Today on Good Medicine with Wayne Carlick…

We discuss the Chilkat robe that recently returned home to Atlin, BC after being lost for almost two centuries. 

Wayne Carlick says “It’s as if the regalia called out to its people to bring it home.”

An official repatriation ceremony is scheduled for the end of July as part of a three-day event. The Haa Kusteeyi Celebration, July 28th-30th, involves all Canadian Inland Tlingit communities, each day highlighting a different community within the region. 

Wayne said looking at the robe and understanding the history it represents makes him emotional, thinking back to a time when he returned home after residential school finding all art and culture stripped from his community.

He talks about how the robe was created before residential schools and maybe even first contact in that region. A time when ceremony was so strong and prevalent , carrying that healing power forward today—Immense power from the spirits of all who wore and danced with it.