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George Hemeon demonstrates carving techniques to a pair of kids.
January 28, 2010
Salish welcome figures greet Power Smart Village visitors
Philip Rygg
For bchydro.com
If George Hemeon had stuck with his original decision, his life would have been a lot less busy over the past months — and probably a lot less interesting, too.
Fortunately for us all, he decided to give wood carving another chance.
His decision to pick up the tools he had put aside as a young man has been rewarded, as his craftsmanship is front and centre this February. The BC Hydro employee's Salish Welcome Figures – standing more than five metres high – will be a centrepiece of the Power Smart Village, located at the corner of Dunsmuir and Homer streets in downtown Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games.
Get Google Map directions to the Power Smart Village
After submitting a winning concept for a large carving to celebrate BC Hydro’s sponsorship of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Hemeon began carving the Welcome Figures — one male, one female — last June in the yard of his Mission home. He worked under the direction of lead carver Sean Hinton, a descendant of the Cherokee Nation.
Even after the Games, the welcome figures will remain in the foyer of the BC Hydro office building.
“Welcome figures were traditionally erected at the entrance of a Salish community, signalling to a visiting people, with their outstretched arms free of weapons, that they were welcome to enter as guests,” explains Hemeon. “Given that the Dunsmuir office is located in Salish territory, I thought it would be appropriate to create figures to convey a traditional Salish welcome.”
Return to a craft
“I’ve always had an interest in traditional aspects of our culture,” says Hemeon, a member of the Squamish Nation and senior procurement advisor with BC Hydro. “I tried carving a long time ago but found that I didn’t have the patience for it.”
So Hemeon put down the tools. He got married, had two sons, and began teaching and mentoring Aboriginal students in Abbotsford in 2004. It was while trying to find an interesting way to connect with his students that Hemeon found some carving tools that had been stored in the school’s office. So, he tried carving again in the school’s woodwork shop and this time, unlike years earlier, something clicked.
“We started out carving paddles and then we made drums," he recalls. "During that time I surprised myself and discovered that I could carve.”
But once again, other priorities stepped in and he moved with his family to Halifax to pursue a Master’s degree. Following another move, this time to Ottawa, Hemeon picked up the carving tools again and began to be commissioned to carve masks out of red cedar.
“A 6-foot-by-4-inch by 4-inch piece of cedar was about $60 in Ottawa. So every time I came home to Mission to visit, my uncle would send me back with a suitcase full of wood,” he recalls.
When Hemeon returned to B.C. in 2007 to begin BC Hydro’s Management Professional and Development Program, he had the chance to work with a master carver to create a 20-foot high traditional Salish House Post that would be raised in Japan. He seized the opportunity, but then the master carver moved on after a month, leaving Hemeon to complete the job.
“Carving the House Post was an exercise in learning by doing," he says. "It was overwhelming at the start but it became a great learning experience.”
Hemeon persevered and completed the post on time. Last October, he travelled to Oyama, Japan, in the shadow of Mt. Fuji, to participate in the post-raising ceremony.
What's next
During the Games, Hemeon will be carving in the Power Smart Village, working on his next big carving project — a six-foot in diameter traditional Salish spindle whorl that, once completed, will be suspended high above the two welcome figures in the Dunsmuir foyer.
“Weaving was an important part of our culture that was almost lost. So the symbol of the spindle whorl is very strong for both our weavers and our community,” says Hemeon.
Philip Rygg works in communications with BC Hydro's Corporate Affairs department.
