Wet’suwet’en delegation travels to Paris to reconnect with cultural treasure [Video]

A First Nation in B.C. recently reconnected with a powerful piece of their cultural history — nearly a century after it left their land. 

A delegation from the Wet’suwet’en Nation travelled to Paris last month to see the K’ëgit totem pole, now housed at the Quai Branly Museum. 

Standing about 16 metres tall, the pole depicts the story of K’ëgit, a supernatural figure central to the House of Many Eyes clan of the Wet’suwet’en, says hereditary chief Ron Mitchell, who was part of the delegation. 

“He was a healer,” Mitchell told CBC News. 

The pole, which he says was carved in the late 1800s, once stood in Hagwilget, a Wet’suwet’en village, along the east side of the Bulkley River.

It served as a cultural landmark and eventually drew the interest of surrealist artists from Europe, according to Joanne Connauton, a geography PhD candidate from Florida State University.

“The surrealist art movement had a keen interest in Indigenous objects …