Edited by Scott Watson and Lorna Brown, this richly illustrated hardcover book includes essays by Beau Dick, Chief Robert Joseph, Guujaaw, Gyauustees, Linnea Dick, Wanda Nanibush, Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Tarah Hogue and Shelly Rosenblum.

The catalogue offers visual documentation of the belongings that were gathered together and displayed in Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery during the Lalakenis exhibition, along with images from the two journeys that culminated in copper-breaking ceremonies: Awalaskenis I (February 2013) beginning in Quatsino and ending in Victoria, BC and Awalaskenis II (July 2014) which saw Beau Dick and 21 companions setting out from UBC for Ottawa. The copper-breaking ceremonies marked ruptured relationships in need of repair, and passed the burden of wrongs done to First Nations people from them to the Governments of BC and Canada, reviving a shaming rite that once was central to a complex economic system and symbol of justice, a traditional practice that had all but disappeared.

This publication reprints content from the exhibition guide in which Beau Dick comments on the significance and role of coppers and the motivating factors for the journeys; Guujaaw speaks of the Taaw copper he made to be broken in Ottawa; Linnea Dick reflects on instigating, along with her sister Geraldine, the earlier journey from Quatsino to Victoria; and Gyauustees speaks about the ceremonies he conducts as a pipe carrier. Added to these texts are new essays by Wanda Nanibush, Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Tarah Hogue and Shelly Rosenblum.

Scott Watson is Director/Curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

Scott Watson's profile page

Lorna Brown's profile page

Beau Dick's profile page

Chief Robert Joseph's profile page

Linnea Dick's profile page

Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe image and word warrior, curator, and community organizer from Beausoleil First Nation. She is currently a guest curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario and touring her exhibition The Fifth World. Nanibush has a master's degree in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and has taught doctoral courses on Indigenous history and politics at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. She has published in many places including the books Women in a Globalizing World and This is an Honour Song, as well as catalogue essays on Jeff Thomas, Adrian Stimson, Rebecca Belmore and more. She has organized round-dances, candle light marches, concerts, and teach-ins as part of an Idle No More group in Toronto. She continues to work in defense of women, children, land and water.

Wanda Nanibush's profile page

Charlotte Townsend-Gault is professor emerita in the Department of Art History, Visual Culture and Theory, and a research associate in the Department of Anthropology, at the University of British Columbia. She is the co-editor of Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Modern Native Art (UW Press, 2004) and Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas (UBC Press, 2013).

Charlotte Townsend-Gault's profile page

Tarah Hogue's profile page

Shelly Rosenblum's profile page