Male Welcome Figure
William & Eric Dan · Vancouver School Board Education Centre · 1580 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) · Medium: Carving · Paired with Female Welcome Figure at same site
The male Welcome Figure was carved to welcome everyone who arrives in Vancouver — people from every background, every journey, every part of the world.
The Work
The Male Welcome Figure stands outside the Vancouver School Board Education Centre on West Broadway, paired with the Female Welcome Figure at his side. Together they form a complete cultural statement — two carved presences at the entrance to a place dedicated to education, extending a welcome that neither the building nor the city has always offered to the peoples who made them.
William Dan carved the figure holding a salmon deliberately. Visitors arriving in Vancouver have been travelling. The salmon feeds everyone he greets — a welcome that is also nourishment, rooted in a Coast Salish tradition of hospitality that understands arrival as something that requires a response.
At the base of the figure is a beaver. Dan first heard the story of the beaver as a young man in Chehalis, from an old man who told him something he never forgot: the beaver builds homes large enough to store food through winter and feed his young until spring. That story stayed with him for decades. It is now carved into the base of this figure — a builder, a provider, a keeper of family. What you learn as a young man, Dan says, comes back to you when you get older.
The colours are not from the Northwest Coast. They come from the Southwest, where Dan carved as a younger man and began to absorb a different palette into his practice. They are carried forward here — evidence of a life spent learning from other traditions without leaving his own.
This is William Dan's final work. He says it turned out better than he expected. Standing before it, that is easy to believe.
CONTINUE THE TRAIL
→ Female Welcome Figure · 1580 W Broadway · Same site · 0 km
→ Human Spirit · Susan Point · Vancouver Convention Centre · 5 km
→ People Amongst the People · Susan Point · Brockton Point, Stanley Park · 6 km
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Female Welcome Figure
First Welcome Trail
In Musqueam culture, Welcome Figures welcome visitors to our territory. The original poles were house posts and placed at the entrances of our house - right at the doorway inviting you in, welcoming you. Located behind the Vancouver School Board in public plaza.
Serpent Slayer - Welcome Pole
Public Art
At Belcarra Regional Park, on the shores of Burrard Inlet, stands a welcome pole carved by Tsleil-Waututh master carver TsuKwalton (Jonas Jones). It carries one of the Nation's most powerful origin stories — of a young boy swept away by seals, raised in the sea kingdom, and returned to his people as a warrior who could face what no one else could. This is his territory. This is where that story happened. The pole brings it back to the shore where it belongs.
“Return of the Orca” Welcome pole
Public Art
Return of the Orca” Welcome pole at Whey-ah-Wichen (Cates Park) in North Vancouver, carved by TsuKwalton Jonas Jones. the Return of the Orca carries the story of Great Chief wacəq II, whose deep relationship with the salmon and the natural world continues to guide Tsleil-Waututh teachings today.
