The ceremonial house has been repainted for the first time since 1977 by family members, and two languages have been added to the Our Living Languages exhibit
Portions of the First Peoples Gallery at the Royal B.C. Museum reopened on Tuesday with updated language exhibits and a splash of new paint, after being closed for 15 months.
The Jonathan Hunt House is both a museum installation and a working ceremonial house for potlatch ceremonies. Potlatches were outlawed in Canada from 1884 until 1951. “It was great to be back working at the museum and it was an honour to restore these family treasures,” he said in a statement. The new exhibit is a “demonstration of the innovative work of the B.C. First Nations language champions who are acknowledged in Canada and around the world as leaders in community-based language revitalization models and strategies,” she said.
Our Living Languages is now housed in a compact, low-ceiling area of the gallery where Haida argillite carvings used to sit. “We’ve heard loud and clear from tourists and British Columbians that they come into the museum and they really want to see the Indigenous galleries,” she said. “We had no Indigenous representation within the museum over the last few years.”
It was returned to the nation last February after years of delays and a lawsuit from the Nuxalk Nation. Drake said there was no damage found among the First Nation artifacts, but one section will need asbestos-remediation before it can reopen.
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