Sonj Bunwait was working with his father-in-law preparing a house for demolition more than a decade ago when he came across a three-foot totem pole.
The North Vancouver resident decided to keep the carving, putting it on display in his home among other pieces he had collected with wife Pam London during their travels.
The couple hiked the West Coast Trail for the first time in 2017 and stayed in a cabin owned by Shelley Edgar and her husband, Carl, with Nitanaht Wilderness Charters — known as the Crab Shack among hikers and guests.
They hit it off with Edgar, and stayed with her family when they returned to the trail in 2023.
In January of this year, London was dusting when she noticed that “Joe Shaw, Nitinat Indian” was carved in the back of the totem pole. Bunwait messaged Edgar to see if she knew anyone by that name.
Edgar responded that it was her late grandfather’s name, so Bunwait told her about the totem pole.
“I sent her the picture of the back and the front, and then she sent me a picture right back of her grandfather actually holding [the pole], back in the day,” he said.
Edgar, who was in her early twenties when her grandfather died, said she couldn’t believe the coincidence.
“I was floored, I was giddy – I had butterflies in my stomach,” she said, adding that she has never owned a piece of her grandfather’s work.
Bunwait, for his part, said he couldn’t believe he had known Edgar for so long while owning her grandfather’s art. “It’s crazy how intertwined and small our worlds are,” he said.
London said while the other pieces in their home were purchased on trips or directly from artists, the totem pole always felt “out of place, like it’s not actually ours.” “All these years, I didn’t want to keep it.”
Last Sunday, Bunwait and London made the trip to Nitinat Lake to return the pole. Edgar said she was “full of emotions” when she woke up that morning, excited to have the art returned.
“It was an overwhelming feeling of happiness and love,” she said. “He pulled out the totem pole and gave it to me, and I just started crying.”
Edgar had her daughter and grandchildren by her side. “This to me says that I’m in the right place. I’m where I need to be — and this is my grandfather telling me,” she said.
By coincidence, Edgar’s nephew arrived half an hour after the pole was returned to give his aunt a delivery of her favourite seafood, chiton, a type of mollusk harvested from ocean rocks.
Edgar said she had been asking him to bring her the delicacy for six weeks, noting that her favourite memory of her Nanny, Shaw’s wife, was eating chiton that she cooked.
“This is my Nanny and this is my Grandpa talking to me,” she said.
Shaw was a hereditary chief of the Ditidaht First Nation, and Edgar remembers him as a quiet, thoughtful person. She has fond memories of sharing moments of silence with him when she visited him at home, and later in hospital during his battle with cancer.
“One of the things with my grandfathers is that they were pretty quiet, but when they spoke, you listened,” she said.
Edgar thinks the pole ended up in North Vancouver because Shaw sold his art, sometimes to hikers on the West Coast Trail.
The pole was on display in Edgar’s crab shack on Sunday, and she’s planning on keeping it there until the end of the season, when she will bring it into her home to be admired by family.
