DOUG CRANMER & THE HAIDA HOUSES

Cranmer was in Victoria in 1958 when his friend Michael Kew told him to 'hang around' because a carving job would be opening up.

Photo left: Doug Cranmer standing in front of the same mortuary pole

(Photo by Eden Robinson, 1994)

At this time Haida artist Bill Reid, a well-known CBC radio announcer, was looking for carvers to help him work on the Haida Houses and totem poles for the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Soon after, Reid called Cranmer and offered him a 'whittling' job that would last about a year. The project lasted three and a half years.

"I had no idea who the heck Bill Reid was. He was a stranger to almost everybody who didn't listen to the radio. He asked me if I wanted a job. This was in 1958. That was the beginning of my carving career."

Doug Cranmer, 1994

Interview with Rosa Ho

 

 

Doug Cranmer jokes that he spent more time chain-sawing than he did carving while he was working on the Haida Houses at MOA. Although chain-saws were smelly and loud, Cranmer, having been a logger, was very skilled at it. When Cranmer grew tired of talking to the people who would stop and ask him what he was doing, he would fire up his chain-saw whether he needed to or not so that people would leave him alone.

Carving the mythical Sea Wolf at Totem Park

(Photo by (unknown), c. 1961, collection U.B.C. Extension Department)

Doug Cranmer

(Photo courtesy U.B.C. Extension Department c.1961)

Photo left: Doug Cranmer working on Haida House

(Photo by (unknown), c. 1960, collection MOA)

Bottom photo: Bill Reid looking on as Cranmer begins shaping log into Sea Wolf sculpture

(Photo by (unknown), c. 1960, collection MOA)

"Bill [Reid] knew what this thing [The Haida Houses] was supposed to look like, but he'd never built one. So we were a couple of green horns at the very beginning. We kind of loosened up as we went along but then I'm not an expert in Haida carving even now."

 

Doug Cranmer, 1994

Interview with Rosa Ho

Photo left: Harry Hawthorn, first Director of the UBC Museum of Anthropology, speaking at the opening of Totem Park. Doug Cranmer, dressed in a suit, is seated.

(Photo by (unknown), c. 1960, collection MOA)

Cranmer's involvement in the Haida House project ended when he severed his achilles tendon with a long-handled adze while hollowing out the back of a beaver. He was in hospital for five weeks.

Thirty years later, he was convinced that he had never made it to the opening ceremonies for the Haida Houses and totem poles. He believed he had been in the hospital. However, during his time at the Museum of Anthropology in the summer of 1994, he was shown the archival photographs on the facing page. "And there I was in a suit!" Cranmer remarked, of the photo that shows him seated on the right.

Cranmer adzing Sea Wolf sculpture

(Photo by (unknown) c. 1960, collection MOA)