Secrets in Plain Sight: The Signs of Lkwungen and Public Art in Victoria, Canada

Victoria, British Columbia was established as a Hudson’s Bay Company fort on the historic lands of the Lkwungen people in 1843. Once the fort had been constructed, the Lkwungen built a village across from it known as Songhees. In 1886, Victoria became the Pacific terminus where the Canadian Pacific Railway rail lines intersected with its steamer service and created a direct route between Liverpool and Hong Kong. Victoria’s Inner Harbor was redesigned as a focal point for an architectural narrative espousing the city’s colonial history, connecting commercial enterprise with government and removing any indication of Lkwungen presence. In 1911, the federal government expropriated Songhees land to extend the railway, further removing the Lkwungen from their territories. After the Second World War, reform movements in support of Aboriginal rights, land claims, and political enfranchisement stimulated the popularity of Aboriginal material culture, including the totem pole. Through the 1950s and 1960s, a series of Kwakwaka’wakw carvers were commissioned by different governmental agencies to carve and raise poles and other public monuments of cultural and political significance. Beginning in the 1990s, the installation of Lkwungen public art, including the 2008 Signs of Lkwungen by Butch Dick, reasserted Lkwungen histories, language and ownership at specific geographic sites throughout the city. The combination of geography, art and its spatial and narrative juxtapositions within the architectural context of a regional imperial capital complexifies how monuments and iconic architecture convey historical knowledge and how we read and experience the city.