This is a very large yellow cedar sculpture by an artist named Bill Reid called "Raven And The First Men". It takes up an entire room at the museum & depicts a creation myth of the Haida people (an indigenous people of British Columbia): "The sculpture of The Raven and the First Men depicts the story of human creation. According to Haida legend, the Raven found himself alone one day on Rose Spit beach in Haida Gwaii (also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). He saw an extraordinary clamshell and protruding from it were a number of small human beings. The Raven coaxed them to leave the shell to join him in his wonderful world. Some of the humans were hesitant at first, but they were overcome by curiosity and eventually emerged from the partly open giant clamshell to become the first Haida." The preparation of the wood for the sculpture was a huge task in itself, as described on the UCB website: "Finding the wood for The Raven and the First Men was difficult. Initial plans to use a section of red-cedar log proved to be impractical for a number of reasons. A block approximately 2.1 meters in diameter and free of rot or other defects could not be found. In 1976, Rayonier Canada Limited donated 106 fine-grained yellow-cedar beams to create a workable carving block. The beams were then air dried for eight to twelve months and, with the assistance of Forintek Canada Limited, kiln dried for a further two months. Wood technologists at Koppers International Canada Limited laminated the beams into a four-and-a-half-ton block, measuring eight by eight by seven feet." If you're curious & want to find out more about this sculpture & the artist, you can check out this pdf document. I'll be offline for a few days, but will be back again with more photos from the museum soon...