A painting that was sold decades ago has returned to the family of a British Columbia artist.

A painting of totems from an ancient village on Haida Gwaii that hung in the Victoria Hotel for more than four decades has returned to the artist and her family.

No one knows for sure how Roberta Olson’s Kinawaii artwork came to Chateau Victoria, but it was most likely acquired at a 1980 exhibition where Olson, a Haida artist of growing stature, exhibited about 30 of her works in a downtown gallery.

When the hotel began updating its interiors this year, Rory Perron of Local Liquidators was hired to remove several pieces of furniture and artwork. He was intrigued by the totem painting and the ancient Colonist of the Times article about the artist and her show and was surprised when he managed to track down the artist.

“It’s been a long time and I haven’t painted in a long time… now I invite people to my house and cook for them,” Olson said in an interview. Now 83, she runs Keenawaii’s Kitchen in Skidgate on Haida Gwaii, where she takes an artistic approach to her unique Haida seafood dishes.

After Perron called her out of the blue, she put him in touch with her granddaughter Elisha Henderson of Victoria, who happily took possession of the painting.

Perron said that after contacting Olson and showing her photographs of the piece, she offered to purchase the painting. But Perron believed that it should return to the man who so gracefully brought the totems to life.

“A lot of my favorite things in this business sometimes involve giving things away for free or putting things back where they came from — and that was very special,” Perron said. “She’s an amazing woman and the great thing is she’s coming back to her family.”

Olson said she probably painted the totems in 1979 at the UNESCO World Heritage site Sgang Gwaay, also known as Anthony Island, and it was a special place for her family and where she was inspired to become an artist at an early age.

“We spent a lot of time there,” Olson said. “When I was little, we found a glass fishing ball and I was going to ask someone to color it. I asked my mother about it, and she simply said: draw it yourself. I think that’s when I started drawing.”

Olson attended Skidgate School and boarding school in Alert Bay on Vancouver Island. She was inspired by Haida art from her uncle, the famous carver Rufus Moody, and her grandfather Albert Jones, who taught her the legends of the Haida people.

She lived in Tofino, Duncan and Qualicum and tried her own oil painting techniques, including textures that gave age and weathering to the totem poles in her work.

Henderson, one of Olson’s many grandchildren, is perhaps her grandmother’s biggest art collector. She has several paintings, glass fishing floats, beaded eagle feathers and ceramic teapots that her grandmother created, fired and painted over the years.

“My nanaai (Haida grandmother) is a special person,” Henderson said. “She’s amazing. She works hard and always shares her knowledge.”

“She even took me to the Golden Spruce before it was cut down.”

The giant Sitka spruce growing on the banks of the Yakun River was unique and amazing. He had a rare genetic mutation that gave him golden quills, and the Haida people were known as Keeed Kiyas. For generations it has been a sacred part of the culture’s oral history.

In 1997, the 300-year-old monument was cut off at its base by an errant forest scout as a sign of protest, to which a book entitled Golden spruce. The tree fell a few days later due to strong winds.

Henderson, 44, said she grew up in a family of artists, carvers and jewelers who proudly told Haida stories, which she happily teaches to her three daughters.

She said her Haida grandmother’s name, Kinawaii, means “heavy presence,” which suits her well.

“She has a special aura and has been involved in entertainment all her life,” Henderson said.

Her grandmother also helped cook, feed and maintain the tense Haida blockade blocking Gwaii Hanasa’s logging operations, holding her ground and protecting 1,500 square kilometers as a national park.

“Growing up there, she showed us how to live off the land, pick berries and plants and catch crabs at low tide,” Henderson said. “I would work in her kitchen growing up.”

Olson said she is now excited to cook and create Indigenous dishes using venison, octopus, salmon, herring roe, seaweed and other ingredients from her Haida territory.

“You really have to be alone to paint,” she said, noting that her life is too busy and intense.

Henderson said the “found” painting of her grandmother is special because it was likely painted the year Henderson was born.

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