Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time: Kingcome Inlet Pictographs, 1893–1998 by Judith Williams (review)

humanities 271 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 attention is devoted to the evolution of northern life and, following the First World War, the informal division of northern Alberta into two sub-regions, one centred around the Peace River country and the other focused on developments around Fort McMurray. Because the book only covers the period to 1950, it does not discuss in detail the major expansion of the resource economy in the last half of the century. The chapters on the interwar years, however, describe the changing dynamics of an expanding resource sector and, in particular, document the impact of these changes on both the non-Aboriginal and the Aboriginal people in the region. Alberta=s North is, in many ways, a fine piece of work. Well-selected (if often too small) photographs illustrate the diversity and changing nature of regional life. The maps are useful and well presented. While a few topics, such as the Alaska Highway and CANOL projects in the Second World War, are dealt with in a perfunctory fashion, the authors have generally covered the main issues and events in appropriate detail. Particularly pleasing in a geographically focused work of this nature, Alberta=s North places regional developments in a national and thematic context. The book is written more as a foundational study than as a piece of popular history, and so the narrative is stronger on detail than on carefully selected stories or engaging anecdote. Donald Wetherell and Irene Kent have accomplished their main goal. They have provided a tightly written account of the evolution of northern Alberta, with attention to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal contributions and experiences. By describing the formation and subsequent division of the regional society, they have moved beyond simplistic geographically deterministic notions of identity and have portrayed a vibrant, changing, and important part of Alberta and western Canada. Alberta=s North is a fitting and carefully crafted narrative of the development of a region that has, over the last fifty years, played an increasingly important place in the country=s economic and political development. (KENNETH COATES) Judith Williams. Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time: Kingcome Inlet Pictographs, 1893B1998 New Star Books 2001. 240. $29.00 In 1998 Dzawada=enuxw artist Marianne Nicolson painted a new twelvemetre -high red iron ochre pictograph on a rock face in British Columbia=s Kingcome Inlet, four miles upriver from Gwa=yi vilage. The painting is in the form of a shield-shaped copper that was used traditionally as a form of exchange to signify family and economic power. The art work depicts the mythical Dzawada=enuxw wolf ancestor Kawadilikala and is a symbol of cultural continuity. Nicolson=s pictograph is a hundred metres from a significant rock art work painted in 1927 by Mollie Wilson at Petley Point. The Petley Point 272 letters in canada 2002 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 rock painting shows traditional coppers together with cows. It documents George Scow=s 1927 potlatch, one of the last major illegal feasting and gifting ceremonies that was held following the 1921 confiscation of potlatch regalia by the federal government. The cows that were consumed at Scow=s potlatch were purchased from local farmer Ernest Halliday. Ironically, at the same time Ernest=s brother, William Halliday, a federal Indian agent, was actively prosecuting all of the Kwakwaka= wakw for potlatching to comply with the federal government=s policy to enforce Native assimilation. Visual artist and writer Judith Williams examines the history of the potlatch and the negative effect of its ban on the Aboriginal community. She records how winning local soccer teams used trophy giving and feasting as a mechanism for an underground continuation of the potlatch gifting ceremony. The federal government eventually returned the ritual objects to Native-directed museums in Alert Bay and Cape Mudge in 1979/80. Williams=s account is interwoven with the history of the homesteaders who arrived in Gwa=yi village in 1893 to establish European-style farming. The Halliday family came from Scotland and were >the longest enduring inlet homesteaders.= The engaging history of this family included memoirs of events such as Ernest rowing...