Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time

Book excerpt: In 1998, Dzawada'enuxw artist Marianne Nicholson scaled a vertical rock face in Kingcome Inlet to paint a massive pictograph to mark the continued vitality of her ancestral village of Gwa'yi. Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time is the story of that painting, of earlier politically defiant rock art, and of coppers, ceremonial shields that are a central motif in these images. Judith Williams tracks the history of a culturally and geographically rich locale at a flashpoint in Native-white relations. She investigates the rock art around Kingcome Inlet, explores the disintegrating Halliday homestead, and plumbs the archives to measure colonialism's legacy. Documenting Nicholson's painting of the new pictograph, Williams describes the symbiosis of old and new that has seen Gwa'yi and the Kwakwaka'wakw prevail despite all attempts to eradicate their culture.