Samuel Richard Johnson Jr., of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, carries out a ritual to bless a storied whaling shrine, which was packed up in crates before leaving the American Museum of Natural History in New York, March 25, 2025. After 120 years stored in a museum, a truck containing the many pieces that make up a shrine began its long journey to Vancouver Island, off the southwest coast of Canada, in one of the most significant international repatriations in the museum’s history.Daniel Terna/The New York Times
In a summer full of terrible news, a reunion on a remote island off the west coast of British Columbia was cause for celebration: the return, after more than 120 years, of the Yuquot Whalers’ Shrine.
Seeming to take part was a grey whale, a juvenile, that frolicked just off the shore of Yuquot, also known as Friendly Cove, as a crowd prepared to celebrate the long-absent treasure. “This was definitely a good sign, a good omen,” says Peter Whiteley, the curator of North American ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), who had travelled from New York to Yuquot, on the southeast tip of Nootka Island, for the occasion.
Those gathered marked the return of the Yuquot Whalers’ Shrine, also known as the Whalers’ Washing House. The shrine once sat at a nearby lake – 88 wooden human figures, four carved whale figures, human skulls and other components. Getting it back has taken decades of stop-and-start work by the Mowachaht/Muchalaht Nation.
“We’ve been wanting them home for many a year and they’re finally here,” Hereditary Chief Mike Maquinna told me this week. He said the joy was palpable, “knowing that some of the work has been done that our fathers set out to do.”
The remote shrine was visited by whalers to prepare themselves spiritually for the hunt. In the early 1900s, ethnographer George Hunt photographed it, hoping to interest AMNH curator Franz Boas, who then enlisted Mr. Hunt to purchase it. Mr. Hunt was instructed by two local elders to wait until the seal hunt, so that many in the community would be absent when it was taken away.
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It ended up in faraway New York, mostly in storage. A small-scale model was created for the museum’s Northwest Coast Hall, where it was displayed prior to its recent renovation.
In an emotional scene in Hugh Brody’s 1994 NFB documentary The Washing of Tears, members of the Nation visited the pieces in storage in New York. They sang, prayed, drummed and chanted to them, caressed them, smelled and tasted them.
“Right away I could feel the power that was there,” Mowachaht Muchalaht‘s then-chief Max Savey says in the film. “I never experienced anything like it in my life.”
Another member of that delegation was then-chief Jerry Jack (born Joseph Andrew Jack), who died in 2006. “His dream was to have it back home where it belongs instead of in New York City,” his son, also named Jerry Jack, said this week. Chief Jack travelled to the museum in 2024 and again this year for the repatriation.
“I’m actually finishing something off that my dad wanted when he was alive. … He’d be ecstatic.”
The 1990 U.S. Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires cultural items to be returned – but does not cover international repatriations. The involvement of a California father and son, who learned of their ties to the First Nation through a DNA test, was key to the process.
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The official transfer happened in March. Members of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation packed the ancestral remains and brought them home in carry-on luggage. The rest of the shrine, carefully packed by a professional shipper, made its way by truck from New York to Gold River, B.C.
From there, the shrine was transported by logging helicopter to Yuquot, where it was celebrated by the community at Summerfest on Aug. 2.
“I felt honoured by the warmth and the friendliness … these folks were just extraordinarily gracious,” said Dr. Whiteley. “It’s really an affirmation of the important work that we do in our relationships as a museum with descendant communities.”
Last week, 3D imaging was conducted in Yuquot. The shrine remains in storage containers in the former church there, awaiting its possible return to the lakeshore. There is discussion about building a full or partial shelter for it. But it will not be publicly displayed, says Chief Maquinna. The decision is entirely the Nation’s. “We can manage and control what it is that we have.”
Repatriation is a long and difficult – but necessary – process. It can be thorny and controversial, as Canada has seen with discussions over the fate of the 1670 Hudson’s Bay charter (although that case is not an actual repatriation). The Royal BC Museum is struggling with this, as The Globe recently reported, as are other institutions.
But this work must continue. First Nations must have their things back. Museums must engage and comply.
Chief Jack told me a story about a mask belonging to his family that’s being kept in a B.C. museum, which asked for permission to display it. He, like his father, said no. “They’re not for display,” he told me. “They’re not art. They’re not for show.” He hopes to get the mask back someday. “It belongs to me and my family.”