At 89 years old, the Haisla Nation's Sammy Robinson is described as 'the region's oldest living master carver who still practices the ancient ways of carving cedar.'
At 89 years old, the Haisla Nation's Sammy Robinson is described as one of the oldest living master carvers along B.C.'s North Coast. As he prepares to carve his final totem pole, reporter Elizabeth McSheffrey takes a look at his extraordinary life and legacy.
Click to share quote on Twitter: "I'm the last one that knows the meaning of it … I don't carve it if it doesn't have any meaning."Haisla Nation master carver and Hereditary Chief Sammy Robinson sits in his carving shop in Kitimaat Village on Sun. Oct. 1, 2023.Robinson’s journey as a carver began in what seems like a different era for Kitimaat Village.
While a Sammy Robinson carving can now fetch tens of thousands of dollars, no price tag can be placed on what Robinson’s artwork represents. Each piece is laden with stories, from the one physically etched into it, to the survival of an ancient craft that colonial Canada tried to snuff out.Unlike many Indigenous people his age, Robinson never went to residential school.
“You were fined by the government if you kept it up, did you know that?” he asks. “We didn’t do it for about 30 years. It was my mom that started it up again.”Robinson is now Hereditary Chief Jasee, a title inherited from his mother, who belonged to the Haisla Beaver Clan. “Sammy is the region’s oldest living master carver who still practices the ancient ways of carving cedar. His work has been commissioned by collectors, governments, museums and companies from around the world.”Click to share quote on Twitter: "Sammy is the region's oldest living master carver who still practices the ancient ways of carving cedar. His work has been commissioned by collectors, governments, museums and companies from around the world.
As a girl, Smith said she was “fortunate enough” to get some coveted time at his carving shop with her classmates. “I grew up around Sammy Robinson’s shop, probably bugging him, pestering him, but Sammy’s always been good to me,” Ross says.Click to share quote on Twitter: "I grew up around Sammy Robinson's shop, probably bugging him, pestering him, but Sammy's always been good to me," Ross says.
He worked on a fishing boat, at the aluminum smelter now owned by Rio Tinto, and for 70 years, ran a fishing charter boat company with a fleet of nine vessels. He still rents out his two cabins on the Douglas Channel as well.
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