Bill Reid worked for 16 years in radio in Toronto and in his native province of British Columbia before becoming a world-renowned sculptor and an expert on Haida mythology. His custom-made jewellery depicting Haida mythological figures and his silk-screen prints are celebrated worldwide. His massive sculptures are showpieces at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., at the Vancouver International terminal, at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, and in Vancouver's Stanley Park. His numerous stories based on Haida mythology caused art historian Bill Holm to declare in a 1974 retrospective of his work, “Bill Reid found the dry bones of a great art and – shamanlike – shook off the layers of museum dust and brought it back to life.”

That Reid was in his mid-thirties before he made the switch from radio to full-time artist was due, in part, to his mother Sophie, a Haida native, who discouraged any reference to her past. Bill wrote in one of his brief autobiographical sketches that she, brought up in a missionary school, had come to believe that it was "somehow sinful and debased to be, in white terms, an “Indian” and certainly saw no reason to pass any pride with that part of their heritage on to her children.”
 

When the extraordinarily patinated black bronze sculpture was unveiled at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Bill Reid, weakened by Parkinson's disease, was able to attend the ceremony. Nearly 20 feet long and 13 fee high and 11 feet wide, and wighing more than 5 tons, the final product is the largest of all Bill's works. The craftsmanship depicts a canoe full of travellers-some human, some animal-a concept based on Haida maythology. The magnificent sculputure is called "The Spirit of Haida Gwaii" and was unveiled in 1991 to internation accolades. [Photo, courtesy Arthur Erickson]

While teaching school near Smithers, B.C. Sophie had married an itinerant entrepreneur, William R. Reid. They had three children before their marriage broke down in 1932. Then she and the children moved to Victoria where she became a successful dressmaker. There Bill, the eldest, born in 1920, continued his education and completed one year at Victoria College before taking a job in radio as an announcer/operator. Eventually radio jobs took him to Kelowna, B.C. and to several stations in Eastern Canada before he returned to a station in Vancouver.

In 1943, he visited his mother's birthplace, Skidegate, on the Queen Charlotte Islands, and met his Haida grandfather, Charles Gladstone, for the first time. The grandfather, who had been raised by his uncle, the well-known local silversmith Charles Edenshaw, showed his grandson his own work in silver and in slate carvings; these inspired Bill to learn more about his aboriginal background.

After a stint in the army, Bill joined the CBC in Toronto. Working mainly at night in the radio news department, he “discovered the collection of Northwest Coast art at the Royal Ontario Museum and particularly the great Haida totem pole from Tanu, birthplace of my grandfather.” His resolve to “try and emulate my grandfather and the other Haida silver and goldsmiths” got a further boost when he enrolled in a two-year jewellery-making course taught at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.

An apprenticeship at a platinum and diamond workshop followed. Then, in 1951, the CBC transferred him to Vancouver. There Bill set up a basement workshop. While engraving bracelets in the Haida tradition, Bill was also able, through his Ryerson training and apprenticeship, to create “earrings, brooches, rings, decorated boxes etc., and to bring to all forms a three-dimensional quality the older works had lacked.”

In 1955, the CBC invited Reid to “cover” endeavours by provincial museum experts to salvage totem poles from abandoned villages on the Queen Charlotte and Anthony islands. This led to a CBC TV production titled “Totems,” which Bill wrote and narrated. Another assignment to write and narrate a film for the Vancouver Art Gallery followed. In 1957, he took part in carving a copy of a Haida totem pole. The next year he left the broadcasting profession when the University of British Columbia commissioned him to “design and direct” the re-creation of a section of a Haida village on the campus.
 

In 1985, Haid Bill Reid was commissioned to submit a sculpture for the entry court of the new Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Here, Bill Reid, in 1986, works on the conceptual clay model of this sculpture. [Photo, courtesy The Toront Star]

The project took three years. Thereafter Bill opened his own jewellery business and pursued wood carving, sculpting one carving for the Shell Oil Company building in London, England. In 1966, he played a major role in the preparation of a large display of the arts of the Northwest Coast Indian Art for the centennial exhibition of the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Arts of the Raven, a display of the gold boxes that feature a three-dimensional eagle on the covers, was featured at the Canadian Pavillion of Expo 67, and, in 1968, Reid received a Canada Council grant to study metalwork at England's Central School of Design.

On his return, he settled in Montreal, opened a jewellery workshop, and produced what were, in his words, "with the possible exception of the massive wood carvings of the fifties and sixties, the best works of my career, both in Haida and contemporary design." His most outstanding piece was a small carving in boxwood illustrating the Haida myth of the Raven discovering mankind in a giant clamshell. When industrialist Walter Koerner commissioned him in 1973 to recreate this as a giant 82-inch high sculpture in wood for the new Museum of Anthropology at UBC, this brought Reid back to Vancouver.

The project took ten years to complete. A number of young Haida artists were among those working on it under Bill's direction. His own health (he discovered in 1973 that he had Parkinson's Disease) prevented him from doing much of the physical work. He continued, however, to design other major sculptures, among them the “Killer Whale” for the Vancouver Aquarium and “Mythic Messengers” commissioned by Teleglobe Canada for a building in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby. He also designed his Lootas cedar canoe that was a highlight of Expo 86 at Vancouver.
 

As Bill Reid matured, he recognized the importance of his roots and the nedd to protect and celebrate proudly the heritage of his aboriginal past. He was captivated early in life by totem poles. The totem ploes standing in Vancouver's Stnaley Park, as viewed here, circa 1920, were created by Haida craftsmen from the Queen Charlotte Islands, Bill Reid's ancestral homeland. [Photo, courtesy Charles J. Humber Collection]

In 1985, architect Arthur Erickson asked Reid to submit a sculpture for the entry court of the new Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Reid created a canoe full of travellers – some human, others animal – a concept based on Haida mythology that he called "The Spirit of Haida Gwaii." Made of patinated black bronze and measuring 19’10” long, 12’9” high and 11’4” wide, and weighing more than five tons, it is the largest of all his major works although there is a second casting with a jade patina, “The Jade Canoe,” at the Vancouver International Terminal. In 1996, Canada Post selected this sculpture as the ninth in its series of “Masterpieces of Canadian Art.”

The stamp is only one of the many honours Reid has received. In 1990 he was awarded the Royal Bank's $100,000 award for Outstanding Canadian Achievement and he has received eight honorary degrees from Canadian universities. In 1994, Bill was made the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Canadian Native Arts Foundation.

Now in his 70s, Reid, despite the crippling illness of Parkinson's disease, still works from home (the Bill Reid Studio Gallery) on the Musqueam reserve. He continues to create some jewellery, to encourage and teach younger artists, to write about Haida mythology, and to pen letters in support of a number of native and environmental concerns.

Mel James