My Favorite Totems

Terry "Hagoo" Peele is a proud Haida carver. We met him at the carving shed in Hydaburg where he told us about Haida culture and sang for us. He insisted that he is a Haida and doesn't like to be called an Indian, explaining that "Columbus got that all wrong!" He is seen here singing a Haida song in the carving shed while accompanying himself on a bentwood box drum. The Haida Gwaii Islands (formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands) have been the ancestral home of the Haida for thousands of years but in the 17th century some of them emigrated (in dugout canoes) to Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska and settled in a community now known as Hydaburg.

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Terry "Hagoo" Peele is a proud Haida carver. We met him at the carving shed in Hydaburg where he told us about Haida culture and sang for us. He insisted that he is a Haida and doesn't like to be called an Indian, explaining that "Columbus got that all wrong!" He is seen here singing a Haida song in the carving shed while accompanying himself on a bentwood box drum. The Haida Gwaii Islands (formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands) have been the ancestral home of the Haida for thousands of years but in the 17th century some of them emigrated (in dugout canoes) to Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska and settled in a community now known as Hydaburg.

Hydaburg