KOONA or Skedans see CMC
(latter from English attempt at Haida chief’s name (fig: House 12)
also called “Grizzly Bear Town” because large number on poles—

Prince Rupert has 3 poles (2 Raven and 1 Eagle) that came from Koona in 1935. Jeffrey copied all three in the early 1960s. There are 2 readily available books on Skedan’s totem poles: MacDonald’s 1983 and Smyly 1973

Beyond seeing these poles as heraldry—Haida celebration of lineages and crests—another interpretation has been suggested to me by the book on Haida artist Bill Reid Black Canoe: these figures point to mythic meanings especially in the ‘Raven Cycle’. In contrast to the Tsimshian and Tlingit versions that emphasize ‘Raven’s travels’ (where world transformed into more human friendly place), the Haida cycle deals more with emergence of the island from the depths of the sea. Thus ‘Sea-Grizzly’, Tca_Maos and transforming ‘Killer Whale’ become the poles visual narrative.

KOONA house frontal poles in Prince Rupert

Alder House	City Hall	Raven
Grizzly Bear House	Hospital Hill	Raven
Rainbow House	Fulton St	Eagle

BACKGROUND information--

Below: Koona Clan/ lineage (Swanton’s numbers)/ crests- MacDonald (1983)

Raven			Eagle
R4	R4a	R4b	E3	E4
Grizzly Bear, Orca, Sea-Grizzly Rainbow			Eagle, Cormorant Shark Woman,

Note: Smyly 1973 p. 25-- lists all crests (based on Swanton 1909?)

but Koona poles don’t follow these e.g., Rainbow is on Eagle pole (House 6) etc..

Map shows the houses whose frontal poles are now in Prince Rupert (present location in blue font)

European written or visual accounts of KOONA

Work (1830s)	(HBC census) 738 people at Koona (MacDonald p. 79) and 30 houses
Poole (1863)	Almost contemptuous: “The high and mighty Chief Skiddans sat—“
Dawson (1878)	Geological Survey, Excellent photographs of village; 26 houses, becoming derelict
Newcombe (1897)	Research notes and some photography; shows Alder house pole (now in PR) where there was none when Dawson was there
Swanton (1900)	Anthropologist, extensive research and interviews Chief Skedans
Emily Carr (1907)	Visits “Skedans” photographs and paintings see BC Archives
BC Museum (1954)	Salvage expedition to Koona
Smyly (1965)	Hired by BC Museum to do a miniature replica of Koona for an exhibit

MacDonald (1983) in passing gives 9 Koona poles that went to off island “collections”. Most appear to have been sent by Newcombe at the turn of the century to the Chicago Field Museum. But Swanton collected a pole and some mortuary boxes for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. One pole was in San Francisco and another at Blaine border crossing (Smyly (1973).