Mary Cameron (20th Century) Canadian, Watercolor. Depicts a totemic image of a bear with tall ears, with a captive human in front of him. Signed middle bottom. Prior gallery label from Duluth, MN on back. Tag with thorough information on back reads: "BEAR TOTEM" (Kwakiutl) Alert Bay, British Columbia - Rep. by M. Cameron (TENAS EE-NA) #246 (Purchased in Vancouver, B.C. 1969) 

Overall: 17 1/4 X 13 5/8 in. 

Sight: 11 X 7 1/2 in. 

#2822 . 

At 173 feet tall, the wooden tribal totem in Alert Bay, British Columbia is demonstrably the tallest tower of its kind in the entire world. Since the mid 1960s Alert Bay has become a hub for First Nations tribes, particularly the indigenous Kwakiutl people, to come and carve new totems as a way of reclaiming their heritage and ancestral beliefs. Photographs, watercolors, woodblock prints and countless other representations of the totems have emerged since then capturing the spirit of these unique pieces of art and history. Each one tells a story, from the thunderbird lording over all creatures below, to the rabbit sneaking beneath the feet of a vicious wolf, to the bear who captured a man who threatened his fishing grounds and kept him as a pet. The popularization of the art form as collectible “native kitsch” led to heavy commercialization in the lower provinces of Canada and adjacent states in the US by the 1990s to supply the tourist trade, and in the new Millennium younger indigenous artists have returned to crafting images of the totems in abstract and symbolic styles as a way of reconnecting with their roots and distancing themselves from the fetishization of the “primitive” and “exotic” that their work was categorized as for decades.