Coastal Peoples Fine Arts Gallery (1024 Mainland Street, Yale-town, 604-685-9298) represents First Nations artists from the Queen Charlotte Islands, Alert Bay, and other communities along the coast. In a gallery-like store, it shows and sells bentwood boxes, ceremonial masks, totem poles, argillite carvings, and jewelry, as well as Inuit carvings, cards, and books.
In 1946, Lloyd and Frances Hill acquired a general store and post office at Koksilah on central Vancouver Island and began selling the work of local natives there. Today, they claim to represent more than 1,000 Northwest artists at five locations in the province. Hill’s Native Art (165 Water Street, Gastown, 604-685-4249, www.hillsnativeart.com) carries genuine Cowichan sweaters, each numbered and associ¬ated with a particular knitter, and similarly certified masks, baskets, jewelry, and argillite by coastal natives. As well, Hill’s has a fine col¬lection of Inuit carvings in bone and soapstone. And in a third-floor gallery, you’ll find totem poles, bentwood boxes, button blankets, and ceremonial masks of extraordinary complexity and drama. Leona Lattimer (1590 West 2nd Avenue, Kitsilano, 603-732-4556) has long shown and sold fine native Indian pieces.
The spacious Inuit Gallery (206 Cambie Street, Gastown, 604-688-7323, www.inuit.com) also handles Northwest Coast native art, specializing in sculpture, bone, prints, drawings, and tapestries from the Far North. It’s here you’ll see the works of some of the most celebrated Inuit carvers.
North Vancouver remains home to Squamish people, some of whom live on the Capilano reserve. Among them is the Baker family, which operates the Khot-La Cha Art Gallery and Gift Shop (270 Whonoak Street, North Vancouver, 604-987-3339). The shop is located in traditional Capilano territory, just southeast of Marine Drive and Capilano Road.
This is an opportunity to talk with the people who have used and made these products for generations. While they sell cedar poles, prints, jewelry, and Cowichan sweaters, their specialty is hand-tanned moosehide crafts and porcupine quill and bone jewelry.
A somewhat out-of-the-way surprise is the collection of carvings and jewelry at a store best known for its camping supplies, the Three Vets (2200 Yukon Street, Central Vancouver, 604-872-5475).
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