Charlie Edenshaw

Charlie Edenshaw, whose ancestral Haida names were Tahayghen and Da.a xiigang, was born in the Haida Gwaii village of Skidegate. Living through the cataclysmic 1862 smallpox epidemic that wiped out over eighty percent of the Haida population, Edenshaw dedicated his life to preserving Haida visual mythology through extraordinary craftsmanship.

Edenshaw was a genius in multiple media: sculpting black argillite stone into intricate narrative pipes and chests, engraving silver and gold trade coins into crest jewellery, and painting ceremonial bentwood boxes. His works were eagerly sought by ethnographers Franz Boas and Marius Barbeau and reside in the British Museum and Smithsonian.