Commissioned in 2020 by the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Guests from the Great River is a piece that describes the intricacies of the land that the University of Washington was built upon.

This land wasn’t uniquely one peoples’: it’s an active eco-region filled with relationships of peoples building on the foundation of landscape learned knowledge. The land explains the trade and movement of stories, language, and ceremonies throughout the region. Here, the artists Tony (naschio) Johnson of the Chinook People and Adam McIsaac designed with these elements in mind. This canoe, filled with ten paddlers and the skipper at the stern, is landing at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (Washington’s oldest public museum). Each set of larger-than-life paddles cascades a different story from the Chinook People. 3-D printed models were cast in bronze to bring a futuristic vision to this landing. At the back is a single paddle representing the skipper, who is depicted as the matriarch leading this story, community, and canoe. 

Guests from the Great River is welcoming you onto campus and spatially pushes you into the Burke’s collections to learn more about Indigenous knowledge systems through artifacts and treasures. In the Burke, you’ll find remarkable contemporary Native artists’ works in engaging spaces that uplift the voice of the Indigenous people of the area.

Text Adapted from Owen Oliver’s Indigenous Walking Tour 2021.

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