27.04.06

    Sweden repatriated a totem pole to the Haisla, and today is the first day it’s on display at the Museum of Anthropology. I headed by this morning to find a lineup at the admissions desk, I have never seen a lineup so long there. A crowd of people wove their way into the museum, surrounded by schools of kids on field trips. The kids tore around, put all the security guards on edge, and delighted in opening up every drawer possible in the museum’s open storage area. Amid the chaos I found the pole, still half in its shipping crate, in front of the Reid piece “Raven and the First Men”. The pole is over a hundred years old, it was removed from the Northwest coast under questionable circumstances in the early part of the century, and recently returned to the Haisla in exchange for a new pole. It is a precedent setting example of repatriation of cultural artifacts. I had heard about it on the radio, and the excellent state of preservation was mentioned, but it was still a surprise to see the rich colour of the wood and the original marks of the adze and other tools. Various museum staff would wander by to have a look. It’s due to be moved back to Haisla territory soon, so two sides of the crate were left intact, the Styrofoam and orange nylon straps forming an interesting counterpoint to the ancient wood. And just as I’m pondering the semiotic significance of such juxtaposition, James Bond shows up.
    Well, okay, it was Pierce Brosnan, but what else am I going to use as a reference. It was him, looking a little grayer and scruffier than on celluloid, but there’s no mistaking the voice. I’d heard another visitor mention his name earlier, but thought nothing of it at the time. One of the museum staff filled him in on the story of the pole, and I left them alone.
    Of course this started all sorts of weird associations to jump into my imagination. I half-expected ninjas to drop in through the skylight and airlift the pole away in a daring international art theft caper. Martini, anyone?

More info on the pole here. More info on Pierce Brosnan here.

24.04.06

    I came across this Mourning Cloak butterfly this morning. It was warming up on the trail in the sun. I didn't see it initially, and it flew up and landed a little ways away. Walking slowly I managed to crouch right next to it and get some photos. It wandered around, seemingly oblivious to me and my camera about 5cm away. This butterfly has been around, note the ragged edges of the wings and missing scales, indicating many near misses with predators over a long life. In a way, it trusted me not to harm it, and I didn't want to betray that trust. Oddly, I found myself feeling kind of protective of it, not wanting anyone to come by and step on it or anything. What strange emotions humans invest in other animals.

23.04.06
    Big family dinner last night, Chinese seafood restaurant in Richmond. (I can feel you smile knowingly.) My aunt had heard about this special on King Crab, and it seemed like every table ordered it. They had tanks of the creatures on one wall, overlooking the tables. If you’ve never seen one of these things, their bodies are about the size of a child’s head. An immensely spiky red carapace sits in the middle of legs that can span a meter or so. Before being eaten, they are paraded through the dining room to be presented live on a tray to be inspected by the table of future consumption. The dining area was quite small to begin with and all the tables were set up for large groups. Rubber-gloved waiters had to hoist the crab-laden trays above their heads to thread their way through the chairs. The overall impression was rather surreal. It’s hard not to anthropomorphize an animal that big that is looking right at you. After passing inspection, they are whisked to the kitchen, from whence they return cooked, cracked open, and topped with garlic, a bed of leg parts surmounted by their own heads.
    I’m not ready to get into the ethics of this without more information on the environmental impact and sustainability of their harvest, but I cannot imagine a worse fate for the ones left in the tanks. To have prime seats to watch others like you being removed from their habitat, presented like a sacrifice to beings which pay them a cursory glance before pronouncing their death, then watching as primates tear out the internal tissues from the exoskeleton and chew greedily. And to know that you’re next. It makes you wish them a combination of bad eyesight and limited cognitive abilities, which is probably true to some extent.
    And they were absolutely delicious.

22.04.06
    The Jehovah’s Witness saga ended about a month ago. They came by and I returned their book on why evolution is an elaborately constructed delusion and the idea will be discredited promptly. The book was about 25 years old. The experience was still beneficial for me since it encouraged me to question my beliefs and ponder on the nature of truth, faith, life, and spirituality. In the end we were all entrenched in our positions and I didn’t see much point in continuing, and told them as much.
    They saw themselves as heralds of a warning, that humanity’s problems are too large to be fixed by humans, and only an acceptance of their Way would bring about a Deus Ex Machina to restore us to a state of grace before the fast approaching End of Days. Regardless of if they’re right or not, I would rather attempt to fix our problems than sit and wait for salvation. Climate change was one of their signals of the End, and to address this, we could all pattern our lives after a piece of ancient scripture, or y’know, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and invest in alternative energies.
    They saw both ways as means to the same sort of end, and drew up an analogy. “Imagine you are trying to go to Toronto and you decide to get there by heading South. We’ve got a map, and we’re saying, ‘Go East’. But you say, ‘No thanks, I know where I’m going on my own, and I’m heading South’. You may get there eventually, but you would have been there sooner if you listened to those who showed you the path.”
    If I were more confrontational, I would have pointed out that one path has the benefit of verifiable, objective (or close enough) reason, while the other one relies on blind faith, and exactly which one of us was going down which path. I, however, was feeling more diplomatic, and observed that ultimately, we may just have different destinations.