Family Archive

Outbid on eBay


I attempted to buy this tourist pole, made by Ellen Neel and the Totem Carvers, on eBay today. I was sadly outbid. I’ll keep trying though.

NFB on CBC: Totem-Pole Carvers?


This newspaper clipping from The Vancouver Sun (1953) references a series that the NFB was working on including one episode called “Totem-Pole Carvers” I’m curious to know if this episode ever got made and broadcast. I can’t seem to find any reference to it on the NFB’s website. Nor can I find anything searching Google. [...]

Ellen Neel in 1965


I just had to post this photo. I’m pretty sure it was one of the few photo’s I saw of my grandmother as I was growing up. It looks as though it was taken on a BC Ferries Ferry.

Roundabout with a Totem Pole Carver


I managed to get a copy of this audio recording (thanks, Lou-ann). I believe it may have been recorded sometime in the late 1940’s. It had to have been recorded after 1948 as Ellen mentions the totem pole at that was raised in front of Brock Hall at UBC.
It appears that Roundabout was a CBC [...]

The words of Ellen Neel, April 1948


Sixty Years ago this month, my maternal grandmother, Ellen Neel, gave an address at a conference on Native Indian Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Ellen was considered one of the most well known (if not the only) woman Totem carver’s to gain recognition in that field. I will post some more info about [...]