Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre has opened its doors for the 2015 season opening and is featuring a new exhibit The Man behind the Mask – The Life and Legacy of Chief Billy Assu.
The centre welcomes back Chief Assu’s iconic Chilkat robe from the Canadian Museum of History.
The Centre will also be displaying 13 recently repatriated artifacts from the National Museum of the American Indian.
The Nuyumbalees Native Garden and Interpretation Trail is also now open to the public.
Weekly salmon barbecue dinners will be available on Saturday evenings at 5:30 p.m. by reservation only for $25 per person, including admission to the centre. Gallery tours will also be available Wednesdays through Fridays at 10am and 2 p.m.
Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre, which opened in 1979, was the first of its kind in Canada, designed specifically to house the Sacred Potlatch Collection repatriated from the Federal Government.
The majority of pieces found in our Collection were confiscated during the anti-potlatch era that was in effect from 1884 through to 1951.
Throughout this time, hundreds of our Chiefs and community members were imprisoned for practicing the cultural traditions that have defined our peoples since time immemorial.
Today, Nuyumbalees is a Centre of Excellence determined to facilitate the reintroduction of language and cultural traditions suppressed by over sixty years of restrictive legislation in which their practicing of was punishable by law.
Nuyumbalees Society is a non-profit organization. All proceeds from admissions support the Nuyumbalees Cultural Centre.