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Published 5:15 pm Monday, June 8, 2026<\/p>\n
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As rain lashed Victoria on Monday, dozens gathered outside the Royal BC Museum to watch a small crew raise a newly refurbished totem pole.<\/p>\n
This comes after the 47-year-old artwork, carved by Richard Hunt, was lowered on June 1 ahead of its first refresh since 2021.<\/p>\n
The pole, now back to its original position at the centre of Thunderbird Park where it was raised in 1979, now stands with a few minor additions and a fresh coat of paint.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a privilege to welcome Dr. Richard Hunt back to Thunderbird Park to continue the story of a pole he carved nearly 50 years ago,\u201d Royal BC Museum CEO Allison Bond said in a news release. \u201cThis work reflects the living nature of Indigenous cultural traditions and our responsibility to care for the belongings entrusted to us. We are proud to support this work and the sharing of knowledge it represents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hunt carved the pole when he was 19 years old, working as an apprentice carver at the Royal BC Museum under the guidance of his father, Henry Hunt.<\/p>\n
Made from red cedar, the pole features figures and crests connected to Hunt\u2019s Kwakwaka\u2019wakw heritage.<\/p>\n
While the tweaks to this pole have given it new life, the artist explained that most of the other poles at the park, some of which have been standing for almost 100 years, need restoration work too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe things like the beaks and the dorsal fins that are inside the wood are starting to, not rot, but shrink. So it gets loose. So they\u2019re probably going to want those things fixed up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The process of refurbishing the pole took a week and drew visitors to watch Hunt work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to come back here. I have a lot of memories,\u201d Hunt said in the release. \u201cIt\u2019s a good place. I love being here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source vicnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PHOTOS: Restored totem pole stands again outside Victoria\u2019s Royal BC Museum Published 5:15 pm Monday, June 8, 2026 As rain lashed Victoria on Monday, dozens gathered outside the Royal BC Museum to watch a small crew raise a newly refurbished totem pole. This comes after the 47-year-old artwork, carved by Richard Hunt, was lowered on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2451025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/PHOTOS-Restored-totem-pole-stands-again-outside-Victorias-Royal-BC.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2451026,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451024\/revisions\/2451026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2451025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}