many people who are moved by the art, and it's that moment of realizing that we're the same-- that we have some attribute that we share in common, which is why we're drawn that art-- that could then become the ground for understanding each other better and finding our way through the human existence to live together.


02:14:54:20
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    So I'm doing a lot of reflecting on the state of the world, where we are as human beings, and also questioning the powers out there that are making these insane decisions.

02:15:14:16
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    The science keeps saying, "Hey, look at this, look at this, look at this," and yet, the corporations are still pushing, pushing, pushing, and nature keeps being the victim.

02:15:39:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    But the corporations are not an evil force. The corporations are like one of the supernatural beings that tests your strength.

02:16:04:00
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    When I look back, we would always be travelling with the tide. There I am pulling, rowing. I think I'm helping Tsinii. But the old folk, when they rowed the boat, they would actually push their oars, facing forward. They're pushing, and he's able to watch where we're going. He's the steersman. We have to find the strength to take over being the steersman.

02:16:39:23
ROBERT DAVIDSON:    There's a Haida belief that whatever we can imagine... we can create.

02:16:56:00
MAN:    (sings)

THE END