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Simon Fraser University’s Office for Aboriginal Peoples (OAP) is having a celebration on Thursday, July 22, to mark the recent installation of two historic totem poles outside the OAP office entrance.
 
The poles, carved by the late Tsimshian artist Ray Wesley, were originally erected more than three decades ago in SFU’s Naheeno Park, a popular location in the university’s early years.
 
Over time, brush filled in the area and limited access to the poles, leaving them weathered, worn and forgotten until 2007 when they were removed for restoration and relocation on the Burnaby campus.
 
Some family members of the late carver will be at the installation celebration, which takes place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Burnaby campus First Nations Space/Saywell Hall Atrium.
 
The agenda for the event is as follows:
 

• Greetings and opening words.
• A recount of the history of the poles and their move indoors by Barbara Winter, curator of SFU’s Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology, and OAP director William Lindsay.
• Remarks from the family of totem pole carver Ray Wesley.
• Celebration songs by Gary George, First Nations Student Life Coordinator.
• An inspection of the poles.
• Lunch.
   

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