After being separated from its people for over 100 years, a bentwood box belonging to the Haíɫzaqv people has finally made the long journey home where it belongs. On May 30, 2025, during a celebration of the ratification of their newly-articulated constitution, the Haíɫzaqv Nation witnessed and welcomed the box’s return.
“It’s very rare that any piece that comes from a gallery or museum is returned. You’ve heard about all the old laws that worked against us. We’re a Nation that’s very proactive and we should be proud of that. A lot of people behind the scenes have gotten us where we are today,” says Haíɫzaqv archeologist Q̓íx̌itasu Elroy White. “It shows when you work together, you can achieve great things.”
Q̓íx̌itasu Elroy White, dancing with other Heiltsuk hereditary Chiefs during Constitution feast on May 30, 2025.
Photos by Emilee Gilpin
The Bentwood box was created over a century ago through “really old technology” — stripping a plank off a living cedar tree, steaming and bending it to shape and attaching it with wooden pegs, White explains. It’s adorned with bold thick painted formline designs and shells from the territory on the lid. The box, whose creator remains unknown, was collected or bought back in the 1880s/90s, according to its historic records. It made its way to the Douglas Renold Gallery in Vancouver where it was bought by a couple in 2020 and brought to their home in Salt Lake City, Utah.
According to the couple, Janet and Dave Diesley, they moved the box around their house for the three years they possessed it, but never felt that it was settled.
The couple wrote a letter, which White read aloud during the community feast: “Ultimately, we could not answer the question — what was this historic red cedar box, that came to life in a BC coastal community over 100 years ago, doing in a house in the Utah desert? We had read articles around the world being repatriated and we knew this box needed to return home. So we began the process of determining where it belonged and how to get it there.”
Indeed, treasures belonging to families, clans and communities, taken or sold — during a time when foreign laws worked against Indigenous peoples, cultures and governments — have been slowly returning home for decades through the work of repatriation. Many boxes, masks, poles and ancestral treasures have been brought home, after years of relationship-building with museums, galleries and private owners, across the country and beyond. Through their research, Janet and Dave were put in touch with Coastal First Nations and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council and during their next trip to BC, they drove the box to Vancouver where it was warmly welcomed and held for two years until proper arrangements were made to bring it home.
“I hope this is an example to other collectors and galleries, that these historic bentwood boxes and objects belong in potlatch houses and should be returned home,” says White, who traveled to Vancouver to hold a ceremony in the CFN Vancouver office before the box made its way back to Bella Bella.
“These treasures should be in their communities.”
Larry Jorgenson and some of his crew built a crate for the box to return home on two empty seats on a Pacific Coastal Airline flight beside White and CFN staff, days before the feast. CFN CEO Christine Smith Martin says the journey has been an emotional one.
“It’s an important story because we want other collectors to think about this as they have these collections within their means, that they bring them back. It’s just the right thing to do,” she says. “Thank you to everyone who played a part in making sure this box came home to the rightful owners.”
